Rock Bottom...

It's pretty apparent that I'm no good at all at keeping up my journal.  I rarely post anything here.  But this has been bugging me for some time so I feel that I really need to get it off my chest.

My best friend recently returned from Iraq.  Well, he used to be my best friend, through high school.  We were ridiculously tight.  I always had a tiny little crush on him but nothing ever turned out from it.

After high school, we fell out - hard.  I got involved with my ex, who I recently broke up with, after a six year relationship.  I could tell my friend was jealous, but he got his own girlfriend and our lives just took completely different directions.

He was deployed to Iraq for his first tour in 2005, when he returned in 2007 after 18 months, we met up for the first time since high school at a party that was full of old friends.  It was really great to spend time with him.   We promised that we were going to go back to being friends the way we used to be, back in the day.  This quickly fell apart though, and here's why.

He'd broken up with his girlfriend.  I was still with my boyfriend, and my friend's behavior toward me became increasingly weird and stalkerish.  We had one drunk encounter that made me feel very bad about what I was getting myself into, its not that I didn't have any feelings for him, but I was in a committed relationship, I loved my boyfriend, and I hate people who cheat.

I pretty much killed the friendship at that point, and he was deployed to Iraq again.  We didn't speak until recently, when he returned from his second  tour.  He kept texting and calling me, and initially I was avoiding him because of what happened before.  But I had recently broken up with my boyfriend, so I felt there was really no harm.

We hung out last week, and I had such a great time with him that now I can't get the motherfucker off my mind.  We got pretty wasted and something happened between us.  Bottom line is that now, I'm like crazy about him, but suddenly the phone calls and texts have stopped.  

I asked him bluntly about this because I don't like my emotions being strung along.  He told me he didn't feel any way in particular and that it was the alcohol.

What the fuck?

I don't understand the male species.  All I know is I am dreadfully confused and a little depressed at the same time.

Aside from the obvious dangers of a McCain/Palin administration - the cronyism, the repeated failed economic policies, the prolonged presence and expenditure of a war that has cost us billions and gotten us nowhere fast, a continued poor presence around the globe, horrible health care policy, a collapsing economy, a self destructing infrastructure, failing education, class warfare and a shrinking middle class, inequality...outright lies...

Besides all of that...as we have seen from the glaring incompetence of Sarah Palin, there is the very real danger that she might become president.

Not only does she represent more dangers to our country than McCain does, but she poses a real treat to the credibility of American women holding public office in this country.

If Palin becomes Vice President, and potentially President, her lack of knowledge, her incredible display of croniystic behavior that rivals even Cheney's office, her incredible pandering to the cultural destructiveness of this nation rather than substance and "straight talk", would be not only detrimental to our nation, but to the progress of qualified women to pursue high office- women like Hillary Clinton, Olympia Snowe, Kathleen Sebelius, Amy Klobuchar, Claire Mccaskill, and so many others, as well as the many when to rise in politics and public office in years to come.

Not only does Palin stand completely opposite on so many issues that matter to women - reproductive rights, equal pay, to name a couple - she is completely unqualified to lead this nation. Her knowledge is incredibly narrow, most times nonexistent - and her worldview is constricted to the state of Alaska and her psuedo-Christian views - which fails to represent a huge portion of this nation, on so many complex levels.

Never mind her foreign policy - which does not exist. She has not paid attention to the wars that our country is in until, gosh darn it, five weeks ago when she was named VP? She doesn't have any comprehension of the strategies involved in these wars, and she still believes in Bush's lies - that we went to Iraq to end terrorism and gain retribution against those who attacked us on 9/11.

All of this aside - women have crossed so many hurdles and have worked too hard to prove that we are equal to men in intelligence and capability for far too long to have - Sarah Palin - destroy it for us, simply because John McCain was so desperate to win an election pitted against him he had to pull a Hail Mary and wool over the eyes of Americans.

Sarah Palin may not look more than a joke now, but if McCain wins, her potential damage to women in America as a whole will be catastrophic.

I want to see a woman hold the highest office in the land. I would have voted for Hillary if I didn't believe more strongly in Barack's message. Americans must stop basing their views of people, and candidates in particular, in terms of ethnicity and gender. I did early in the democratic primaries. Before either announced, I had decided I would support Barack if he ran, Hillary if he did not and she did. I look at people's character and their positions on issues that matter to me and the country, not whether I want to see a woman or a minority in office.


Regardless of how anyone feels about Hillary Clinton, or any other real, qualified, knowledgeable, intelligent, female politician (regardless of party), Sarah Palin sets them and the future backwards dramatically. And If we as Americans continue to hold these same ethnic/gender views in the future that we do now, Palin will destroy the chances that women have for high office in the future - because she will, hurtfully, prove to those who doubt us, that women are unqualified.

Sarah Palin is the WRONG WOMAN.

At this moment, with the massive catastrophe's of the Bush administration coming full circle, with the neoconservative plots exposed and the deregulation fallacies of the last thirty years realized, there is no reason by any democrat, whether he/she be profoundly liberal or caustically moderate, should have any fears about capturing the White House this election season.

Even though Obama maintains a narrow lead over McCain in the polls, most people seem to be fairly certain that Obama will win.  But scenarios can we expect that would suggest otherwise?

-Republicans stealing the election.

-Sudden racism in the polls.

-An "October Surprise" that destroys Obama politically.

The third I doubt will happen.  The second, I think the possibility is there, but with the generational shift that is occuring in this election, it will likely not do the damage it promises too (younger people my age tend to be color blind).  The first is very  possible, and we know it. 

And It wouldn't surprise me if Bush came up with an excuse to put the elections on hold. After all, he's breached the constitution before.