Still reeling
Nov. 4th, 2004 07:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynJust to clarify some of what I said yesterday about how fearful I am of the path my country has taken in this election: I'm not going quietly into that bad nightmare. I have no intention of letting right-wing zealots and bigots take my country away from me, especially when the lessons of this kind of thing are already there in front of us. I refuse to stand by and allow people to pretend that our often miserable history is meaningless, and allow us to repeat our mistakes. I grew up in a politically active conservative family, but my parents worked for very progressive causes. My dad was, at almost 80 years old, out every single day this summer getting signatures for an initiative on our state ballot. I learned from my folks that even if you get nowhere, you have to take that first step.
And I believe people have every right to feel as angry and scared and betrayed as they want to, and lecturing, holier-than-thou posts from others aren't going to help them get past it. For a lot of us, this isn't about Kerry, but about the terrible precedents being set in many states, and the candidates who won Congressional offices. Part of the process is being angry, and pedantic posts telling people that of *course* they were going to have their rights stripped away in state after state was to be expected, grow up you silly things is maybe not the best way to communicate with people who are angry and in shock.
What concerns me most, oddly, is the moderate Republicans, which used to mean my parents, actually. Yesterday my office-mate defended her straight Republican voting to me by saying that she voted for Bush only because of the tax thing and she wants government off people's backs, but she thinks he's a moron. Which, considering the Patriot Act and its shameful stripping away of our basic freedoms, whatever. But she kept saying that she would never support those anti-gay marriage bills, or any other kind of hate-based law, and blah blah. And I thought, well, that's great. But you know what? You voted into office again a man who has spent the past year trying to change our Constitution because of his hate, and as a smokescreen for his failure to protect and lead this country. You voted into office evil people who will continue to expand this fight. And now you will sit back and do nothing, because your candidate won, and now you can kick back and wait for your tax break to come in. You have no reason to do anything more. Are you going to fight from within to change your party from right-wing nutjob Christians only to one that encompasses actual thinking and caring people? Are you going to try to make the Republican party not one of hate and fear? Are you going to effect change so that you stand for something more than bigotry and tax breaks? No, of course not. You got what you wanted. And that's what scares me the most -- the moderates claim they don't support most of the Republican agenda, and yet they will not stand up and try to do something to change that agenda. That's why I'm ashamed of my country. The Democrats may be fucked up, but you know what? At least they keep trying, even though they do the wrong thing a lot of the time.
I find it odd that the all the Bushies who whined about a possible nightmare future under Kerry are now the ones talking about "healing" the divisiveness in this country. What a joke. Of course they're the ones talking about healing, they got what they wanted: four more years of the fuckwit who MADE the terrible rifts in this country in the first place. The irony, though, is lost on them as they reach out with their false concern. It's easy to be the ones talking about healing, isn't it, when you got what you wanted, and now the rest of us have to suffer with your beliefs. To the victor go the spoils, though -- as well as the right to condescendingly talk about "healing."
And for those who need a bit of good news,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
darkrhiannon had this wonderful note at http://www.livejournal.com/users/darkrhiannon/114470.html
And now I'm back on to fanfic and fandom, because politics is making me sick to my stomach, literally. I have to read about it all day at work, and then it's everywhere else. I want to take refuge in my crzay alternate realities now. And people fucking like bunnies, especially same-sex people who flout all the anti-gay hate laws.
And I believe people have every right to feel as angry and scared and betrayed as they want to, and lecturing, holier-than-thou posts from others aren't going to help them get past it. For a lot of us, this isn't about Kerry, but about the terrible precedents being set in many states, and the candidates who won Congressional offices. Part of the process is being angry, and pedantic posts telling people that of *course* they were going to have their rights stripped away in state after state was to be expected, grow up you silly things is maybe not the best way to communicate with people who are angry and in shock.
What concerns me most, oddly, is the moderate Republicans, which used to mean my parents, actually. Yesterday my office-mate defended her straight Republican voting to me by saying that she voted for Bush only because of the tax thing and she wants government off people's backs, but she thinks he's a moron. Which, considering the Patriot Act and its shameful stripping away of our basic freedoms, whatever. But she kept saying that she would never support those anti-gay marriage bills, or any other kind of hate-based law, and blah blah. And I thought, well, that's great. But you know what? You voted into office again a man who has spent the past year trying to change our Constitution because of his hate, and as a smokescreen for his failure to protect and lead this country. You voted into office evil people who will continue to expand this fight. And now you will sit back and do nothing, because your candidate won, and now you can kick back and wait for your tax break to come in. You have no reason to do anything more. Are you going to fight from within to change your party from right-wing nutjob Christians only to one that encompasses actual thinking and caring people? Are you going to try to make the Republican party not one of hate and fear? Are you going to effect change so that you stand for something more than bigotry and tax breaks? No, of course not. You got what you wanted. And that's what scares me the most -- the moderates claim they don't support most of the Republican agenda, and yet they will not stand up and try to do something to change that agenda. That's why I'm ashamed of my country. The Democrats may be fucked up, but you know what? At least they keep trying, even though they do the wrong thing a lot of the time.
I find it odd that the all the Bushies who whined about a possible nightmare future under Kerry are now the ones talking about "healing" the divisiveness in this country. What a joke. Of course they're the ones talking about healing, they got what they wanted: four more years of the fuckwit who MADE the terrible rifts in this country in the first place. The irony, though, is lost on them as they reach out with their false concern. It's easy to be the ones talking about healing, isn't it, when you got what you wanted, and now the rest of us have to suffer with your beliefs. To the victor go the spoils, though -- as well as the right to condescendingly talk about "healing."
And for those who need a bit of good news,
darkrhiannon had this wonderful note at http://www.livejournal.com/users/darkrhiannon/114470.htmlAnd now I'm back on to fanfic and fandom, because politics is making me sick to my stomach, literally. I have to read about it all day at work, and then it's everywhere else. I want to take refuge in my crzay alternate realities now. And people fucking like bunnies, especially same-sex people who flout all the anti-gay hate laws.
