email to laura about the election

hi,

i don't get the New Yorker! can you send me the article about Hillary?

i agree with everything you've said about her here and this is why i
didn't support her. but i also have some reservations about Obama,
which is why i say he's a default--i think that, as a Senator, he is
necessarily inside the machine; he's also a lifetime politician--so i
am skeptical of this "change Washington" thing. on the other hand, he
is a relative unknown, relatively young, all of that. and i think
that's really good. this week/weekend i am going to look thoroughly
at his website and really get to know his policies and stuff so i can
understand what i'm doing in saying i support him.

i watched democracy now! today and they also mentioned the important
idea that people can go to a particular candidate because of the
potential for grassroots movement-building, not only because of how
attractive the candidate is.

.... but this is also making me think of something that often occurs
to me when i talk politics with people who aren't in school with me,
which is that i approach it from a very idealistic point of view--who
is the most liberal? --rather than a more pragmatic point of
view--given the system as is, how would i vote?

i am so disgusted with politics that i find myself totally out of the
loop and confused. there are virtually no candidates who are as far
left as i want. that would be hard to find in this country no matter
what. but i find that i have become very jaded--the more i have
learned about the way our political system works, especially
economically; and its national and international ties with really
abusive global companies; i just become so bitter and angry that
everyone is in the pocket of a system that is not only really
environmentally destructive, but it actually really damages people's
lives, working people's lives, here in this country. capitalism as it
is currently structured here doesn't work. i get super fired up about
that.

... having said that. i am recognizing that this is a totally
ineffective political stance. self-righteous and not productive and
all that stuff. so i am trying to strike a balance, i think, by
landing in feminism and making claims around women's lives, because a
lot of the burden falls onto women. and none of this idealism matters
if i don't do anything.

so. those are my political thoughts. maybe a little more than you
bargained for. :) i have been nauseated by Hillary for awhile--she is
just becoming more conservative--so i am definitely going to educate
myself about Barack.

i gradually want to get away from this counterproductive "fuck the
man!" stance into a radical left position that is still productive,
that still works with the culture as it stands, so that i don't
actually end up disenfranchising myself. because that is the complete
opposite of the point.