Comic posted Thursday, Nov 4, 2004

Posted: 9:11 am, Thursday, November 4, 2004

MNP wanted to know where the post-election rant was yesterday. I'll go Wonkette on you and say it was at the bottom of a tall glass of whiskey. In truth, I was just shellshocked, and had a stack of e-mail to get through. I'll share some of them with you now, in Five Bucks To Friday Tries to Heal America. Keep in mind none of this is actually all that helpful, but I found it immensely therapeutic to hear from people as sad, angry, confused, distraught, horrified, embarrassed, and scared as I was (and continue to be). (By the way, I'm not going to make a habit of posting personal e-mails here, lest my friends be horrified of every writing me again, but I figured we need all the help we can get today.)

Carrie:

So I guess we are all going to die now. Thanks for being my friend, dude.

At least we've started on a high note, right, America? Mandate, my heiney!

RAW brings the obscenity:

I fucking hate Ohio! Fucking ignorant white trash sons of bitches!

"Gee, I've never even known a gay person in my life, but I'd be willing to let my son die in a pointless war as long as I can impose my narrow moral values on people I've never met. Also, I'm scared that terrorists might blow up the factory from where I've recently been laid off. What's that? The Department of Homeland Security might imprison me indefinitely for discussing terrorism in an email? I don't care. Only terrorists are worried about having their email monitored. Besides, the DHS only destroys the rights of those who match foreign terrorist stereotypes (aka Muslims)," says Cletus the slack-jawed Ohioan.

Fuck!

By the way, he's from Ohio, so that carries a bit more weight than the rantings coming from me aimed at the South in a little bit. Also, if you're more for a news-release style of reporting than RAW's pseudo-man on the street style, check out the Voice.

Tree:

I always thought you were a bit crazy - still do - but where can I get a "Not My President" shirt?

Right here. I wore mine to the polls, and the lady told me she liked my shirt but I wasn't supposed to be wearing it. So I held my jacket closed. But, while 2.0 was in the booth (2.0 had my BUllSHit shirt on, but her jacket buttons, whereas I ripped the zipper off mine after zippering my shirt into it once), the woman said, "Oh, just let me see what it says real quick." So I showed her, and she was horrified - the text is off to one side, which she couldn't read at first. Evidently, this woman thought I was wearing a pro-Bush t-shirt! I'm 26! I live in Brooklyn! Are you kidding me?!

Not related entirely to the election, Lauren's boss is in Gitmo, keeping a blog on the "proceedings" down that way. A small excerpt:

More troubling still, the panelist - two of whom have no legal training, remember - struggled to understand even the most basic legal concept. One of the charges levied against Hicks is "destruction of property by an unprivileged belligerent." The defense appropriately moved to dismiss the charge on the grounds that destruction of property is a war crime only if the property is "protected" under the Geneva Conventions; the defense pointed out that the prosecution had not alleged that the destroyed property was protected. Col. Bogdan treated this straightforward argument as frivolous. He asked, "Isn't the status of the property something we should decide at trial?" But, as any lawyer can tell you, the question of whether a crime has been alleged is certainly not something that should be decided at trial. We don't subject a person to a criminal trial if the government can't allege that he's committed a crime.

In my modest readership, I can boast a 2L, a 3L and a JD, that I'm sure of (I'm lucky that the 2L still does - I was pretty rude to him yesterday). I'm sure this makes more sense to them than it does to most of us, even though it's pretty straightforward. Why mention it in my effort to heal America? Because of this other bit that Tree sent me.

"With a bigger majority, we can do even more exciting things," DeLay told a local TV station in Texas.

I'm guessing these more exciting things include instituting this sort of justice on the mainland.

So, OK, I guess I'm not really healing much of anything at the moment. But, here, here comes some good. I talked to my boss yesterday, telling her that I would be taking a pretty late lunch so that 2.0 and I could meet up and stroll around the park or something, because 2.0 was pretty upset. Now, it's no real secret that my job drives me insane, but I do like my boss. I think she's pretty smart and awfully reasonable - she talked me down from forever abandoning a friend that I discovered attended the RNC the night that that stupid anti-American fuckhole waste of life accepted his reelection bid.

