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Posted

I can't believe we're stupid enough to re-elect Bush. This is all just so stupid and ridiculous and infuriating. Maybe some people have a higher tolerance level than I do and can take this crap for four more years. But I can't.

 

My family supports me 100%. We all want to spend the next four years somewhere else than America. Bush won't have to use the Patriot Act to stip me of citisenship for speaking out against the government, I'll strip myself of citisenship. Not only did we re-elect Bush, but we also gave the Republicans a stronger majority in both houses, and all 11 hate laws against gay people got passed. The next thing I know they'll be bringing back the pink triangle and making gays wear it so that they can put them in gulags. Everyone say hello to World War III and Neo-Nazism. I can't believe people are so stupid. This is all f*ck*d up beyond any repair.

 

Ok, so maybe I'm being an extremist. Or maybe I'm just doing what most people here aren't doing... thinking. In either case, 2004 is the last year my family is American. We're not exactly sure how to go about it. I'm kinda here fishing for suggestions. I know a lot of people have gone to Canada, noteably during Vietnam. And that the religious right keeps saying people like me and Michael Moore and Tony Campolo and John Spong should go to Canada, or France. But the question is this: how?

 

Any ideas?

Posted

Yeah, it's pretty bad--but we'll live. If three consecutive terms of Republicans (1980-1992) didn't kill us, four more years of the Shrub won't.

 

If you want to radically change your life in response to Bush losing, then IMHO your best bet is to go through some sort of formal study program in political science or activism (you would have time to do a master's, if you're already a college graduate) and volunteer for your nearest viable Democratic Senate candidate in 2006. We had far more seats up for grabs than the Republicans did this year, five retirements in the South, and we've still got about (I say "about" because two races are still undecided) 45 votes.

 

Rehnquist is the third most conservative justice on the Supreme Court and, in rare cases, he actually votes to the right of Thomas and Scalia. Whoever Bush appoints, I find it unlikely--given that there are about ten moderate Republicans in the Senate plus 45 Democrats, and Bush would need 60 votes to really push a right-winger through--that the new justice will be to the right of Rehnquist. My bet is he'll probably be slightly to Rehnquist's left, which will indicate a net shift in our direction. (Early prediction: Bush nominates Alberto Gonzales, and elevates Clarence Thomas to chief justice. Pessimistic scenario: Orrin Hatch as nominee. Optimistic scenario: O'Connor as chief justice.) The two justices to watch are John Paul Stevens and Sandra Day O'Connor; Stevens would be 88 years old in 2008, though he's in good health and loves his job. I think O'Connor would be 83 or so. Stevens is a left-leaning maverick and O'Connor is the Court's true swing vote, so if Bush replaces one or both of them, it could actually represent a shift to the right for the Court--a significant shift, if the Republican count in the Senate actually increases in 2006 (which I seriously doubt, because at that point the shoe will be on the other foot and more Republicans than Democrats will be up for reelection).

 

My other piece of advice to you is to sit back and enjoy the Republican Party schism that's about to unfold. Now that they have a clearer majority, the split between libertarian Cato Institute Republicans and theocratic Christian Coalition Republicans will become more pronounced. If we're smart, we'll be able to snatch some people from category #1 and marginalize the Republican Party like we did in the 90s. Personally, I would like to see the Democratic Party become in effect the Social Libertarian Party, with diversity on fiscal issues but unity on social issues. Our party has already tried the reverse, and it didn't hold.

 

Obviously I'd rather have seen Kerry win and the Democrats take a majority in the Senate--I hoped for it, I prayed for it and, frankly, I expected it--but the Republicans didn't turn tail and run when they got stomped in '92, and the result was a '94 victory that has given them 12 years of congressional majorities. There's no reason why Democrats shouldn't be ready to roll up their sleeves and do just as well.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Tom

Posted (edited)

IMHO (In My Humble Opinion), this election does not

prove that the "masses are asses". It proves that our

nation is divided in world view. I don't believe one

world view is more valid than the other, they are just

different and possibly mutually exclusive. People

probably voted for Bush because

 

...he shares their world view and Kerry does not

...they are concerned that what they consider to be

American, family, or Christian values are eroding

...he holds dearly those very values that they are

concerned are erroding.

