Are You Stressing Out Over Politics?
Is politics making you stressed? Anxious? Depressed? — Posted by Catherine Morgan (cross-posted at BlogHer)
Some days are worse than others for me. Today was particularly bad, especially with that stupid, fear mongering, “scare us into calling our senators” ad I’ve been seeing all day. Here is a video clip of the ad with the “truth” pointed out…
I’ve written about this FISA issue so much already, it makes me want to just SCREAM! I guess that makes me a wee-bit stressed. Screaming at the t.v. would seem to be a good indication of a person’s anxiety level, don’t you think? Do you ever want to scream at your television?
Today I even let the “F-bomb” slip, and in front of my daughter no less. It was while I was on the phone talking about politics (specifically, my pet-peeve issue of Florida disenfranchisement), and my daughter was sitting in the same room. There goes my “Perfect Mother of the Year” award.
How would you rate your level of politically induced stress? Are you a one? And not affected at all over political issues? Or, are you a ten? And waiting patiently for the men with straight jackets to show up at your door? I don’t think I’m a ten yet. But, at this rate, I’m sure it won’t be too long before I am.
Here are a couple posts I found of other women who are stressing over politics…
Lori Wallach at The Huffington Post
As America’s anxiety grows, the economy not only is becoming a preeminent issue of the election, but the presidential candidates are responding to public anxiety about the current model of globalization. The Democratic candidates are reflecting back the public criticism of the status quo, but so far, they have avoided stating how an aspiring future president would restore the economic security of the American middle class in this era of globalization.
Maya Reynolds: Election Day Preview
I woke early and was at my desk by 7:30–despite rain and the fact that I usually drift in around 9:00 AM.
I’ve been aware of a low-level anxiety all morning. Sort of like the feeling my mother used to describe as “ants in your pants.”
While I was eating my Chinese food and cruising the Internet over lunch, it dawned on me.
Wonderful Electric – Election Blues
Okay, so on Tuesday I went to cast my vote in the Democrats Abroad primary at Portchester Hall in London. The problem was, I was having a massive moral crisis. I was an undecided voter, for the first time in my entire life (and yes, this includes casting a vote for Dukakis in my school’s mock election in 1988 and crying when Bush won).
Since Edwards dropped out (and this Krugman column made me cry), I’ve had a hard time getting excited about the Democratic primary. This isn’t just out of character, it’s out of keeping with the massive turnouts recorded all over the states which (I assume) means that heaps of other people are terribly thrilled. It’s a strange combination of disillusionment, apathy, and indecision that I’ve never experenced before. Between Obamania and the Hillarybot, who the hell am I going to vote for?
Elissa’s Blog – Election Blues
I don’t know about you, but I’m having a panic attack about the future of our country. I remember a conversation I had with a friend of mine around the time of the last presidential election. She considered herself a Democrat and I considered myself a Republican.
The real question is…How are we going to make it to November with all of this stress? Well, there is no specific “political” stress relief program. But, here are some general tips you might find helpful., in reducing your level of stress. When all else fails…Turn the “freekin” news OFF.
Child of the Waters – Stress: Don’t Fight It, Control It.
Under stress? Always. First and foremost, don’t panic! Some people can work under stress because they do not panic. Keep calm and assess the situation. What is the sources of the stress? Is it your boss? Your officemate? The office/school itself? Chill. Hopefully, none of them bite. Here are some ways to control the stress in your life…
Pagama Mommy – Stress Relief
I heard recently that there is no such thing as stress. You can’t go outside with an empty jar, fill it with stress then bring it home or with you to wherever you go. Hmmm, sounds good. Then why are we so stressed-out? Why do we do this to ourselves?
Comments
Comment from Catherine Morgan
Time: February 26, 2008, 7:25 pm
Isn’t living in Maui a perpetual vacation? 
Comment from Bruce becker
Time: February 27, 2008, 10:03 am
Those of us who are not yet enlightened all suffer stress. This election is particularly stressful for those of us who have supported feminism and civil rights for persons of color. I am one such person. My money helped publish the Feminist Voice (predecessor of Ms), of which my then-wife was co-publisher, editer and chief counsel. I rode the first fully integrated *blacks not at the back* bus in Louisiana the day after a person was killed in a march in Alabama. Everyone on that bus knew we might not get to our destination. We talked about it before we got on.
So this is a key moment in my life, that the Democratic party is choosing between a woman and a black person.
