Some words of wisdom from Thomas Jefferson

Thank you Richard for sending me the following:

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of
witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the
people, recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in
the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and
incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of
enormous public debt......If the game runs sometimes
against us at home we must have patience till luck
turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of
winning back the principles we have lost, for this is
a game where principles are at stake."

Thomas Jefferson, 1798, after the passage of the
Sedition Act

I feel reassured somewhat

Call me crazy, but knowing Bush won legitimately makes me feel better. I read this article by Farhad Manjoo in Salon, and it did have some reassuring statistics. So I'll let the black box voting thing go for the moment. I know one of my conservative friends thinks I enjoy blaming Bush's wins on "the evil gaming of the system" but frankly that isn't the case - win or lose, I'd like at least the reassurance that our basic democracy is intact. The state of voter's brains is another issue entirely....

Reaching out to the red states

I realize from a lifetime of "reaching out to the red states" - i.e. to my parents - the apparent impossibility of making a dent in obstinate minds, so while I always hold out hope, there's always a realist to bring be back into line. Here's Janet Sullivan from Salon (through the free medium of The Gadflyer) reminding us all what we're up against if we imagine we're going to work our well-meaning way into the heart of the heartland.

Black box voting

One thing that has mystified me is that no one, nobody at all on a national level, is addressing the issue over electronic voting. Here's a small taste I found, but this is it.

It would be one thing if, while there was no paper trail, there was at least an electronic trail of the votes. But in many counties, there isn't even an electronic trail! So what would stop anyone, anyone at all, from entering any damn number they chose? Um, the answer to that would be...NOTHING, NOTHING AT ALL. And we call this a democracy?

Before 2006 rolls around we need to hit this and hit it hard. The problem is that no one in the media wants to be labeled a (horrors!) CONSPIRACY THEORIST. But dammit they need to get over it, or else nothing of any value in this administration is going to get reported at all over the next (I hope only) four years. Look at it this way, and put it this way to scoffing Republicans: if Dems had won the election and there was any question about the vote at all, you know Republicans would be all over this, Fox would be talking about how Dems "mysteriously stole the vote" (they say that anyway of course, even when we lose), and on and on, and no peace would be had until we'd finally put a locked-in standard into place that made sense. But as long as the Republicans are benefiting from this mysterious gap in a rational electoral system, do you think we'll see substantial change in the system? That's a rhetorical question by the way.

From a friend of a friend

A friend of mine in NYC sent this around in an email from a friend of his and I asked if it would be possible to post it because I thought it spoke eloquently for a lot of us. She wrote back and okayed it, adding the extremely interesting November 4th entry...

November 4, 2004.

I feel as though I should premise what I wrote below with the fact that, though I am ashamed of it, it was my first year voting. I’m 34 and for various reasons I had not voted before. Some of the strongest reasons are probably that nobody in my family had ever registered or voted themselves. My parents are immigrants who barely escaped a communist regime and who have lived their entire lives with the hopes of steering clear of the government’s radar, even after we immigrated to America and became citizens. Though I was raised in suburban America, when the doorbell rang, we were taught to lie down in the dark, away from windows so that nobody would know we were home.

I thought this background info might help give more context to my reaction to this year’s election. Maybe it was especially devastating for me because it was my first time out and I had hope pumping through the veins of my wobbly new voting legs. Perhaps in my greenness I felt more was possible when I only really had a 2-dimensional view of how all of this really works. In any case, it was a big deal for me. And though I was still a little shaky after pulling that lever and crying after I heard the results, I guess in the end, I still accomplished something if not in the outside world, then at least in my own little private world.

Many are saying that we’ve a lot to be proud of. Many are encouraging me to look at the upside… almost half the country dissents. We’ve mobilized and have organized in a new and useful way that can only help us in the future. I want to agree. And I hope once my shock and disappointment wear off, I can feel again optimistic. I do want to believe we are all really the same… with the same vulnerabilities, with the same suffering, and with the same possibilities. But for now I’m still gravely disappointed and in some odd way hurt. I think I will emerge from this soon though and be able to believe and hope again.

