As it Turns Out, the Revolution Was Heavily Telivised
It's Monday, November 3rd, 2008 and it's been a pretty lame weekend. If it weren't enough that my Ducks lost, my fantasy basketball team lost, and I lost the costume contest at Friday's Halloween party, we're facing what is now a pretty inevitable defeat tomorrow at the hands of Barrack Obama's flock. Oh, and when I say "we", I mean conservative Americans, Capitalists, and tax payers (other groups I can think of that are facing defeat are soldiers and unborn babies, of which I am neither). So I don't expect things to get any better very soon.
Roughly half of all taxpayers may at this point disagree with my previous list of Tuesday's losers, but I would ask them to think about their current situation. As I type this, millions of employees around the country are getting emails from their CEO and sitting through meetings with their District Manager with a focus on cutting costs. They have keywords in them, like "hiring freeze" and even "layoffs". Over the past few days I've begun to wonder how these companies are going to find another 5% in their budget for taxes on anything over $250,000. I'm trying to figure out how raising their taxes is good for middle class America but I can't. In the poll I did among three of my liberal friends on the issue, one told me that companies wouldn't lay off employees to cut costs (which is not true, cutting man hours is the first thing GameStop did when they needed to make the earnings look good, and several companies have already been letting go of parts of their workforce), another said he didn't believe Obama's plan was going to get enacted but he was voting for Obama for social reasons, and another just said "Yeah, things will be different", which was a little frightening. None of these are adequate answers for me and I'd love to hear a good one if there are any truly progressive Americans out there with a response.
I've sadly had to try and emotionally distance myself from the election in the last couple of weeks. I haven't really been able to, but I've come up with a few soothing ideas for a Conservative like me. For instance, the idea that since he never managed to write a piece of legislature and voted "Present" all those times, I don't think he's really a man of action and will thus not do a lot of good or harm. Then again, he'll sign anything that comes from the liberal Senate and House, and they're not going to sit on their hands for 4 years. Another good thought may be that since we have swung so far to the left as a country, a hard swing back to the right seems inevitable and even possible in as little as two years. In the next election, I can't see anyone that the Democrats will have to point the finger at for what I'm sure will be an even worse economy. Ultimately, though, the thought that makes me sleep at night is the image of a TV show I watched when I was a kid. The mom was in the kitchen making something with baker's chocolate and the 8 year old son at the table behind her was begging for some chocolate. She said he wouldn't like it, but he was persistent to the point where she gave him a chunk. Of course he spit it out as soon as he got a taste of it, which I think is a similar reaction that most of America will have to Obama's presidency. So after 8 years of listening to Oregonians, I've now come to a "Fine, just shut up about it already" attitude.
While it looks like a loss is inevitable, I am glad to say that I did more this election season to get the word out than I ever have. Thanks to everyone who has bought a sticker or put my design on their site. If I measure "success" by how many stickers I sold, I certainly consider the Don't Drink the Kool-Aid campaign a success, although it doesn't look like it will have done enough to get us to a win. Between CafePress and Ebay I managed to sell 783 "Don't Drink the Kool-Aid" bumper stickers, 530 "Change is All You'll Have Left" stickers, and 164 "Barrack Obama: The Second Coming of JC" stickers for a grand total of 1,477 anti-Obama bumper stickers as well as a handful of t-shirts and yard signs. This far exceeded my expectations; I was nervous that I wouldn't sell through my initial order of 500. Thanks again to everyone with a sticker on their car, we are brave souls.
There's not much that can be done at this late stage in the game but I would just urge all people, no matter who you vote for, to pray fervently that God's will be done. I don't pretend to know what that is, but I do know that it's an important time in the country's history and I would much rather leave the decision in God's hand than man's. No matter what happens, we're still in the best country on Earth and it will take a lot more than one President to change that.
Comments
Cam - DId you make much $ selling on cafe press?