My stress comes from concern about the way the campaign has proceeded.
I find I now sometimes turn off the sound when Senator Clinton speaks.
Her speech deriding the opponent based on the ‘angelic choir’ rankled me no end. It was a lie. She lied about her opponent and did so in the manner of Spiro T Agnew, a former VP and former Governor of Maryland who went to prison for extortion. During his reign of terror, he derided liberals, characterizing them as less than manly. His audience was the working class. Spiro was a hit man for Richard M Nixon, an expert on dirty politics, whose first congressional election was characterized by a midnight mailer which falsely claimed that the opponent was both a socialist and a homosexual, neither one of which were true. The mailer later was mixed up in the failed Watergate break-in, part of election
dirty tricks, again. Now I am hearing this speech replayed, and Sen Clinton making the mocking gesture at the point where the angelic choir sings.
I know the Sen Obama is more than a good speaker. i hear him say that he will restore our Constitution, restore habeas corpus, our right to be accused of a crime, our right to have an attorney and our right to a speedy trial, all of which have been taken away by the scare tactics of the fascist regime in power now. Sen Clinton has not been heard by me, during her umpteen opportunities to do so, to speak against the perversion of justice and the destruction of democracy. She cowered, when Bush wrapped himself in the flag. Now she mocks a man who said words that will surely haunt him while the national election takes place. McCain is the preference of those whose body-minds are contracted in fear. Fear rules this land, no mistake about it. And Sen Clinton aided the enemy, by mocking a man with the courage to say, in effect “even though some terrorists are among those in Guantanamo, I will restore their rights, even though we may sometimes be open to more of a threat from those who would kill us, I prefer to live under the rule of law, than to allow witch hunts. I dont support waterboarding. Waterboarding was first used in American soil during the Puritan era during the Salem withc hunts. They all confessed. Everyone confesses eventually. You would confess.
So I am sick about this electionl, that a woman has stooped to mock a man with the guts to say, I stand for the Constitution, and I will restore our rights as free persons. I no longer can stomach the sight of her.
Her voice is like poison to my system now. Stress, stress-chemistry, the small chemistry of adrenaline. She is a viper now, so wanting to be our president, she acts like a right wing talk show host about the only candidate to speak against the destruction of the Constitution.
I urge you women reading this to ponder my words and vote for Barak Obama in your primary or caucus. Please, allow freedom, allow unity, allow decency and end the conflictual nature of this primary by ending it now so we can unite and defeat the candidate who speaks of the possibility of 100 years of war. He speaks in that manner, McCain does, because he is bereft of unity. He is a warrior, only knowing war.
He does it well. In some polls, he is leading, because so many are in fear.
He is stronger vs the terrorist, they say.
The official fear meter on CNN is orange, or is it yellow? Yellow of the cowards, slinking, knowing they can now be taken away by Pinochet in the night.
I prefer a leader who will sidestep the illusion of this war on terror and restore our place in world affairs, a leader who will allow the UN to function as it was intended. Of course that means subjects the USA to the rule of law, something Bush doesnt do. He is a professional adolescent and he leads a country of adolescents and infantile voters.
The most infantile are the most dangerous to our freedom. Huckabee is the spokesperson for the infantile. They believe that their point of view is the only God-given point of view. They believe that because they were told it is. That makes it so. Never mind that Cromwell led a civil war in England over just such matters as the attempt by the Republicans to place onto the ballot an amendment whose real purpose is to get out the vote of the infantile and childish, who actually dont realize that their world view is not even an accurate world view, who dont realize that even if it were the accurate world view, we cannot allow one religious point of view to become the state religion, because certainly, by and by, some other persons will have another point of view and wish to install their point of view as the official one. Thus we have the Sunni/Shi’a civil war in Iraq.
It could be an object lesson if it were used as one. We on the side of the Constitution, we who will not manipulate the childish and the infantile, have a great need from some educational clips on the process going on in Iraq and how it relates to Cromwell’s civil war and the 22nd amendment touted by Huckabee, the one that says only men and women may marry, because the Bible told him so. The Bible, folks, includes the New Testament. I am here to tell you that the main premise of the NT is a hoax. We are about to go to battle in the fall over a religion based on a hoax, attempting to make the rest of us live our lives according to the hoax’s point of view. Read http://www.pocm.info and be amazed.
