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11.04.04 - 3:14 a.m.
concessions? i've had a running joke with my best canadian friend that, come nov. 3rd, if i woke up to 4 more years of bushism, that we'd hop on a one way bullet train and head across the border. i figure: i'm okay with maple syrup; club monaco's as hip as banana republic (although the sizes run WAY too small for my taste); and after getting caught out in the rain late last night on my way to an election eve/ daily show indecision party, i could use a flu shot to battle the nonstop sneezing that's shaken my head all day... food, clothing, medicine, i'm down (i mean up) with canada. let's go right? "stand and fight" says the daily kos.[http://www.thedailykos.com ]
build on the momentous energies that grass-roots political activism has built through mobilizing voters. (i can not BELIEVE how many of my friends - with so many teaching and course work responsibilities - traveled to PA, OH, and FL, to participate in door to door canvasing. meanwhile, whadidido :-/?? ). don't despair, act! says margaret cho [ See: http://www.margaretcho.com/blog] her blog message encourages us all keep fighting, channel all that energy .... and she says to look to inauguration day (i traveled to d.c. in 2000 to protest in the counter inauguration, and march around the supreme court, screaming "not my president" and 'hail to the thief' i don't think i have the heart to go back this year. if only those blue collar heartlanders could've seen the THOUSANDS of rich elite republicans sporting tall cowboy boots, and fur coats. or how, when the rain cold rain poured nastily on us all, how many of these pretty rich people opted to save their costly luxury clothing, over standing outside and cheering 'their' hero to the white house. )...
so, margaret cho warns, rightly so, that jan 2005 wil be ugly... that reps won the battle, but whoa to the losing war they created ahead... all these messages not to despair, not to act on my "flight and flee" doesn't mean my nerves aren't still perched to back out of bush country like a bat outta ... when i look at the electoral maps and my location squarely in the geographical blue margins that frame the west and east coast... my birth state's the second smallest one in the union, i think (or is that hawaii), i feel so on the fringe of another america. heartland, coastlanders don't occupy the same country, do they? so, in the middle (centrist-right wing, says slate) an expanse the "heartland's bleeding red... i can't stay i've actually been through more than 1/8 of those states, for maybe more than a few days, to attend a conference or a wedding [colorado, georgia, virginia]... another dimension, another world view, another country... THAT scares the bejesus out of me..[pun very intended] . No, there's more. Wanna know what's EVEN scarier?check out overseas news websites like the guardian, le monde, and bbc news. around the friggin GLOBE , country after country (except like the former soviet union, thanks to mutual sympathies grown from the columbine x 300% school massacre) - check them out, the U.K., France, Japan, Spain, South Korea, country after country (journalists) voted bush out of office. so why do our own heartlanders want this guy for another 4 years; hardworking people who've survived tornados, drought, mad cow disease, and all sorts of environmental challenges to their lively hoo, how can those hardworking people support man like bush who's NEVER known actual HARDSHIP, who's never survived material deprivation, unemployment, uncertainty about surviving the next day in his life? don't those facts render outrageous the most circuitous gesture of disrespecting the integrity of one's own experience imaginable? slate magazine offers a one word answer: "simplicity". bush won because he was simple. clear. THAT SIMPLICITY EQUALS TRANSPARENCY - or as another slate writer today posted "bush had vision but no details" "kerry had details but no vision" the majority of americans preferred a vision [what i'd call an empty, bankrupt, exploitative FANTASY] over the hard details of the truth.
since when did morality become so UNCOMPLICATED? hell, that's what ethics is all about... engage with the issues, not compress every complex situation into a 'yes' or 'no', or worse 'right or wrong' answer. dang, i could not BELIEVE when jim lehrer (or was it charles gibson) asked in one of the debates - do you believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle, choice, or biologically determined... bush's deadpan, obscuring, muted response "gee, chuck, i don't know, i just don't know." UGHGHGHGHGH - since when does 70 years of scientific data plus the psychology's redacted pathological disorders and symptoms that placed same-sex desire as a certified DSM-IV dysfunction, that's been righted ages ago --
so somehow, bushes stonewalling answer "i don't know", a refusal to engage, much less think THROUGH the issue he wishes to ban in the constitution - somehow his black, answer constitutes a simpler, thus truer, answer?
