I am going to touch on last week's election for what I hope is the last time for awhile. I have some things I need to be said and shared, not only about what life has been like the last four years, but the fears I have for the next four. Perhaps doing so might clear up why I am so upset, so disgusted and so scared. I have growing reason to believe some of the readers out there either don't understand my feelings, or my reaction to them. And, rest assured, I have more than enough to make myself sick over for the next four years without more misunderstandings.
This isn't so much about politics, but society. A society that has taken a turn for the worse in the last four years, and there's no signs of improvement in sight.
The following are excerpts of editorials from
Jeff Rense's website.
http://www.rense.com/general59/godse.htmWhat you are about to read is an actual email Jeff Rense received...
Mr. Rense,
Hello! I believe what we have here as far as the 2004 elections is a close tie between the devil and God. Not Kerry and Bush. And God prevailed obviously and placed the most morale person in office during the "end times".
Abortion and Christanity are reasons for my voting for Bush along with the gay marriage ban! I have been rejoicing since Bush's (the good Lord aboves Win!) victory. He is a family and moral man and believes in the sanctity of marriage, honesty, anti-choice/pro life. He is going back to the beliefs of our founding fathers of the U.S.A.
Of course since God is with Bush the world hates him because they don't want to turn to the bible and away from their vile-sinful lifestyles that are abominable to God. Jesus was hated by the world too. Doesn't it make since when you are born again TRULY through the blood of Christ the world would hate you too? Well, that is Bush. Wake-up. Bush sincerely cares about this nation because he has the love of God living within him. So, it is ones choice to accept Christ or not. If not they send themselves to hell by living in opposition to Gods rule. Don't blame him.
God Bless,
(Name removed)
http://www.rense.com/general59/dfkig.htmHow clever it all was.
And what a joke. Kerry's tent-folding, whimped-out, contrived 'unity' concession speech revealed the final page of the whole story: the entire campaign, especially after the elimination of front-runner Gov Howard Dean, was all a set-up...a tawdry, clever, masterfully executed circus of deception, manipulation and deceit. Kerry ran off so fast November 3, all you could see were elbows and dust...and the back of his Skull and Bones t-shirt. Can America spell 'betrayed'?
The election wasn't 'stolen' - the vote totals were simply and easily manipulated to ensure the Bushmen got the numbers needed to score the 'official' win.
The whole 'campaign' was designed, brilliantly, to rouse, excite and rile-up the still mentally-functional, caring, legitimately moral portion of society into actually thinking their votes counted... and that they could 'throw the criminals out' at the polls. There was never a chance of that happening.
The result - equally as planned - was to polarize, fracture and split Americans into two diametrically opposed camps...which was deftly accomplished. There will be no reconciliation. Divide and Conquer.
*snip*
In short: dissention, depression, dismay and mass *disengagement* from a bogus, hoaxed political process by millions of frustrated, betrayed Americans are primary fruits of the well-planned harvest of the 2004 fake US 'election'.
There will be no reconciliation. There will be no 'healing.' Divide and Conquer.'
http://www.rense.com/general59/wheredowegofromhere.htmWe are constantly being fed an elaborate drama that clouds our minds, wastes our time, saps our energy, diminishes our spirit and depletes our resources. Our minds were so clouded by this drama that, even though we are in the midst of a war, our anti-war movement put itself on hold to campaign for a pro-war candidate. And we are upset because he 'lost.' With all the indications that this election was stolen, Kerry, like Gore before him, didn't fight against the theft of his own election by galvanizing the citizenry in protest. You have to question any political campaign that does not want its people to become a movement.
The main reason that the Howard Dean campaign was a threat to the rulers was the fact that it he was leading a growing movement. Most of us didn't expect the kind of campaign that Howard Dean and his campaign manager Joe Trippi ended up putting together. While they were building a grass roots movement in the community of cyberspace, they were also showing that democracy was still possible in a winning campaign. What Howard Dean was revealing was that he had started a movement that was in the process of turning the Democratic Party into a truly democratic party.
It didn't just implode.
The rulers decided that Howard Dean must be stopped. And before Dean could realize what was happening, he had become the simultaneous target of the RNC, the DNC, Roger Stones Al Sharpton, John Kerry, and the entire media establishment. He was history. To the rulers, stopping Howard Dean was the real victory of 2004.
The script called for John Kerry to start out as an apparent loser, who miraculously became the overwhelming choice to be the Democratic candidate only to morph back to being the loser we all felt that he was initially. John Kerry was billed as a 'closer' - and that's what he ending up to doing to our dream.
It's not so much that I'm upset over Kerry losing as I am Bush winning (and more on that shortly, because that IS the main point of this post). Kerry is a loser - a gutless, cowardly, sneaky, dishonest, manipulative, con-artist. A man who jerked America along for an entire year - refusing to give an opinion about anything, flip-flopping all over the political spectrum, and in the end flipping the people who went out and voted for him the bird by conceding and running with his tail between his legs. What he did wasn't conceding his own election, but conceding his own supporters.
The party, the voters and this nation would've truly been better off had Howard Dean been given the party's nomination. However, that didn't happen, and these pieces from Rense.com are right on as to why: Dean didn't play the game by THEIR rules, Dean wasn't a puppet, and Dean offered a legitimate opposition. He was willing to bring politics back to the people, he was willing to run a democracy and truly turn the Democratic party INTO a democratic party. Like Bill Clinton, a man capable of REACHING and reaching OUT to people, not just barking at them through the media.
Truth be told, any real hope of change in politics ended when Flip Flop Kerry took the nomination.
Socially, though, is another matter.
You'll see a theme in all three of the above excerpts: The fracturing of American society. This is something I've had to live with for four years, and I'm not the only one.
