11.03.2004
i, squub
MISTAKEN. A reminder. (from: in my diatribe (see links to the right.))
"Last night's outcome leads me to believe the majority of this nation is comprised of God-fearing Christians. We are represented by a leader who has divided the country, and has turned a deaf ear to the rest of the world. We are in a holy war, and our European predecessors are very concerned. We have been instilled with fear: fear of God, fear of the Muslim world, fear everywhere we turn. Fear and hate is in the air; can't you smell it? They call it faith." - Bob Mould
A new leaf for me, maybe. My right-leaning/center readership (if it exists) may now begin to want to tune me out. I'll be easily dismissed, now, as a moonbat, a leftie, a (gasp...) LIBERAL. Here's the thing: I don't share an agenda with the Democrats, for the most part, to the best of my knowledge. I don't know what anybody means when they say "liberal." I'm for sensible, conservative fiscal responsibility on the part of the government (and am trying to be fiscally conservative personally.) I think people should lead moral lives. I think people should take responsibility for their actions. I don't think the government should be a huge, bloated money-devouring beaurocracy.
A lot of Bush supporters seem to think that they've got the fucking market cornered on those things. Everyone who doesn't agree with Bush therefore fits one of those evil labels: moonbatleftieliberal. If that helps you sleep at night, then so be it. Lump me in with whoever the fuck the head Moonbat is. Paint me with a tinfoil hat and bloodshot eyes darting around the room. Ignore me.
Here's some other things I'm for: Personal freedom, the freedom to do what we want so long as it doesn't cause harm to others. The right to expect that government agents shouldn't be allowed to run roughshod over those rights in the name of "Homeland Security" or "anti-terrorism" or "Patriotism." The right to not feel obligated to say I believe this nation is somehow "under God;" the right to say I think anyone who thinks God is personally guiding them through this morass is just a little bit fucking crazy, but that that's okay so long as I'm not expected to go along with them. The right to expect that the President of my Country not lead our country in a religious crusade.
I resent the Patriot Act. I resent being lied to. I resent being unable to have the facts at my disposal to know WHY we're in Iraq. I resent that I've been forced to choose between supporting a decision to go to war based on what was at best bad intelligence, and protesting a military action that might, in the long run, help to straighten out this ugly world. If we went to war because having a few known-variables there in the middle East in the form of some Democracies modeled after us is preferable to letting them straighten their own shit out then we should've fucking been told that. But that's not what we were told, and these people who are unable to admit that this country was effectively deceived into fighting this war should have to answer for the deception.
There was a deception somewhere. Dick Cheney does not state as a fact that Saddam has nuclear-weapon capabilities, when in fact that's untrue, if someone didn't deceive someone. What he said, what the administration said, was not simple overstatement. It was deception. They said they knew. They could not have known to be true something that was not true. Someone important was lying to someone else important. Whether the intelligence community was lying to the president's men or the president's men were lying to the American public is almost immaterial. EXPLAIN THE FUCKING DISCONNECT. Whether or not there are other good reasons for the war is immaterial; it's a slight of hand. A fucking card trick. EXPLAIN THE FUCKING LIE.
There was a lie surrounding that situation. That is a fact. The vote tallies nationwide from yesterday may be a reflection of reality. They may be telling us that most of this country supports the President. But the tallies could also be a deception. If you want to think those are the words of a lot of children who didn't get their way, that's your prerogative. If you want to dismiss out-of-hand the possibility that, having lied to the American people (to say nothing of the rest of the world, which I understand amidst Bush-supporters it's not cool to be concerned about,) about so massive a thing as Saddam's nuclear capabilities, they could have figured out and implemented a way to make sure their guy wins then go ahead. Dismiss the possibility.
I make no claim that this happened. I am as willing to believe that this country's majority doesn't agree with me as I am to believe the possibility of election tampering. What I'm not willing to do, in this case, is to hold my tongue for fear of someone thinking I'm being paranoid. I won't be one of the voices saying it's time to forget partisanship and work together; I do not support either party, I think their idea of "together" does not include a large percentage of the population. I have been afraid of these people from the start. I didn't believe the reasons they gave for going to war because they offered no proof. In this, if in no other case, I have been proven right. If they absolutely knew these weapons, or these capabilities, existed, then they should absolutely have proof to give us now of what became of all of it.
I am angry that even one person voted for these people in this election. I said very little about John Kerry during the campaign season because he was the lesser evil; but I voted for him because voting for his opponent seemed to me to be the height of idiocy. Kerry was not a man who necessarily spoke for me (though I did like him, and I still to, he would not have been my first choice.) He was the only way I could see to get these deceivers to answer for the mistakes that they won't admit to having made and for the lies that they won't admit to having told. He was the only way I could see to remove from power a group of men that I have every reason to believe want to strip us of many of our liberties.
Recourse: black box voting (from Root.Cellar.)
I've never voted in the past because single votes don't matter in the national election. I've not changed my mind. What matters is numbers, and my going to the polls is part of my effort to have a lot of others do the same thing. I despise that thing people say, that, "If you didn't vote, when it counts, then don't complain." To me it's an idiotic falsehood. I'm positive there are many, many voters, in numbers large enough to really matter, who are convinced which way to vote based on the complaints or praises of a few people. To me the opposite holds: what really counts is that those of us who have an argument to make, make it. Support it. Understand it.
Of course then trying to convince anyone else that their vote doesn't count is another thing I've got to abhor. I stopped making the argument this election season for that reason. I voted in part in order that I couldn't make the argument sensibly. Additionally, I can think of no better means of self-governance than the democratic one. No matter how you cut it, democracy means everyone gets to raise his or her hand. This doesn't change the fact that when there are too many hands to count every single one, the importance of a single hand is vastly diminished. That's just numbers.
This isn't a creed. This is the stale, rubbery air escaping from a slash in my tire. This is me being unable to focus on my job and my life and so trying to purge. I fully expect that I'll drift back to my usual self, either pointing at absurdity wherever I see it or not pointing at anything at all. But I very much feel the need to claim my place. If traditional media is a feedback loop, amplifying the customers' obsessions and ignoring the fact that people don't necessarily want to pay to hear the truth if the lies are more entertaining, and if the internets have the effect of allowing the pigeon-holers and the name callers and the black-and-whiters to bubble to the surface until it looks like everyone is either for us or against us, then this doesn't fit. I don't want this to fit. I don't need to fit. But I do want it to be known that I, for one, don't buy any of it anymore. This shit's all fucked up. I hope someone's paying attention.
I see that Kerry conceded and that's what it is. I didn't expect anything else. But pay attention to these guys. I imagine they'll get away with whatever means they've used to reach their ends; but maybe someone will figure out a way to show the public that more of us should join the reality-based community next time around.
