IN OUR OWN WORDS

HOW DID I MISS this McCain ad, entitled Remote Control?

As Filler wrote, "Effective. I know the tired Democrat response: "Republican fear tactics". The thing is both sides appeal to fear: Democrats want you to be afraid of losing your job, of not having enough money for food or health care. Republicans want you to be a afraid of terrorists and tyrannical regimes. One fear is out of our individual control, the other fear can be faced individually. We don't need a president to face our individual fears, but we need one to face the larger, existential fear. I'll let you figure out which is which."

Actually, McCain is using the Democratic fear card. Each of the statements in this video are from prominent Democrats including Biden and Obama.

The only reason some (and they know who they are) will think this ad is a gross and low blow is because it is an effective ad. It uses other candidates' words against Obama. Then at the end, Obama's own words grab him by the throat. And for all you liberals who caterwaul about the ad containing scenes of war, surely you realize that this is indeed the dangerous and volatile world we inhabit. To deny what is going on in the world is all the more reason that you people have no business in positions of leadership of this country. The WHOLE ENCHILADA must be considered, lest we fall into some make-believe fantasy and a vulnerability where things can get real nasty really quick down the road.

Like most intelligent Americans, the Democrats in this video realize that experience is a necessity when choosing a president. And while we're taking a breather from all this critical thinking, let's ponder the uglier than thou liberal fear card...

1. Global Warming
2. RECESSION!!!!!
3. Bush is a fascist!
4. McCain = Bush 3

Both fear cards are somewhat factual. Both fear cards are largely unprovable, since they exist solely as an existential hunch, based on a loose amalgamation of moving targets without regard to the fullness of time and the specificity of space. Frankly, politics as such, is a mendacious bore.

I'm pretty certain at the end of the day I will have preferred the mosh pit of my old punk rock days to all this political pudwhacking. Every soldier of the spirit who revels in the presumption of truth and banks solely on powers of persuasion and fact-laundrying sophistication when presenting one's visceral issues while I wither in the solitude of the keyboard, I say, more power to you, but I say it in jest, because frankly, in all generosity of spirit, I know I have other, perhaps better, perhaps not, but other things to do than to work that sort of con on myself, or you.

Life is fiercely complicated. I aim to persuade no one to my side of the equation beyond what I produce as a lone artist and occasional friend. Vote with your heart. Vote with your brain. Don't vote at all. But know this. Some of us aren't as stupid or as timid as we appear, and others are far more stupid and loathsome than they presume themselves to be. Life is a gamble, a mine-infested path, that way. Despite any promise of payoff in this gamble, I can only hope that God (whatever) will save us from the frenetic demons that live within us, one and all, politics be damned.