Read, the Lost Gospel, the book of Q, and see if you can follow it, that over 280 years, various persons took material from http://www.pocm.info and inserted it carefully into the NT, resulting in the Bible carried today.
The Bible was not always so. The Bible tells you so, but it is a hoax.
The hoax part is simple. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a person who walked on water, nor did Jesus rise UP! to heaven, where our astronauts now go regularly. All the would-be Christ material was previously associated with other famous men, one being Alexander the Great, the Macedonian war-lord. Let us unite, whatever our beliefs, and stand up to those who would make the US into a Puritan enclave, where waterboarding is ok, and where myths are the rule, not law.
I am a liberal, sure enough. I also find the Divine Person in all I see, breath, and love. I am not an atheist. I am in love with the Divine and it is you and me, and all we see. I am tired of Hillary’s tactics of smear and mockery, when we need unity, vision and a plan to engineer our bridges and roads. Three bridges have fallen into the Mississippi. Let’s take the money from the Halliburton war and redirect it into rebuilding the USA.
Let’s afford to put our young through as much education as their abilities allow. Let’s afford to pay teachers so well, that people who used to go into arbitrage and figure out how to sell off divisions of companies, think about getting a Master’s in Education and helping our country develop new scientists and engineers and medical technologists. My state is run by an actor. He ran on a platform of fiscal responsibily. Now our state is cutting all departments by 10%. Let’s have a Constitutional attorney run our country from the point of view of good engineering and responsible social policy. Let’s choose a person who is willing to discuss our common interests as humans, with our ‘enemies’. Hillary, like Bush, doesnt want to talk with leaders of countries who are not our allies. I prefer a man to a woman on this issue. I prefer a person, a person who will work with everyone, and find common needs, and common solution, because he can see that we have one thing in common, we are all human beings, all needing the same basics that Maslow listed. We are all humans first, not men and women first. Vote as a human to restore human dignity and hope and prosperity in America and to restore the rule of law in the UN.
Comment from Bruce becker
Time: February 27, 2008, 11:08 am
Dear readers, I see that I have a typo or three, in my rant vs Sen Clintons mockery of Obama’s speeches, and my rant against the right wing manipulation of the true believers. Forgive me, and read on.
I have glaucoma and cataracts, and a new computer with teeny fonts in some modes. I trust you will get past the typos and focus on the opportunity. We can proceed in life as human beings first, and find our common ground, even with persons of different cultures. We dont need a war to make us safe from the CIA’s trained Islamicists, we need peace, and universal prosperity.
Let’s focus on feeding the entire world during the impending crisis of climate changes. The Soviet Union failed, because they spent 30% of their GNP on defense, vs the Anglo Americans. Lest you forget, the Anglo American army invaded Russia in 1927 with 100,000 men. As with Iraq, it was too small for the job, and it was stiffly defeated and we got them out before winter. So Russia was right to be on guard about the capitists and to keep their armies strong vs our constant threat. We finally defeated them because we outspent them on war and when we said we were going to put war machines in space and shoot lasers at them from space, they capitulated.
The Muslim extremists say we are the devil’s henchmen. Did you notice the quality of the ads during the super bowl? Devils and the like, rampant. Can you see how our actions may have led them to that conclusion?
Rockefeller orchestrated the overthrow of the government of Iran.
Those guys KNOW we are bad boys. The Jews really did take Israel by force. The Middle East solution is to give the territory of Israel back to the Brits as a UN mandate and have neither Arabs nor Jews in control. It is about control. Everyone wants control. No one gets control, and everyone gets access to water for farming, and we broker peace in the Middle east and take the steam out of the Arab complaints about our prejudice vs them and in favor of Israel. We do favor Israel.
The Anglo American war machine implements the desire for control of our leaders. We can let go of that wanting need for control and and be more safe if the world stops seeing us as the problem.
We really ARE the problem. I dont need to hear it from the flag wavers.
I know that apple pie and Mom are great. But how about giving visas to all the Jews who currently occupy lands whose deeds were owned by Arabs 60 years ago?
And by the way, we can and should strongly address our own illegal immigrants. Easy: if you hire an illegal worker, you go to jail for one month the first time. One year for the 2nd. And yes, the third time is the charm, just like one of those scary convenience store pizza robbers.
I bet we would see an end to illegal immigration if no work were available for the illegals. I think it would take about three months of systematic arrests of employers and persons on the boards of agribusiness and meat processing plants. Not just the managers, but also the boards, the CEO, the CFO.
