meg o’connor

So, I try not to be preachy, and I try to be understanding of people who have differing opinions to mine, but eventually you have to wonder when Americans are just going to GOD DAMN WAKE UP! The election is near, and I’ve tried to be patient with McCain/Palin supporters, but it has gone too far. Here’s my beef:

-The ridiculous trite that Palin is spewing is not only founded on so little, but it is incredibly dangerous for her to be supporting the responses she is receiving. One example I can think of: she talks about the connections between Ayers, the leader of the 60’s Weather Underground, and Obama in his early political career. She exaggerates Ayers’ past so people will associate Obama with terrorism, in a southern state, with angry mob-like listeners. And the responses? “Terrorist!” “Kill him!” When she blames the media, and not her nerves and inexperience, on her poor interviews, a man turns to a black press member, and tells him to “sit down, boy.” What is the motivation? Is it worth making a bunch of old, white, southern Americans angry and scared of an educated black man running for President? Is trying to get back the ten points your trailing worth inciting assassination? After what I’ve seen…I don’t think it is so far-fetched. WAKE UP!

-I am sitting with my roommate, spending quality time watching forensic science mystery shows, and we see the commercials supporting Prop. 8 (for those who don’t live in CA, Prop 8., if passed, would overturn the supreme court decision to allow gay marriage in CA.) The first commercial was relatively upsetting, but it was what we were expecting…the second left us speechless. It opens with a precocious, innocent little girl, who runs up to her mother with a children’s book about two princes who fell in love, and how she was taught that she could marry a princess. Then an upset man in a suit steps in front of the screen, telling that this terrifying theoretical is not so hard to imagine, and that we must not allow gay marriage in the state of CA…for the children. Here is the problem: why is it wrong to teach children tolerance, instead of fear and hate? I’ve grown up knowing, and accepting, the gay community. It started in movies, then it became people at my school, then my best friends, and with all my exposure to homosexuality…I’m STRAIGHT! People can’t be taught to be gay. They either are, or they aren’t, and no matter how much, or how little, you teach people, it won’t change who they are attracted to. So WAKE UP!

-Bill Clinton was almost impeached for trying to cover his ass for having an affair. It was embarrassing, but other than that, it did no harm to the country. He left the Oval Office with a surplus, and America had a good status in the world. And he almost got kicked out of office. … George W. Bush has squandered what little money we had, and ruined our status with other countries, but most importantly he started a war, where thousands of people, Iraqi and American, have died, on false pretenses. And we sit back and let it happen. What is wrong with America! WAKE UP!

Have we learned nothing?! Can we not look back 50, 70, 100 years? Can we not see the many times we’ve realized we were wrong, and apply it to today? We, as the human race, saw that enslaving a people, based on race, was wrong. We saw that hating a people, based on race, was wrong. We saw that the gender of a person should not have any weight in whether that person can vote, can make the same amount of money as any other person, and should be taken as seriously as any other gender. So is it so hard to consider that in 10, 20, 30 years that we will look back and be ashamed of ourselves for the way we treated the gay community? In a time where we claim we’re so understanding, so progressive…and yet we can’t let people love who they love. AHHHHHHHHHH WAKE UP!!!!!!!!

We need to stop the apathy towards what is actually happening to our country, and we need to stop the unneeded energy put towards oppressing people who don’t look like the founding fathers. Countries change, and they are usually better for it. Lets allow America to change, please. Lets WAKE UP! 

In theater news: I saw Spring Awakening for the second time, the opera Aida, I plan to take advantage of the Bay Area’s Free Night of Theater this month, and I suggest you all buy tickets to Cutting Ball Theater’s Victims of Duty which opens Oct. 30th, but with the election so close, and things looking scarier and scarier…I thought it was time to make a long, ranty post to excite the few people who read this blog.