Today, November 3rd, 2004.

I had a dream last night that Kerry lost a tooth. I guess that was the omen.

Today, I woke up in a foreign country. In a way, my greatest fears came true. I was right. Most of America is not like me. People ultimately vote for the person they are most comfortable with, someone with whom they can identify, even if they know the person isn’t making any logical sense. It’s like in relationships where people gravitate towards those who meet their emotional needs even if their politics or lifestyles don’t seem compatible. I am realizing as I get older that people for the most part are not logical creatures. After today I am convinced that most of America is not like me. Most of America looks and thinks like Bush. They want “family values” more than they want civil rights or an economy that works. I have awoken to a rude reminder that this is not Europe. I know living in NYC I often forget this and think because I live in this liberal bubble, I am in Europe or somewhere similarly idealized in my head. Today I woke up to discover what my mother always told me... NYC is another country. I don’t know why after having driven across America more than three times I haven’t realized that I do not belong here... that what I think of as America, is only in my head or is actually only made up of a few liberal cities in the U.S. Last night and most painfully this morning I realized that most of what is geographically America is not like me.

My boyfriend thinks that people will see the mistake they’ve made once they realize how they’ve been lied to. But I don’t believe it. I think that people may or may not be dumb to the lies Bush tells. But it doesn’t matter. He represents what they want to cling to. What they prioritize as most important to them. They want the country they voted for. People are vain. They want something in their image to represent them. Most Americans want a marriage of church and state, a religious fundamentalist right wing country because they are for the most part, a religious fundamentalist right wing, conservative people who believe in imposing their exclusive morality on others.

I wanted to believe like the others who voted for Kerry that if only enough people had the chance to freely vote, they would choose Kerry. I even refused to go canvassing for Kerry on the principle of “free will” and that people are aware enough and have the responsibility to themselves to discover the better choice. I felt uncomfortable trying to cajole someone into voting a certain way. I wanted to believe, like the Kerry camp did, that the American people were intelligent enough to see the consequences of not voting for Kerry. I, like the Kerry campaign, was gravely wrong. It is against my beliefs to treat people like children when they are not. America is choosing a path that they want. I feel like I, along with other Kerry hopefuls, have deluded myself and been out of touch with the reality of the country I live in.

Now more strongly than ever, I realize I cannot leave NYC or that I can only live in a few cities that are like NY. I feel lost today. But in a way, I am found in that I know who I am not, and that not everyone is as much like me as I so crave to believe. On some basic philosophical level, I want to believe that we are all essentially the same. But today the differences are so glaring they are blinding my better vision. I want to be more optimistic than I can be today.

On some level I want to agree with my boyfriend that the pendulum will have to swing the other way. That most of America will have to learn their lesson and live out the ramifications of their decisions. They will get what they want and have to live in it. And perhaps my boyfriend is right, the tide will then turn after reaching a critical mass and most of America has changed fundamentally in their hearts. But today, I don’t feel like I want to suffer through that long process and spend all my energy and days fighting or trying to navigate through the system that is in many ways determined to damn me. Today, I want to live in the America in my head. The United States of My Own Illusion. I want to believe that NYC is my own little America. I want to live in a country that struggles to embrace diversity and tolerance, and to tell the truth. I want to live in a community that is not afraid to admit to the messiness of life and that, more often than not, the right answers are usually not so simple. I want to live in a country for whom compassion is not just a campaign slogan and only for the select few that are chosen by me, and where the social welfare of the greater public is a higher priority than individual power and vanity. I want to live in a different America than the one I woke up in today.