It would end so fast. We have 5% unemployed citizens. Let’s train them to do the jobs our illegal guests do. It is possible. We all know that when they say 5% are unemployed, that is the tip of the iceberg, just those who are actively trying, not working as a criminal or otherwise hidden.
We have more people in prison that any other country in the world.
Those people are unemployed too. Our unemployment system is really expensive because it includes the persons in prison and those who guard them. Do those people in prison learn gardening skills? Factory skills?
English grammar and math?
Why not? Why are those people not in class 4 hours a day?
What are they capable of when they leave prison?
Our capitalist system fails the least of us. Competition includes losers. In my grammar school, we were winnowed into A, B, C, D and E groups, as they do in England.
Why dont our high schools prepare the D and E groups for work as gardeners, as factory workers, and focus on a few key skills for survival?
Why are there not technical high schools to train people to be dental hygienists? Why do people have to scrimp and save to learn a trade like electrician or plumber when they leave high school? We test our kids frequently. If we see a Wunschler result of 75 IQ when the child is 10, we need to have a viable alternative for that person to learn a couple of different trades and skills that their intelligence will reasonably allow, other than crack whore and petty theft.
We spend so much on prisons there are now prisons being built by contractor agencies who will run them as a profit center.
The money would be better spent in the 4th grade, teaching gardening, carpentry, life skills, and yes math and reading.
I thought it was a shame when the state of Mississippi lost its case in the Supreme court in which the litigants successfully argued that the literacy tests required to register to vote in Ole Miss were being used to deprive persons of color and not used universally. I think our country would benefit greatly from the decision to limit voting rights to persons with an IQ of 80. The Wunschler trancends culture.
As things are, we are all vulnerable to the stampede of those gullible millions who not only do not take the time to learn about the issues, they are not actually capable. Our Republic is failing us. We cannot trust the leaders because we know they have been bribed, paid for their next election’s expenses.
McCain, on the ethics committee, now tramples on his image and wants to raise more money, after he asked for federal funding for his campaign.
You folks want a democracy, you better get the funding for campaigns handled, fast. RIght now, your Congress is in the pocket of the WTO.
Did you know that since you were born, companies now have the rights of a person? Now a company can place a referendum on the ballot.
No one can stand up to a corporation and its deep pockets.
1. Companies are not people, and you must demand that whomever is in charge ends this ‘legal-fiction’
2. I think an amendment to the Constitution, allowing companies to be sued, but not to have the rights of persons in our elections, is what is called for, and right now.
And we need to get out of the WTO. There is no logical reason to produce any product in the US, if it can be produced by another countries’s people for 1/10th. And we need to end the practice of allowing foreign countries to have ‘soveriegn’ companies, which buy America. We cannot control our destiny if it is in the hands of the emirates. Yes, it is an intricate matter and would take years to unfold, but it is important and can be done.
The WTO is like the 12 million illegal workers. Those in power say, there are 12 million here, there is nothing you can do. Yes, we can.
1. No work for illegals. They leave. It is simple. You do it one industry at a time,and you plan for training and hiring replacements from among our unemployed citizens. yes, social engineering, rather than dog eat dog.
We can afford it, or we can buy another B-2 bomber fleet to enforce the will of corporations vs soveriegn states. Oil is not a sufficient pretext for this war vs Iraq. There were never WMDs. Stop the war now.
The argument that they would kill one another was used to keep us in Vietnam for years. Once we left, it was over.
2. Out of the WTO. Restore democracy.
Pingback from Are You Stressing Out Over Politics?
Time: March 5, 2008, 11:59 am
[...] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptHow are we going to make it to November with all of this stress? Well, there is no specific “political” stress relief program. But, here are some general tips you might find helpful., in reducing your level of stress. … [...]
Comment from Jenny
Time: March 5, 2008, 12:01 pm
I don’t understand why people would stress over politics. But that’s just me since I’m not into the whole scene. I could really care less. But this was a great write up. Helped me understand more. Thanks.
Comment from Mauigirl
Time: February 26, 2008, 7:17 pm
Well, my method at the moment is going on vacation for two weeks!
I am stressed somewhat over politics because of the hostility between the two sides supporting Obama vs. Clinton, since after all, we should all be supporting each other against the Republicans. I’ve also had my share of other stress too so I need a break!