Artists Against McCain-Palin

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Artists Speak Out Against McCain-Palin

by Josh Ritter

I'm a liberal bohemian, the kind Sarah Palin hates. I read too many books. I don't care whether you wear Kawasaki eyeglasses or $9 cheaps from Walmart. I don't preach about going to hell if you don't follow the rules in my sacred book. I don't believe that my God's army has a divine right to kill your God's army. I blog now and again, I get some poetry published now and again. I probably make about $25,000 in a good year. I like the idea of Trader Joe's but I can't afford to shop there. I spend way too much time sitting in coffee shops using their free wireless internet. In other words, I am not someone whose vote McCain-Palin is trying to win. The more they say, the further left I move.

Reading books has its advantages. I know, for example, that the earth isn't 10,000 years old. I know that young earth creationists are not so much mavericks as loony kooks with an agenda. I know that you can't reeducate gay people by praying (yeah, praying and preying) on them. I also know that foreign travel is good for you. It doesn't even have to be expensive. Once, I scraped together $1000, bought a plane ticket and was hitching around Europe from London to Budapest. That's in Hungary, Sarah. I learnt over there that they don't hate us, they like us. But they are puzzled by weirdies like Palin, the Bible-thumpin' evangelicals who preach about love while they are kicking you in the gonads. As someone said in a movie ('Constantine's Sword') I watched last night: "Dropping bombs on innocent people is ok, but if you started dropping condoms, the evangelicals would want an immediate ceasefire."

America is a great country for all the reasons Palin hates. It's diverse for a start. There isn't one Big Idea that we have to buy into to be accepted. If you want to go to Wall Street and earn millions losing other people's money, that's your choice. If you want to eat organics, be my guest. You prefer Burger King, no problem. If you want to shoot wolves from planes, you have to convince me it's a good idea, and you have to listen to why I think the idea sucks. This is a country where we are encouraged to be different and yet we still talk to each other, well some of us do. I celebrate that.

My issue with McCain and Palin, especially Palin, is that they want to make the country smaller. They want our minds to be tiny. They want to crucify us for criticizing war. Everything is so clear and simple to them. They want to take us back to a time when you ventured no further than the edge of your small town. You lived next to people just like you, and you got angry when people unlike you moved in next door. Palin is hateful and intolerant. That's why I am working for Obama.

If Monty Python's Michael Palin had been selected as McCain's running mate, then he'd stand more chance of getting my vote. Come to think of it, this whole Palin flying circus is very Monty Python, isn't it?

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