It's easy to assume this was born on September 11, but it wasn't. It began the first thing the dust settled from the 2000 election - perhaps even the 2000 campaign. Bush was "the moral leader, one who walked with God". The Democratic party was "nothing but a bunch of immoral whores (because of Clinton) and homosexuals". After eight years of seeing the tensions in society over homosexuality ease to a degree, they came back with a vengeance. After taking a few small, cautious steps forward, we quickly took several abrupt steps back. "Faggot", "queer", "dyke" and other slurs were being thrown around as bluntly as they had been in the 80's.
For a person living an "alternative lifestyle", it quickly took on the feeling of loaded guns in your face...
Then 9/11 hits, and it takes an even uglier turn for the worse. "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists!". An extremist statement that spread beyond foreign relations - it hit home with a shocking amount of force.
Like so many other frustrated Americans, I too tried to give Bush the benefit of the doubt on 9/11. My mentality that day shifted to "I don't like you, and I didn't vote for you. But you are in charge, PLEASE for the sake of us - do the right thing!". And I kept this mentality for months, until "Iraq" found it's way into the news.
I won't go into that, though...
Basically, the moment I decided I was not pleased with how Bush was handling things and became outspoken with my views, the outright hate began. "You un-American traitor!" "You commie bitch!" "Love it or leave it!". Not just the words, but delivered with a nastiness and hatred that felt more like loaded rifles in my face. Expressing an opinion that didn't mesh with the government now made me (and anyone else with the same opinions) an "enemy". A "Saddam lover". A "terrorist". It didn't matter if it was just little old me, or entertainers with clout like Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Natalie Maines and Madonna Ciccone - speaking out and disagreeing with Bush now made you "un-American".
Nevermind the fact people sure didn't hesitate to lash out at Clinton for eight years. Or that Americans were lashing out at Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon during Vietnam. And while it's easy to assume "It's different, 9/11 changed everything!", no it didn't. Because there was a similiar amount of hate and ridicule whenever someone would speak out against Desert Storm under George H.W. Bush in 1991.
This whole campaign ratcheted up the hatred and nastiness to whole new levels. Kerry "will turn America into a nation of fags". "We'll become a country of pussies if Bush loses". And Bush and his handlers made it a point to drill into America's heads that liberalism = evil during this campaign by ridiculing liberals every chance they get, including ripping on "liberal" Kerry when he's anything BUT liberal.
Then toss in the article from Capital Hill Blue this spring, where a source said Bush would throw fits, labeling liberals and people who disagree with him as "enemies of the state"... Now we're not just talking rifles, but AK-47's.
This whole campaign seemed to fixate on religion and morality. If you vote for Bush, you're a good moral American who walks with God. If you do not, you're a heathen and a sinner. Look no further than "Name removed's" letter in this post. While not all Bush supporters feel that way, MANY do. And what's scary is more people feel that way here in 2004 than they did in 2000, or even ***1.
Obviously, part of the reason we had so many new voters in this election was the 11 states who had ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage. And, all 11 passed, as a louder and more outspoken group of Americans raised their voices against the gay community once again. Sadly, there has been too much of this for too long, but it's just gotten so much uglier the last four years.
The letter is showing a larger and louder group of Americans who view liberals, pacifists and homosexuals as "evil sinners" and "enemies" of Bush. That is something that I don't think many people can understand unless they're on the receiving end of that kind of hate. Because of who and what I am, and my beliefs, I get it two-fold.
Instead of a united nation - a truly "United States", we have become a shattered society and nation. The "evil" liberals vs. the "redneck" conservatives. The sinning "faggots" vs. the good moral Christians. The "pussy" pacifists vs. the "tough, truly American" war supporters.
It'd be just as wrong for me to go around, referring to Bush supporters as "rednecks", "warmongers" and "brown shirts" - the way they like referring to people on my side of the spectrum as "traitors" and "terrorists" and "sinners" and all the other nasty insults that have been hurled our way in recent years. And sometimes I get mad enough that I want to. But having been fucked with and kicked around and spit on the way I have, I don't wish to inflict that kind of grief upon someone else.
The last four years have been the most terrifying of my life. It's certainly a fear that has spread into paranoia. But I have woken up every day for the last four years feeling there are loaded guns in my face. I'm scared to death, I'm emotionally ripped to shreds, and I know the day is coming when one of is going to go off. The only question is who's going to take the shot, and when.
For anyone out there who has walked a mile in my 5" heeled boots, you understand how I've felt. The fear, the sadness, the paranoia. The disgust over being persecuted, the fear your lifestyle or views will result in serious harm or death. The paranoia of everyone. Dreading that you'll wake up alone because everyone in your life just walked away and decided you are welcome because of who or what you are.
For anyone who hasn't, I can't expect you to understand. I can only hope you try to have some compassion and consideration, and treat people like me the way you'd want to be treated, instead of feeling free to abuse us. The fear, the paranoia and the persecution aren't things I wish upon anyone.
People talk of world peace, of an end to violence and death. But how on earth are we going to achieve that if we can't quit hurting each other over political beliefs or lifestyles? How can we have a world without hate if Americans hate other Americans because they don't share opinions?
A nation that was supposedly founded with freedom of speech and expression being so important is turning into a nation of "my way or the highway".
I'm tired of fighting this war. I'm sick. I feel like I've aged 25 years in the last four. I'm tired of loaded guns in my face. I'm tired of wearing a target on my ass. I'm just plain tired. This isn't the kind of society I want to live in.
And I doubt I'm alone...
Labels: A world gone mad, Bushwhacking, Corporate Assholes, Mi Vida Loca
