The Maverick Tribe

Here on out, it's going to be mainly political musings.  If I'm ever going to find a job with a persuasive writing component, I'd better start practicing.  Also, politics has taken center stage in my headspace in recent years.  The election of 2004 had me obsessed over the horserace, from rooting for Howard Dean (my Vermont governor) to embracing Senator John Kerry as my only hope for the unseating of President George W. Bush.  I distinctly remember Election Day 2004.  All day at work, I kept checking the blogosphere for any morsel of early exit poll results.  Mid-afternoon, word was leaked that John Kerry was leading.  I saw the stock market dive and my mood lift.  Finally as polls began to close on the East Coast (I was, of course, living in California at the time), the exit polling results were published to the internet and I was able to review them myself.  Ignoring my own academic training on the power of sample bias on statistical measurements, I believed these results to indicate a convincing Kerry victory.  As I left work that night, I was walking on air.  John Kerry had won!  No more George Bush.  No more having my intelligence insulted on a daily basis.  No more contempt for civil liberties and constitutional tradition.  No more Fear.

Needless to say, the elation didn’t last long.  The following morning, dejection took its place – and had company.  It was palpable on the streets and in the subways of San Francisco .  Really.  A pall hung over the city, whose electorate had gone 80% to Mr. Kerry.  But as for me, it was on this day that I realized how much the nation’s political stage plays out on my psychological well-being.  Without trying to sound too embittered, I’ll say Act 2 of George W. Bush has turned out to be a real tragi-comedy.

This blog is not going to be a George W. Bush Hate-a-thon.  First of all, there are enough of those out there, and second-of-all, we need to start looking beyond the George W. Bush era, in which “only” nineteen months remain. For what it’s worth, I’ve always given the man credit where credit is due.  (He has an admirable record on international humanitarianism, for example.)  And the funny thing is, despite charges leveled by my significant other that I’m “the most partisan person” he’s ever known, I’ve never thought of myself as a Democrat.  Indeed, of the three gubernatorial elections in which I’ve voted in California , I chose the Democratic candidate in none of them.  (Libertarian, Republican, and Libertarian.)  But the national political environment over that last six years has made me feel aligned with the far left on a whole host of issues, from warrant-less wiretapping to torturing prisoners to the Federal Marriage Amendment.  (And someone still needs to explain to me why it should be only the left that is opposed to these things.)  Furthermore, I embrace the radical, borderline-subversive position that the whole notion of fighting a “War on Terror” represents little more than a Sisyphean challenge.  Let’s get real.

So there you have it.  The re-launch of MaverickTribe – one man’s oxymoronic quest for community and autonomy through a blog.  I’ll keep you posted.