And it's a lump of coal.

[tenaya]

I was on a touch-base phone call to a friend last night and she had to suffer through me going, "Shit! Nevada went red!" Finally, she said she was turning in and said it was like Christmas Eve and she'd find out in the morning if Santa left her nice presents or a lump of coal.

Yet another disappointed rant:
How to make sense of this? It's stunning and unnerving that so many voted for Bush. I'm just going to skip why it was a good choice to vote him out and skip to the bottom line.

We'll have four more years of our young men and women as cannon fodder for Bush's religous war. That will eventually sicken people. And I'm sure the draft is coming; that ought to be popular. Not.

We'll have four more years of Bush/Cheney/big business transferring wealth from the middle class to the rich. More tax cuts for the rich, more lost jobs for the middle class, more people without health care. The young will be able to gamble their social security on the stock market (see transference of wealth to the wealthy.)

Four more years of pushing the Religious Right's moral issues. As the economy worses, intolerance will grow worse because it *must* be the fault of those who aren't straight/white/christian. We can kiss goodbye the Pro-choice laws, our natural resources and enviroment. Look for heighten anger towards illegal immigration in the states that border Mexico (yes, Bush is in bed with Fox, but he doesn't help out with the costs of the border states as they pay for the social services that these folk require, thus stretching the resources and making EVERYBODY bloody unhappy.)

I think in four years people will be much worse off and the pendulum will start swinging the other direction and maybe start to hold certain freedoms (of thought, of choice, etc...) in higher esteem.

I don't think it's a coincidence that the West Coast and North East voted against Bush. These areas have the most interaction with international influences. The middle of the country is protected by it's inherent vastness where the rest of the world doesn't even make the evening news. The preachings of their local church have much more importance and therefore the threat of gay marriage, stem cell research and their daughters having access to an abortion is much more horrific than the chaos that is the Middle East. And I think that is why they voted for the smiling man who uses the same religious catch phrases that they use. They aren't indifferent to what is happening in the world; they just don't know about it and they don't want to know. What international news they are exposed to has been sanitized and given a good spin by our news services.

And just to put it in perspective, it's an attitude that has always been with mankind and is not isolated to just the US. I'm not defending it; I had hoped we could rise above it, though.


In any case, it's time to stock up on lube because I think we're going to be screwed over quite a bit in the next four years.

Comments

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

Very good points.

It has happened to all of us in diferent times of our collective history. Sometimes not knowing feels safer. Even when your choice only made your life more dangerous in the long run.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

I guess that's the difference between living in the here and now, and having foresight.

But when you think about, what risk does the person have that is living in the middle of the country? They will never be targeted. The only risk they run is if they or a family member goes into the armed services. I'm sure it's a very comfortable situation for them.

[nausica2.livejournal.com]

This is the insanity of the whole thing. They won't probably be a victim of terrorism in the middle of those huge areas because terrorists will probably threaten big cities or famous location to make more impact. But they will feel attacked anyway because it feels close to home. They have always been cooconed and safe and living in the best country of the world. And what happens outside is confusing and big and not black and white. It sort of makes sense that they feel George W. is a strong and good leader, just for the same reasons we think he's a walking disaster.

Maybe it's because you've never suffered wars at home except for the Independence war and the Civil war? And those were old-fashioned wars. If your territory had suffered devastation the way Europe suffered in WWI and WWII (or my country with our Civil war, the first war where civilians were targeted by massive bombings) it would be different.

I'm just guessing, but I've always felt that we Europeans feel way older and more cynical, and the roots of many anti-americanism may be in the fact that sometimes you look like innocent and bouncy children. Or that was how I perceived it some years ago.

Right now I just think that mixing our cynism and experience and your willingness to innovate and build from scratch would be a something impossible to beat, but it doesn't seem like it's going to hapen anytime soon. Shame.