My boss said, "My earliest political memory, and this was when I very young, was my parents talking in very serious, hushed, grown-up talk during the Adlai Stevenson-Eisenhower election that, if Eisenhower got in, the world would end. And he did, and it didn't. But people at the time, some, were very convinced that it would bring about the end. So this has been going on for quite a while now."

So, the world is a lot more unpredictable right now. Instead of the USSR and mutually assured destruction, our enemy is our own government who wants to bring the Apocalypse and the Kingdom of their god to pass, and terrorists who believe the reward for their actions is 72 virgins and honey. (Why 72, by the way? Or am I just making that up? I could be.) But, I mean, the world has been under constant threat of total annihilation for six decades. And it's yet to happen. So that's something.

The fact that that's the only thing to grasp on to, that's sad. But, still.

My own take on things? I'm actually remarkably calm. I don't know if this is still afterglow from the Sox - I'd like to think that a baseball team didn't have that much control over my psyche, but it's starting to look like it may have - but I'm taking this in relative stride.

The big question for me, honestly, is do I bother to fight for America, or do I leave? I looked up the exchange rate, real estate, and the job market in New Zealand, and it all looks somewhat favorable. I think I'm taking tomorrow off, maybe 2.0 and I will drive up to New Paltz after her class and we can hike in the woods if it's nice out. Mikey and I were discussing the healing properties of a romp in the woods, I know walking on railroad tracks has been beneficial to him more than once. The problem with this - the problem with escapism - is that I know too much. I've read too much, and there's no way to unknow some stuff that I know. I wish that there was. So, I could go to a country where sheep outnumber people, I could be a shepherd, I could spend the rest of my life in a cottage somewhere with 2.0, but in the back of my mind, it would always nag me, the stuff I know about America, how we shit on the poor and the rest of the world in general, how scared, stupid people are kept that way by Republicans who cry wolf. I've got to decide if that nagging in the back of my mind is something I can live with.

My boss also said that in the 60s, when the Dems just had everything under lock and key and the country was actually making some progress, the current crop of lunatic conservatives got their start running locally - real local, like school boards. Is that the way? Do we have to retake America from the ground up? I'm starting to think we do. Maybe that's what I'll do instead of leave. But maybe not.

So, yeah. Hope no one's too outraged over just the presidency to forget to be outraged over the gay marriage bans, also. A quick excerpt:

Conservatives and those who attend church regularly were particularly supportive; better-educated voters were less likely to be.

So, we may be losers here at Five Bucks, but we're better-educated losers.

OK, the level of discourse has been pretty tame for the most part, so I need to get one bile-filled paragraph out of the way to appease my key demographic of leftist rageaholics. Much like how I tried to only drip with Sox-inspired love for only one day, I give my solemn word to try and only spew this anger for one day, for any of my right-leaning readers. Hey, we lost, and we lost bad - let me vent for a little. If you don't like obscenity, don't read the next paragraph. Here goes:

What the fuck is wrong with this country?! Metropolitan Republicans, don't you feel a burning, crippling shame for siding with the South? Look at the map! You see Mississippi and Alabama? Have you ever been to Alabama? It has more in common with a third world country than it does a city in Northeast. I'm not kidding. I'm seriously not kidding. Mississippi! What has Mississippi ever done right? Seriously, name one thing. They wanted to keep public universities segregated as recently as the 60s! They didn't ratify the 13th Amendment - the one outlawing fucking slavery - until 1994! (second to last and last lines) NINETEEN NINETY-FUCKING-FOUR. And you, the metropolitan Bush voter, have more in common with those people than you do with me. Do you understand that? How do you live being able to agree politically with those people, those people who are not necessarily bad people, they're just hopelessly undereducated, hopelessly naive, hopelessly believing? Honestly, it's horrifying. I'd die. So, everyone who voted for Bush, congratulations. I hope you're all real fucking pleased with yourself, and go buy another eight Goddamn American flags from Wal-Mart to post around your fucking number 8 decal on your fucking SUV as you drive to Goddamn McDonald's on your break from the plant that's getting shut down so that the dad of the kid who made your clothes in a sweatshop can have your job for a tenth what you get, asshole, and that your goddamn kid either knocks up his girlfriend or gets knocked up herself because of your ass-crazy faith-based abstinence-only sex-ed classes tell them that condoms burn the mark of the beast onto any patch of skin that they touch, and God knows the Pill is going to be fucking nearly impossible to get by the time this asshole gets done, and you'll have to help support the kid with your new wage as a greeter at the aforementioned Wal-Mart well into your eighties, because your social security just got invested into Halliburton so that Cheney can pay poor people to stand there while he flings his feces at them like a monkey for his dark-hearted entertainment. Seriously, did you guys not see the shots from Republican centers around the country, where they were awaiting the results? You people want to be with them? They were the lamest-looking bunch of motherfuckers I've ever seen. Party with them all you want. Me and my friends, we're out of here. Fuck you all very much. Have fun, America, when you've chased off all of the educated, the young, the driven, the movers, and all you have are rich gasbag blowhards, and all you can hear is a boot stomping on a human face forever. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.

That didn't heal America at all, but it sure felt good to say. Want to read it without the obscenity? First read this op-ed from the Times, and then the e-mail from a friend of my boss's daughter.

So the upshot of Kristof's column is, if Democrats just became more like Republicans they could cut into the moron vote? No, thanks. It has ever been thus; as P.T. Barnum famously observed, "Nobody's ever lost a dime underestimating the intelligence of the American people," and Karl Rove would certainly concur. "As for me and my house, we shall serve the Lord."

To the residents of our "heartland," the "God, gays, guns, and grizzlies" crew, I say, congratulations. In four years you'll have the America you want. You will have outlawed abortion in a health care system that you can no longer afford to use. You'll have prayer in public schools that completely fail to usefully educate your children before spitting them out into a land of limited opportunity. You will have your grand patriotic displays and emotional tributes to our "brave fighting men and women" as we proudly send them--mostly your sons and daughters, and certainly not the scions of wealth and privilege--off to be slaughtered in an endless war that we can neither win nor escape. You will have politicians of all stripes making endless obeisance to your twisted and most un-Christian "values," but you won't have a decent job or a secure retirement or a justified soul. You'll be able to own all the guns that you want, but no arsenal could ever protect you from the consequences of what you've done.  

To all the "Christians" who have let loose the wolves upon the fold; who would defraud the poor and the sick and further afflict the helpless so as to ever more comfort the comfortable; who would despoil all Creation for their earthly gain then set yourselves up in hallowed righteousness above other sinners; I say to you that the Lord hears what is in the secret places of your hearts more truly and more surely than he does the honeyed words that slither from your tongues, and His judgments are sure and righteous.  

To all those who say, "My country, right or wrong," I say that wrong will never be right. A thousand baptisms cannot wash away the blood of innocents, and a mouth full of golden platitudes cannot disguise a soul stained with hatred and violence. The tears of a million angels will never cleanse your consciences.  

To the gay-bashing bastard sons and harlot daughters of this land, I can no longer say, "Judge not lest ye be judged," for the time for choice and so the opportunity for mercy is come and gone. Instead I say to you that the judgment is upon you, and ye will reap all that ye have sown.  

To all those who are celebrating today, I say that you have unleashed a plague upon this land; you can smear all the blood you want on your lintels and door posts, but your house, too, shall suffer.

E sent me this, and we m'ise well end with it.

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

- Langston Hughes

Paraphrasing Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for evil to win is for good to do nothing. We have a lot of good out there. Let's not do nothing. (Of course, I reserve the right to change my mind again and flee the country, but remember, I work a block from what m'ise well be a giant fucking bull's eye, so cut me some slack.)

bullfrog