Accountability

Another thing to keep in mind is that Kerry would have had a hell time as President, with the hard right blaming him for everything going wrong as a result of Bush's foibles. Bush has no choice now but to face up to the messes he's created. Sully goes into that in this entry:

Here's an email with which I concur entirely:

I didn't vote for Bush for lots of reasons. But it seems to me that maybe the result, much as it was not what I wanted, will be good for the country. We are in the middle of a war whose outcome is very much in doubt. We have a fiscal policy that may or may not prove successful. Issues that have seemed remote to many like abortion and the Patriot Act's definition of rights and privacy are likely to become more immediate over the next few years. Had we changed leadershop now, it would have been difficult to assign accountability, for good or bad, for these policies and decisions. I always feared, in fact, that Kerry would have had little chance of success in the face of a conservative chorus of "everything was going in the right direction in Iraq when we handed it over to you". Whatever the result, over thee next few years we all will be better able to asses the success or failure of many things that are unfinished now, and hold one team accountable.

Exactly. My main fear with a Kerry victory was that the hard right would never have given him a chance in the war, and would have savaged him as commander-in-chief in order to pave the way for a victory in 2008. Ratcheting the country back to fiscal sanity would also have been a thankless task. Now, Bush will face the consequences of his own policies and we will be able to judge him on that. He has no excuses any more. I hope he succeeds in Iraq, in reforming social security. But no one should give him an easy pass if he fails.

Not the end of the world

Everyone on the left feels a little gutted today, I think that's a given. Not only did Bush win again, but the Senate and House both got filled with yet more and more right-wing ideologues, and anti-gay marriage amendments passed in 11 states. And of course there's the little matter of the Supreme Court. So yes, pretending things don't look bleak on the national level is ridiculous. But I think we have to keep some perspective - against the odds - and continue the uprising that's occurred over the past couple of years. And I really think that it's time for us to become severely informed as to what goes on in the middle of this country. As distasteful as it is, as painful as it is, to lend an ear to a Sean Hannity or an Ann Coulter or god forbid a Rush Limbaugh, it's time for liberals to learn to take three breaths and just listen - without arguing - to everything they have to say. Listen to understand what it is in what is being said that appeals as much as it does to those on the Right.

I was listening to Ron Silver last night - a Hollywood actor and producer who has helped Bush during this campaign - and he was talking about how impossible it is to sit down for a peaceful conversation with a liberal in Hollywood. My first reaction was to groan and say, "Oh God, here comes these stupid accusations of liberal intolerance again...", and to think, oh yes, I'm sure an evening spent talking to Ann Coulter is a peaceful, civilized way to pass the time for a liberal. But then I thought, the only possible way to turn this thing around is to actually withhold our distaste and actually... listen... to what it is that appeals to middle America. Not just our prejudiced version of it, but the thing itself. And then to engage them, peaceably, on their own level with their own language. The way my brother, who knows his Bible, loves to invite Jehovah's Witnesses in because he knows he can work them on their own ground.

Which brings me to another possibility: if we ever want to engage the middle of this country, I think it's time for all of us to know the Bible, better than the Christian Right knows it themselves... It's just one book, albeit a big frickin dull-as-dirt book, but it's THE Book, the Book that every social conservative politician holds by their side as they're wending their way to the White House, and if we're serious about engaging this increasingly hard-right country, it's imperative that we learn how to engage them on their own terms, terms which are largely drawn from the Good Book. Maybe this is a crazy suggestion, but I really don't think so. We need to listen, and learn, and not let these failures turn us into sputtering Tourette's ridden lunatics... after all that's what they expect from us apparently...

And Lord we have to figure out a way to wean people off of Fox....

Citizen of the country of California

Well, it's over. Years of good political superstitions down the tubes. (What are they going to do the next time the Redskins win or lose before an incumbent election? That one is dead. So sad...) Months (okay, years) of anxiety for not, with more years of same on the way. I don't like those Florida numbers, meaning I don't believe those Florida numbers, but however they were achieved (and we'll never know as a good many of the votes that comprised them are no longer going to exist soon enough thanks to the glory of the touchscreen voting machine) there they are. There's no getting around them, as there is apparently no getting around the immovable rock which is reactionary social politics in this country. I'm almost more depressed about the eleven state constiutional amendments that passed banning gay marriage.

