gwyn: (mal gun)
Just 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] 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.
gwyn: (space squared)
I never thought I would live in a country that willfully chooses to viciously discriminate against its citizens because some of those citizens ignorantly buy into the empty rhetoric of religious lunatics and fearmongers.

I never thought I would live in a country that willingly elects someone to office despite his flagrant disregard for the well-being of its citizens, their livelihoods, their Constitutional freedoms, and their civil rights. When did a "tax-break" check for a few hundred dollars become a substitute for proper governance?

I never thought I would live in a country that gladly supports the invasion of a foreign country, however odious they are, as a way to divert attention from the administration's utter failure to protect its citizens from terrorism.

I never thought I would live in a country that supports the worst forms of abuse of prisoners or legal detainees, advocates the denial of basic human rights, and then makes such abuses legal inside its own borders.

I never thought I would live in a country that can't learn from its own sad history that prohibitive changes to that most fundamental of freedoms, the Constitution of the United States of America, violate everything our country stands for and was created to pursue.

I never thought I'd live in a country I was ashamed of because it elects a half-witted man who refuses to learn from mistakes, admit failure, change or grow, or even experience empathy for other individuals less fortunate than him. I never thought I would be afraid to travel outside the U.S., because I am embarassed to say I'm American.

I never thought I'd live in a country that believes narrow-minded bigotry is God's word. That was always others countries, other places ruled by fundamentalists with despotic delusions. It was not my America, founded on the notion that all Men are created equal, that we have a right to freedom of and from religion.

I never thought I would live in a country that actively perverts fears of terrorism into a denial of our rights and encourages people to believe in hollow palliatives. I never thought my country would actually violate its own Constitution in the name of "freedom."

I never thought I would live in a country where I hated so many people for their refusal to stand up and help effect change, and would allow a megalomaniacal, bigoted, anti-intellectual, stupid, and mean religious wack-job to crow that he has a mandate from the people. I never thought my country would allow apathy to govern its populace.

I never thought I would live in a country that offers me no good response to encourage those who don't vote. How can I say it matters when the bad guys win the day every time? How can I change their minds when a quasi-Illuminati-like organization of people who are not elected by the citizens of this country get to decide who runs it, even though we have no idea who they are or how they are chosen to elect for us?

I never thought I would watch everything I love and value about this country, even the First Amendment I would lay down my life for because I believe so strongly in it, being taken away from me, inexorably, and no one in power is willing to stop it.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I never thought I would wake up one day and live in a country I fear to live in. But today is that day.
gwyn: (ciao jidabug)
I had a whole post finished this morning, and then the building went zworp! and all our power went out. Feh.

Anyways, all I was yammering about was how I am in denial. This afternoon I will go deposit my absentee ballot, but I truly believe that that evil, half-witted, cretinous, moronic little martinet Bush will win again with his even more evil Psycho Killer vice president, and that my vote won't matter in the long run. Not that I like Kerry that much, but I prefer scary teeth and incomprehensible speeches to staring at that despicable man's repulsive little beady eyes while he lies to this country and the world. At least I would just sort of feel bleh, as opposed to ashamed of and for my country. But I am pretty much convinced that most of middle America thinks Bush is okay, and don't mind being lied to by a craven, cheating coward.

So I take refuge in fanfic, where the worst things characters have to deal with are just First Evils and/or sleazy crime lords who like street racing. I prefer this quite a bit, in fact. To that end, I'm making progress on some fronts. I am nearly finished with Ch. 7 of Measure of a Man. It was such a relief to figure out where I needed to go to get from the mid point to the end. I was stuck trying to get my characters towards the end of the story, and finally, finally had an epiphany about it this weekend. Plus I even figured a way to get Wes and Faith together, which is ... whee!

I'm doing Buffy by day and F&F by night. Though I spent most of last night starting the death story, and got about 1,000+ words on that, and about 250 more on Ciudad de Estrellas part 3. Now, before people who hate WIPs and think they're not written fast enough go for my jugular, let me say in my defense that the death story was bleeding over into everything else, and I needed to write it down before it started to really infect my other writing. I keep thinking about it to the exclusivity of almost everything else, and unless I get the bones of it down, I won't be able to really focus well on the other things. So there. Hopefully once most of it is down, I can do more than 250 words at a time on Ciudad.

As critical of WIPs as I often am and as much as I hate myself for doing them now, I must admit, they are an impetus to finish. Before, when I got stuck and didn't know where to go or was consumed by another idea, I would abandon a piece, even if it was far along, because no one had seen it, so there was no loss. There are quite a few unfinished longer fics in the dusty drawers, and so bad as WIPs are in many ways, they do at least force me to keep trying, even when I'm stymied.

And now I have to head off to the dentist, to add to my election day joy. They feel about the same weight for me -- a choice that's no choice for governor (both candidates are especially odious), and the probability of someone I loathe and despise staring at me with his beady little weasel eyes for four more years. Fanfic, take me away!

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