so, bush trusts his faith and his instincts. believes god almighty speaks directly to him -- so why bother READING widely and independently to come to decisions (like clinton), why bother reading at all when you can just pray.
why bother listening to the your own experts like powell, who've got military and diplomatic expertise that you don't... i just don't understand how anyone equates faith to ability to lead, to balance a budget, to make nuanced decisions. all this b.s. about voting for the moral man of convictions. forget his DUI convinctions, or whatever other illegal acts that fell below the radar screen; forget that a man born episcopalian in new haven, ct, has changed his religious denomination THREE times; forget that his wife KILLED another human being in senseless car accident; forget he flunked his way through prep school and college; forget that he can speak no other language than english, and even that, melodramaculously poorly; forget that his family perceives itself as a DYNASTY where fathers are past presidents and brothers govern other states...in a land that's supposed to sneer at aristocracy and nepoticism and unmeritted promotion;... forget that his embrace of the death penalty, his bullying, defiant, vain arrogance (unwilling to admit ever making a mistake; his stereotyping of non WASPy cultures; his bloodthirsty drive to sacrifice over a thousand u.s. military personel's lives to whet his appetite for a man who had nothing to do with sept. 11th, forget that sept. 11th, he stayed cowardly at the wrong place (reading to kindegarten children 0 in his brother's florida country) at the wrong time (the longest 8 minutes iof do nothing indecision and cluelessness ever documented on screen); forget robbing from the poor to benefit the rich; the rumored abortion he paid a college sweetheart to have;... no the question is HOW do these one-note, one-faith one-issue voters FORGET this long litany of HUNDREDS of immoral, unchristian acts, and vote this man to continue 4 more years of this crap
honestly, i think that as bush revamped his image to represent himself as a simple agricultural/cattle rancher man from small-town texas - touched by god - in order to secure the "white evangelical christian" base, i'd interpret that W.E.C.s weren't a vehicle for christian or faith-based solidarity, as they were for mobilizing white racial solidarity to keep bush in office. and i say that, knowing full well, that whipping figures like republican ken blackwell (what a surprise today to learn that blackwell is, well, black), condi rice, colin powell - using black republicans to take the heated blows of public disatisfaction, while GOP spin doctors (or worse, staff that sound EXACTLY like you down to hand gestures, cliches 'uniter not divider', and moMENtum said karin hughes last night speaking as bush incarnate)... that's what hurts most of all - self-promoting ppl of color allowing their bodies to be used to keep this campaign going, to shield the campaign from appropriate scrutiny, while the vehicles advancing an national agenda that doesn't give much of a shit about them, or the people and communities they came from i listened to kerry concession speech at boston's faneuil hall (where i HAVE been several times), and found myself tearing up unexpectedly. damn nobody's worked so hard, proved himself so eloquently in these debates (though the friggin' terrorist rhetoric sucked ass and i wish he'd didn't bring himself down to bushe's barbourous savage level). i never (and maybe he never, too) suspected he'd lose...i listen to hours of political spin, and what happened, and why and hoping for an announcement that counting proved the outcome otherwise... i can't believe he conceded - i've got no problem with waiting a few days to hear an outcome -- why oh why ohio? how could ohio lose more jobs than any state, but give bush their electoral majority?!?!?! ohioans - can you feed your children 'your moral values'? when your house is on the verge of foreclosure, or you can't pay your utility bills, can 'moral values' pay your mortgage, turn on your light bills, or pay the gas that fuels your trips to church?
why oh why this broken, outdated, electoral college system -- why oh why when the worlds says no more, my 'fellow' americans, who are perfect strangers to ME-- say four more... i don't understand why kerry had to concede so quickly... i needed him to keep fighting, as i ignoremy own desires to drop out and concede to the MOUNTAINS of behind work still ahead of me.. breathe. crappy day at home. i stayed in all wednesday, post susan session. i took a nap around 8PM, had dinner (a notable victory - i have not binged or purged all day.) and now that the night's quieter (10PM), the LEAST i can do for two hours - stop surfing the news websites and watching news analysis videos, or john kerry's concession speech, and return to my own work, like i said i would.
i do not deserve to give up on myself. i'm lagging behind, but i'm not hopeless.
i have to try tonight, or else, when will i bother?
MUSIC: bare-a.lennox
READING: my own writing, i must face my imperfections
FEELING:staving off disillusionment
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