my thoughts on the American election

This morning I was actually crying. It’s not like I hadn’t expected Bush to win. I’ve been telling myself and those around me for months that it would be okay if Bush won the election because he’ll fuck up the country so badly that there will be no choice but to elect Hillary in 2008. But when the election was actually going on I couldn’t help but hope that people would surprise me and that Kerry would win. He didn’t.

I feel so hopeless about people. That people are selfish and stupid enough to vote for Bush (and Howard); to vote for interest rates and tax cuts rather than the economic health of a global world; for anti-abortion laws rather than anti-war and anti-poverty, disease and starvation policies… I like to think that there is value on all sides of an issue, that all philosophies and world-views have merit, but right now I just think Republicans, Conservatives, whatever party-name they go by, are evil. They either cannot and will not see beyond their own personal, narrow moral universe, are so desperate they need to feel morally superior, or ultimately understand that being tolerant, accepting diversity, giving women power and gay people equal status would totally destabilise the power structure as we know it.

And this election proves, to me, that no one is buying the Democrats are really Republicans thing. Just be a fucking Democrat – liberal and proud! Take back the word liberal and make Americans understand that there is no other way to be in a globalised, diverse and rapidly changing world other than to value tolerance, freedom (and I mean real freedom, not freedom to feel like you live in an all-powerful country) and to have basic human rights needs such as healthcare and education, housing and transportation, met by the people as a whole through effective government use of taxes.

My mom called me a couple days ago and told me that Christians were praying in groups for George Bush to win. How can he not win when all that positive energy is directed towards him winning? Lefties, liberals, Democrats, Laborites need to get passionate, get together and send lefty energy to the rest of the populace. If we are as committed to the rightness of our ideals as the Right are to theirs, then we can change the world. They have.