Hi cool people-
Here are a not-so-random collection of thoughts, some political, others not so.
At least I know that Barbara Lifton won the state assembly race: she was running unopposed.
12 minutes ago, Nate Shinagawa conceded. Too bad: I think that I had the most emotional investment riding on that race (and, Rayleigh, I'm sorry). It looks as if the man representing me in Congress now is a Republican Tea Partier who does not support the kind of federal ban on hydrofracking that I personally favor. He supports a voucher approach to healthcare (which I don't), and, for all of his (vague) bipartisan rhetoric, has voted with his party 93% of the time. To be honest, I think that the whole Kineret scandal is stupid, and that had absolutely nothing to do with my voting choice. It might continue to be a Republican-controlled House.
Kirsten Gillibrand has won a full term in the U.S. Senate. Good for her. To be honest, I really don't know too much about her. I didn't feel as if my vote really counted in the Senatorial race. The Democrats have a majority in the Senate, according to election results thus far.
OK, yes, the line you've all been expecting: President Obama has won another four years as President of the United States of North America, probably making him the most powerful human being in the world. I maintain that this makes significantly less difference than most people think. At the possibility of sounding like my friend Sam Law, who I think would agree that many of the differences of opinion in national politics between Democrats and Republicans are highly inflated by the media, and by narcissism of minor differences. There are still going to be people stuck in the healthcare doughnut hole; the economy is still going to be lousy-but-recovering; we're still going to have an economy floating on foreign fossil fuels; unearned income is still going to be taxed less than earned income; we're still going to have an absurdly expensive military with an ever-growing budget; we're still going to underfund education in order to pay for Cold War-era weaponry; Congress will still be dominated by special interests; our agriculture will remain industrial and unsustainable; Congressional and the Senatorial seats will still have 80- or 90-some incumbency rates; we still won't have real transparency in government, and elections will still be swung by corporate donations; both institutional and explicit racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia will persist, and we'll never have ERA; we'll still face 50% rates of childhood obesity and Type II diabetes in the inner city; we'll still have a fickle electoral college decide our presidential races; donations to religious institutions will still be tax-deductible; we'll still have high schoolers who can't locate Iraq on a map, or name in what half-century the U.S. Civil War was fought; veterans will still suffer post-traumatic stress disorder; agricultural will remain unsustainable, and we'll still discard 40-50% of our food production (mostly at the level of the retailer or consumer); etc. You get the picture, and, in my opinion, it's bleak (and that's just domestic policy; don't get me started on the rest of the world), for a country with the largest economy in the world.
Yes, there are social issues, which are probably more divisive than fiscal policy, foreign policy, energy policy, etc.. But marital law (to choose just one example of a needlessly-explosive social issue) is not a federal law, anyway, and even if a Republican-dominated legislature were to try to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, President Obama couldn't veto it, because the veto does not apply to constitutional amendments. If we want same-sex marriage in this country, I'd go so far as to say that the Presidency is probably the least important position to have on our side. As I understand it, the
problem is that the U.S. law code (major exception: Louisiana, because
it belonged to France after the adoption of the Napoleonic Code) is ripped off of British law (because we used to
be a collection of British colonies), which is based on the literally-Medieval Common Law. Common Law
was compiled by King Alfred of England (king in the time of the Viking invasions) over eleven centuries ago, back when there really
wasn't much church-state separation -- kings appointed bishops, heresy
was a capital crime, etc. So the word "marriage" appears EVERYWHERE in
the law code, rather than a more neutral term, such as "civil union,"
taken to be a religious ceremony recognized by the state. By
contrast, France has had secular marriages since nearly the very
beginning of the Revolution in 1789, and the Napoleonic Code completely
supplanted most prior French law in 1804. Authority over marriage was deliberately
taken away from the church, as a way of weakening the 1st estate, which
had historically been overbearingly powerful. Because the U.S. never
had any sort of cataclysmic revolution in which all of the laws were
rewritten, it never had any chance to redefine how one individual
becomes legally and exclusively connected to another. And because
marriage is regulated by state rather than federal law, it will be a horribly byzantine
process to get each and every state to allow same-sex marriage, and,
unfortunately, will probably never happen in our lifetimes, even if
states such as New York, Massachusetts, California, etc., manage to
recognize same-sex marriages as legally identical to heterosexual
marriage.
Thank you everyone who came to the concert today! Thank you to all of you who were my Golden Sunshines of happiness: Sarah, Elliot, Mike Dilamani, Josefin, Rachel, Ilan, Elliot, and both Zwillenbergs.
Matisyahu's cover of "One Day" has nothing on the Chai Notes' original. Harry, have I mentioned how much I love your bass voice? Keep up the good work, all of you!
I can't believe that I left early from Shemot learning today, Rav Ami! If I had known how long the other band was going to play, and how bad it was, I would totally have stayed another 15 minutes.
Oh, man, this afternoon I ran into the toughest girl I know (voted thus according to CJL democracy), and, for the first time, she saw me before I saw her!
I realize that this is the most explicitly political I've ever been in my blog, and that many of you are probably going to call me a pinko or a brainwashed liberal, depending upon whether you are right or left of me, politically.
And, now, for the most explicitly political section of the day: a transcript of today's grocery receipt, from Greenstar. If the above paragraphs don't reveal my political leanings, the following list should:
-2 dozen organic eggs from vegetarian-fed cage-free hens (mostly for Seudah Shlishit).
- 2 blocks of organic firm tofu.
- 1 liter of organic soy milk
- 2 cartons of organic yogurt
- 1 jar organic applesauce
- 1 bag of organic whole wheat rolls
Yes, I'm a liberal. I still love all of you conservatives and socialists out there, though! You, too, Andrew, who fit into the special category of "politically-informed people."
One last thing -- Lazar Polevoy, you lost the bet. You owe me two dozen bagels.
~JD
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