I'm going ot be lazy and just post the column I wrote last night for the school newspaper I write for. I know it'll lack the non-chalant, conversational tone I can have in this venue but a) I'm fuckin' tired of thinking about it and b) this is all clean and edited thanks to my editors. Yea editors. Fuck Bush.
I'll be honest with you - it's hard to be optimistic. Every time I close my eyes, I see the image of the continental United States a blank slate of white, then state after state filling in with that sickly crimson color bleeding across our country just hours behind a setting sun.
Every thought in my head returns to free time I should've spent campaigning for Sen. John Kerry. Every cell in my body screams defeat.
But really, I should be singing with joy.
I feel foolish to have been caught up in the partisan bickering, to have written so many columns giving my nod to Kerry and slamming Bush. I feel foolish to have reregistered to vote as a Democrat. I cringe as I think of the Kerry campaign buttons on my backpack and bumper stickers on my car.
I think of the naive little nods and smiles I'd given to the Democrats canvassing the campus, the Kerry supporters stopped at the red light next to me, the progressives with clipboards and voter registration forms attempting to convince drunk frat boys Downtown they needed to register.
We had a lot of hope.
But what were we progressives really investing ourselves in? Don't get me wrong. I'm not flip-flopping yet. I still believe Kerry would've been a decent president. I know he would've done everything within his power to clean up the mess our president left.
But this problem plagued me from the start of this campaign: Whose dialogue would Kerry defend? Would we progressives - after we pushed aside our differences with the Democrats and campaigned hard for Kerry - have the voice we so desperately want to share with the world? Not likely.
Kerry is as capitalist and authoritarian as any American president in the last 50 years despite Republican claims of his liberalness.
The truth is, the right has been winning for some time now, and that lie is a perfect example. After successfully taking over the Republican Party and polarizing the two available American political platforms, the lie has pulled the Democrats to the right in a frighteningly systematic manner. The Democratic primary of 2004 boasted only two candidates who could claim to be left-wingers. Kerry, of course, wasn't one of them.
But there was promise in Kerry, who, thanks to Nader, listened to the occasional progressive now and then. The fact that he wasn't Bush didn't hurt either. We saw potential for the insatiable pull of the right to be countered by a powerful tug from what little remained of the true liberals left in this country.
Unfortunately, this election once again proves that attempting not to scare the center by denying our leftness just doesn't work. Hiding behind a facade of centrism is just a denial of the fact that the center is already in the hands of the enemy.
By pretending we are the enemy, we become the enemy. Strangely enough, it wasn't Kerry doing the pandering. It was us.
This is why we should be singing for joy. Kerry's loss is an opportunity for progressive politics to stop hiding behind a veil and start yanking on the heartstrings of the country from a direction it hasn't felt for a while.
We won't have to deal with a president who will be fighting a right-wing legislature tooth and nail. We'll have a president whose extreme right-wing agenda will run unchecked and whose re-election will encourage implementation of his most fanatical policies.
It will be the final, first-hand proof the American people need.
They need to see the neo-conservative agenda fail. They need to see their economy crumble. They need to see poor children starve. They need to see terrorists attacking us from all sides. They need to see their sons and daughters led into war after war. They need to see the skies blacken and the seas become poison.
What better world to begin the war to bring back the American people to the forces of good? Who better to make a nation of progressives than Bush?
Americans decided to throw their cards into darkness, which is their sacred democratic right. But when the fires get hot and it all appears hopeless, don't fret. We'll be waiting right here, and we have a couple of ideas.
I'll be honest with you - it's hard to be optimistic. Every time I close my eyes, I see the image of the continental United States a blank slate of white, then state after state filling in with that sickly crimson color bleeding across our country just hours behind a setting sun.
Every thought in my head returns to free time I should've spent campaigning for Sen. John Kerry. Every cell in my body screams defeat.
But really, I should be singing with joy.
I feel foolish to have been caught up in the partisan bickering, to have written so many columns giving my nod to Kerry and slamming Bush. I feel foolish to have reregistered to vote as a Democrat. I cringe as I think of the Kerry campaign buttons on my backpack and bumper stickers on my car.
I think of the naive little nods and smiles I'd given to the Democrats canvassing the campus, the Kerry supporters stopped at the red light next to me, the progressives with clipboards and voter registration forms attempting to convince drunk frat boys Downtown they needed to register.
We had a lot of hope.
But what were we progressives really investing ourselves in? Don't get me wrong. I'm not flip-flopping yet. I still believe Kerry would've been a decent president. I know he would've done everything within his power to clean up the mess our president left.
But this problem plagued me from the start of this campaign: Whose dialogue would Kerry defend? Would we progressives - after we pushed aside our differences with the Democrats and campaigned hard for Kerry - have the voice we so desperately want to share with the world? Not likely.
Kerry is as capitalist and authoritarian as any American president in the last 50 years despite Republican claims of his liberalness.
The truth is, the right has been winning for some time now, and that lie is a perfect example. After successfully taking over the Republican Party and polarizing the two available American political platforms, the lie has pulled the Democrats to the right in a frighteningly systematic manner. The Democratic primary of 2004 boasted only two candidates who could claim to be left-wingers. Kerry, of course, wasn't one of them.
But there was promise in Kerry, who, thanks to Nader, listened to the occasional progressive now and then. The fact that he wasn't Bush didn't hurt either. We saw potential for the insatiable pull of the right to be countered by a powerful tug from what little remained of the true liberals left in this country.
Unfortunately, this election once again proves that attempting not to scare the center by denying our leftness just doesn't work. Hiding behind a facade of centrism is just a denial of the fact that the center is already in the hands of the enemy.
By pretending we are the enemy, we become the enemy. Strangely enough, it wasn't Kerry doing the pandering. It was us.
This is why we should be singing for joy. Kerry's loss is an opportunity for progressive politics to stop hiding behind a veil and start yanking on the heartstrings of the country from a direction it hasn't felt for a while.
We won't have to deal with a president who will be fighting a right-wing legislature tooth and nail. We'll have a president whose extreme right-wing agenda will run unchecked and whose re-election will encourage implementation of his most fanatical policies.
It will be the final, first-hand proof the American people need.
They need to see the neo-conservative agenda fail. They need to see their economy crumble. They need to see poor children starve. They need to see terrorists attacking us from all sides. They need to see their sons and daughters led into war after war. They need to see the skies blacken and the seas become poison.
What better world to begin the war to bring back the American people to the forces of good? Who better to make a nation of progressives than Bush?
Americans decided to throw their cards into darkness, which is their sacred democratic right. But when the fires get hot and it all appears hopeless, don't fret. We'll be waiting right here, and we have a couple of ideas.