...he sees the world in terms of black and white,

wrong and right, us and them

...they don't want a change in leadership during a war

...they want to protect wealth and property

...he sticks to his guns

...he doesn't care what the rest of the world thinks,

he's going to do what he's going to do

...he's a Republican

...(see other Republican values i.e. limit goverment,

limit spending, cut taxes)

 

Is this stupidity? No.

 

If you voted for Kerry it was probably because

 

...he shares your world view and Bush does not

...you want a president who is smarter than you, not

an average joe

...he recognizes the complexity of the world and has

the vision and brains to lead us in it

...you see America as a player on a global team that

is seeking to do the common good (not just the

American good)

...he uses his faith in God for support, strength, and

guidance, but he does not believe it is appropriate to

legislate his religious beliefs

...he understands the importance and the nuances of

diplomacy

...he believes goverment should serve people, not just

protect wealth and property

...he wants to protect the American worker, not just

American employers

...he believes in investing in the middle class, not

just the wealthy

...he believes in science for more than just war and

oil production

...he's a Democrat

...(see other Democratic values i.e. education, civil

rights, environment)

 

I suppose I articulate my world view better than than

I articulate Bush supporters' world view, but you get

the idea.

 

Most importantly, though, it's time to give up the

fight and accept the outcome of the election. The

beauty of this country is that we get a whole new

opportunity to express our view as a vote in another

four years.

 

Peace,

 

David (fatherman)

Edited by fatherman
Posted

I'm posting from the UK just to express my sympathies following the Presidential election result. I have some sense from our own dark years of the Thatcher government of how some of you are feeling at the moment.

 

Although it's hard, I'd encourage you to stay in America and do what you can to organise and resist the neo-conservative forces you're facing. In reality there is nowhere in the world you can go to avoid the influence of US policies. The harsh truth is that a more liberal and open society, and constructive international relations are things we are going to have to struggle for in the face of on-going resistance from the political right - a political force that has done more to deceive your population than I suspect your media has told you.

 

I'm sorry for those of you who are suffering in the US over this at the moment. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

 

Best

 

Gordon

Posted
We all want to spend the next four years somewhere else than America.

 

I would recommend coming to Australia, but us Aussie have become just as crazy by re-electing Bush's bed-fellow John Howard. Power politics is here with us for a little while longer. Which reminds me, has anyone read "A Global Ethics for a Global Politics and Economics" by Hans Kung? It's an interesting read. I'm a little under half way through at the moment.

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

I understand why you think Americans are stupid. I have found them to be "willfully ignorant" where the $hrubites are concerned. But before you assume that he was re-elected consider this: It was impossible to re-elect him. He wasn't elected the first time. Also, there is a very real possibility that they stole it again. Here is but one of many articles on the net regarding this possibility:

 

Despite mainstream media attempts to kill the story, talk radio and the Internet are abuzz with suggestions that John Kerry was elected president on Nov. 2 – but Republican election officials made it difficult for millions of Democrats to vote while employees of four secretive, GOP-bankrolled corporations rigged electronic voting machines and then hacked central tabulating computers to steal the election for George W. Bush.

 

The Bush administration's "fix" of the 2000 election debacle (the Help America Vote Act) made crooked elections considerably easier, by foisting paperless electronic voting on states before the bugs had been worked out or meaningful safeguards could be installed.

 

Crying foul this time around isn't just the province of whiny Democrats. Consider that The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that "Verified Voting, a group formed by a Stanford University professor to assess electronic voting, has collected 31,000 reports of election fraud and other problems."