So for my sanity, I'm officially declaring myself a citizen of the country of California, soon to be once again a member of the country of New York, with occasional stop-offs in my native country of Minnesota. All smart, safe, blue countries. I have to realize, though it is hard, this is still America, I'm still free to pretty much be however I want to be, I mean things are just not that oppressive here in the country of California. I have to remember that. Sensitive artists have lived in countries with oppressive, corrupt governments from the beginning of time and did they sit around fucking moaning about what an asshole the king was, how he was always lying out his ass and the peasants were never calling him on it? Yes, they probably did, but they probably had far more cause to do so because the living conditions were probably a thousand times worse, and they probably had about forty years in which to dot their political bitching. I have to remind myself on occasion that I lived in Prague and I know firsthand how the other half lives, and especially past tense lived. And yet my old friends from Prague - who have lived through Communism and Communist repression - can stand our President even less than I can. So what does that say? Tonight I'm not going to there...

One thing surprised me - I was a little amazed to find out that Kelley was actually more depressed than I was. I was bucking HER up. I guess I've just had longer to be resigned. A week ago this is exactly where I imagined I would be so the only real disappointment is that it was looking so damn good the last few days. The other thing - and I just read this on Daily Kos - is exactly this: whatever happened in this election, there is nonetheless a much stronger, much more energized progressive community happening. And there is now a President who is going to have no choice but to deal with the messes he's made over the past four years. Hopefully (and I mean this, I know you don't believe me but I do) the economy will suddenly go full-blown, maybe Iraq will turn around magically and become a solid democratic Mideastern state, maybe the budget will balance, maybe people will stop dropping into poverty and homelessness, maybe new jobs that pay decent wages will actually start appearing in this country. The campaign is over, it's out of our hands now. I have to start meditating again (no this is not a non sequitir). While I don't meditate with namh yoho renghe kyo - "I believe in the law of cause and effect" - it is something I need to start concentrating on again. The Christian version is, "It's in God's hands." And there are times when it's good to remember that ultimately it's true. I'd love to forcibly change a hundred million minds in this country, two hundred million - not just to vote for a different president, but to live differently, to think differently, to be genuinely more open-minded and kinder and less victims of stupid fears and prejudices. But it's not going to happen and I would just end up making myself insane in the membrane or at the very least unbearably smug and self-righteous if I tried.

I actually feel okay right now. And I live in the beautiful, peaceful, kind, forgiving country of California. Where unlike in the equally wonderful but for different reasons country of New York I can resign myself to four more years of a Bush presidency, have time to write about it post-mortem, and still be able to go to bed at a decent hour.

2 More Days

Things look good for Kerry... and then they don't look as good... and then they look good again... and then they don't... Every blog I go on (pro-Kerry) sounds extremely optimistic, while Bush blogs sound frankly downbeat and as though they were preparing for the worst. All of the polls show a stastical dead heat, and with Bush not breaking 50%, as everyone likes to point out, as an incumbent that is all very bad news. Zogby shows Kerry ahead in Florida. Let's pretend we live in a world where the vote can't be gamed and I too am feeling very confident that Kerry is going to win this. But then there's the real world, the one we live in, where the vote can, and is gamed, and... it's one of those things that zen master Rumsfeld describes as either one of the things that you know you don't know, or one of the things that you don't know that you don't know...

But there is that anxiety, palpable amongst Bush followers, and as I was reading one article about this in the Washington Post, I came upon a very curious quote that makes me realize all the more how important it is that Kerry is elected - because there are honestly those among the Bush flock who have somehow elevated him to some kind of religious iconic status, a sort of latter day Christ holding back the final days:

But Young is not blinkered; she reads the newspapers, knows how hair-thin a margin Bush has in Ohio. Only this week she began to consider the impossible, that Bush could be right and still lose -- and put that together with her conviction that God knows what He's doing.

"If that happens, the Lord must want Kerry to be in there," she says. "If that happens, it must be the Lord is telling us we're living in the Last Days, and we'd better prepare."