 

For more go here:

http://www.orlandoweekly.com/news/Story.asp?ID=4688

 

And here is the site where I found the above article: http://legitgov.org/index.html#breaking_news

Scroll down to find more articles on the same subject.

 

An excellent web site devoted to the subject is http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

 

You might also check out the Yahoo! search I did: http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=slv1-&p=...ebold++election

 

 

There seems to be a very real possibility that Kerry actually WON--just like Gore did in 2000. But we will probably never know for sure. Personally, I am convinced they stole it this time just like they did in 2000. Until the integrity of our ballots is restored, the Dems and other liberals are just spinning their wheels. They will go on losing no matter what they do.

Posted

I have also heard various reports about voter fraud and find them disturbing. . .

Several organizations are conducting their own investigations into this, including

blackboxvoting.com. The recent shake-ups in the Bush administration are also worrisome. I heard on the Daily Show yesterday (well yes, that's where I get my news) that after the recent CIA resignations a memo was leaked to the Washington Post stating that the CIA is not going to "tolerate any opposition to this (Bush) Administration." This is apparently in reference to some former CIA operatives who disagreed with the way the Bush administration was handling things, but the statement (in or out of context) sounds pretty ominous! Still, things sometimes have to get really terrible before people decide that it's time to act.

 

I just went to see John Shelby Spong speak tonight and he pointed out that he has hope for the future--although he thinks bad things are likely to happen in the interim. He contends that the religious right will, in some way or other, overstep its bounds in the years to come, provoking a liberal/progressive "backlash." Overturning Roe v. Wade or legalizing more discrimination against gays and lesbians or seriously weakening church-state separation might do it. But (here's the hopeful part): the higher level of consciousness always wins in the end.

 

Another hopeful point he made was: a prejudice is on its deathbed once it becomes a subject of public debate. While we certainly haven't done away with racism, we have made great strides against it because race became a subject of public debate and social activism. He believes the same will be true for gays and lesbians. There was a time when the issue of homosexuality was never discussed openly. Now that it is, anti-gay prejudice is doomed to die. It may be a long death, and it will likely be difficult on gays and lesbians and their allies--but the higher consciousness will win in the end.

 

In the meantime, someone e-mailed me the letter below about the sorryeverybody.com website. It's a great place to go if you're feeling discouraged -- just to see the responses of other like-minded folks.

 

Hang in there,

curlytop

 

It's a movement. It's a phenomenon. It's a Web site. Or maybe it's far more than that. No one can really be sure.

 

No matter what it is, it's called sorryeverybody.com and it expresses, better than any outpouring so far, a sentiment that's omnipresent and palpable and still going strong, and every single Democrat and every single Kerry supporter and every single liberal of any stripe whatsoever probably felt it like a white-hot stab in the heart the minute Kerry's concession speech hit the airwaves and it undoubtedly went something like this:

 

Dear world: We are so very, very sorry. For Bush. For our bitterly divided and confused nation. For what's to come. Please know that tens of millions of us did not vote for him. Please do not hate us. Not all of us, anyway. OK, maybe Utah. Do you know where Utah is? Never mind.

 

See, not only is half of America still deeply dejected about the onslaught of Dubya Dubya II, but much of that half wants the world to know just how crestfallen we are, and just how awful we feel for inflicting Bush and his middle-finger foreign policy on them like a virus, a toxin, a nasty STD, yet again.

 

After all, we knew this wasn't no ordinary election. We knew how much was at stake, how this one represented a sea change in global attitudes, a dramatic upheaval and reversal of long-standing American ideas of cooperation and defense and restraint, ideas that BushCo has now mutated into a hollow, kill-'em-all faux-cowboy maverick attitude, an almost irreversible shift, mostly backward. Or downward.

 

But here's the genius part. Beyond e-mail, beyond blogs or radio shows or despondent letters to the editor or overly verbose progressively insulated Left Coast columnists who avoid excessive punctuation as they type because it might spill their scotch, sorryeverybody.com nails the sentiment in a way no one could have imagined: in photographs.

 

Or, rather, thousands of photographs. Of people. Ordinary people, grainy and crooked and funny and amateurish and honest and full of pathos and raw emotion and wry humor and surprising beauty and you want that connecting thread? That thing that unifies and makes you feel less alone and that helps you locate yourself in a country gone mad and lost and regressive? You can do no better than this.

 

And so far the site carries nearly 5,000 photos, with an apparent backlog of over 1,000 more ready to be uploaded and new ones coming in faster than the site's diverse gaggle of stunned creators -- namely, a sly neuroscience student from USC named James and his ragtag team of webmasters and designers from across the country -- ever dreamed. And the reaction has been, to put it mildly, overwhelming: a whopping 50 million hits to the site so far, moving nearly two terabytes of information. And growing fast.

 

And if a picture's worth a thousand words, then sorryeverybody.com is exploding with a few million very ardent expressions indeed, all echoing the same simple but heartbreaking sentiment and all, presumably, posted in the hope that the message will be somehow reach the eyeballs of the world, the countries so very and rightfully appalled and revolted by our apparent lack of vision.

 

It seems to be working. Pictures are apparently flooding into the site from around the world, full of messages of "It's OK" and "Thanks for trying" and "Just don't let it happen again" and it's even spawned a European response page called apologiesaccepted.com and this is when it hits you: this little gag site, unexpectedly, wonderfully, with its beautifully simple concept, might have actually stumbled on a way to do the impossible: it might just help heal our decimated international relationships and, quite possibly, do more for world diplomacy that Bush ever could, or ever will.

 

Is that taking things a bit far? Not really. Sure the site's cute. Sure it's a bit of a novelty. But it's also illuminating and deeply moving and 50 million hits in under two weeks is nothing short of staggering, and hence the creators are receiving reams of hate mail from the BushCo Right of sufficient vehemence and vitriol that it's even spawned a creepy 'n' crude "We're Not Sorry" countersite (suddenly off-line, as of this writing), with its handful of disturbing pics of rabid right-wingers displaying their, uh, raging pro-Bush myopia. So you know James and Co. are onto something.

 

After all, sorryeverybody.com has broken the cardinal rule of Bush's bitter neocon agenda: no matter what the atrocity, no matter the how grossly botched the war or how insidious the WMD lie or how debilitating the world-record deficit or how brutal the attack on the environment, if there's one thing the GOP simply does not do, it's apologize.

 

But this is what makes sorryeverybody.com so incredibly effective. It does what no column and no punditry and no news analysis and no Democratic weeping can possibly do, what the Kerry campaign failed to do, what no amount of verbal raging into the Void can manage: it puts a human face on the sadness.

 

A very real face, families and children, teenagers and the elderly, young couples and homosexuals and many, many disaffected liberal loners who are stuck like sad beacons way out in the middle of the red states and who desperately want the world to know they exist, that they're Americans, too, that they did their best to get the Smirking One out.

 

What's more, the pics, generally speaking, aren't raunchy. They aren't gross or hateful or puerile or full of screaming middle fingers or manly gun collections or people holding large kitchen knives or butane lighters up to Bush dolls in effigy.

 

They're just snapshots, candid and intimate and expressive and unretouched and often rather beautiful, taken in the living rooms and backyards and bedrooms and small towns of the country.

 

It's just people. It's just America. "Real" America. An enormous and enormously saddened half of this amazing country that's trying to reach out to the rest of the world and get the word out and mend its broken heart like at no other time in our generation's history. It's an expression of regret for what's been lost, for what we once were, for what we had hoped to become again but that has now been, well, at best delayed, at worst bludgeoned into a blind stupor.

 

The site proves that countless Americans still not only care enough to apologize for our country's massive errors of judgment, for our blind mistakes, but also are concerned about the effect those mistakes will have on others. As such, these pictures are perhaps the finest and most honest expressions of love for one's country you can find. And if that's not patriotic, nothing is.

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