Well. I haven't written anything of substance in what feels like forever. The KFUK transmission in my head has been too loud to coordinate my thoughts into any reasonable facsimile of articulate expression.
But I have been here every day, reading, making the rare comment when the spirit moved me, absorbing the variety of opinions and information. I'm very grateful to those of you who bounced right back up and maintained a relatively heavy level of involvement; I don't know how you did it, but I'm glad you have. Me, I've vacillated between a near-suicidal state of despair and numb exhaustion.
But if I've learned anything from a lifetime of clinical depression, it is that, while a short period of inertia is healthy for recovery, it had best be curtailed quickly, lest it lapse into long-term and possibly irreversible paralysis. So let me lay on you, dear readers, a few of my impressions, opinions, feelings and reactions to what's going on around here, around the United States and around the world.
Fraud
I believe this election was stolen. I'll always believe it. But I can't prove it, I don't believe anyone can prove it in time to do anything about it -- so I think the most productive thing we can do about fraud is work like hell to make sure it Never Happens Again.
2006 is right around the corner. Unless a massive effort is put forth to ensure that the 2002 Georgia Experiment that brought forth the 2004 Full Scale Unverifiably Fraudulent Election does not happen on a nationwide scale, it will keep happening. These motherfuckers have beaten us with their immoral, unethical, unprincipled tactics once again.
The onus is, unfortunately, on us to defeat the Evil Ones. It was on us this time, too -- and we failed. Many of us were screaming for months about the unbelievably simple ways in which the votes could be fraudulently manipulated. The Democratic leadership failed us miserably. It is incumbent upon us-- We, the People -- to lead the leadership. Voluminous mail and phone calls must be made by each of us, insisting on election reform, on verifiable paper trails, on transparency, on the elimination of conflicts of interest.
The election is over. The bad guys won this one. The fact that they did it through grotesque slander, mendacity and sheer fraud is irrelevant to the outcome. They "won." It's over. Since we cannot prove it, our only recourse is to do everything in our power to assure it will Never Happen Again.
I am not saying "Don't count the remaining ballots" or "Forget the recounts." By all means -- these actions are crucial to accumulating as much evidence of impropriety and dubious methodology as possible. But to hold out hope that things can possibly be made right is to remain up to one's ears in the river of Denial. Kerry cannot and will not be the President. Should the recounts in Ohio, New Hampshire and possibly Florida and North Carolina provide sufficient votes for Kerry to have won the electoral votes he needed, the attendant chaos would overshadow the results. Nobody will ever be able to prove (in a timely fashion) to the majority of Americans that those 3 million more votes for Bush actually don't exist. And, frankly, while I believe enough fraud may have occurred to hand Bush his electoral votes, I am not at all convinced that Bush did not, in fact, win the popular vote.
The likelihood that Bush won the popular vote is almost as depressing as the likelihood that he got his electoral victory through fraud. I say "almost" because I've always believed that there are more ignorant people on earth than educated people. It is what has always bothered me about democracy. Still, absent a workable socialism, it's the best existing form of government of which I am aware. Sadly, the result of the popular vote this year has only served to confirm what I always suspected.
John Kerry, the Candidate
As many of you know, I was one of Kerry's biggest cheerleaders this year. While I have always voted, this year was the first time I donated money, the first time I volunteered, the first time I abandoned all pretense at having a life and devoted myself fully to a political cause. The excruciating desolation that overwhelmed me on hearing Kerry conceding is indescribable. I felt abandoned. I felt betrayed. I felt so goddamned powerless in the face of the Republican Machine that has crushed all semblance of honour and truth from this country's soul.
I still feel all of that. While the campaign was happening, I did not believe it would be productive to publicly denounce Kerry's choices, though I made my feelings widely known to the Kerry campaign itself. They chose not to listen to me or anyone else who asked for what I asked for (with one minor exception: my suggestion that Sting's Brand New Day be used at rallies. They did that at least once. Whoopee).
My reasoning for withholding public criticism, for the most part, of the candidate and his choices, was that I knew it would not be listened to by anyone who could affect the changes I wanted and that the best I could hope for was fostering and increasing the already well-established Democratic tradition of the Circular Firing Squad. While I revile the Republicans and everything they stand for, including most of their tactics, they do one thing very, very well: they close ranks during campaigns. I am all for spirited, even rancorous debate in the day to day workings of government (another way I differ from the Republicans), but in campaigns, I truly believe the debate must take place behind closed doors. The execrable habit of high profile Democrats taking their advice and criticism to the airwaves and newspapers is as self-defeating as it gets. I believed -- and still believe -- that this blog, more than any other, is widely read by journalists, pundits and professional political operatives. And when we allow the divisiveness and vitriol we feel toward each other and, especially, our candidates -- to spill over into the general atmosphere of the most widely read and influential blog there is, we contribute to the unconscious belief of the media and the politicians that the circular firing squad is some sort of indispensable modus operandi of the Democrats.
I have been roundly criticised and castigated by a vocal section of the DKos community for this attitude of mine. While their opinion differs substantially from my own, I respect their right to have it. Even if I know I'm right and they're wrong. : ) I suppose a case could be made for the possibility that if the outcry on Daily Kos had been strong enough, loud enough and sustained enough, they might have listened to us. But I doubt it. Plenty of influential people gave them the same advice we wanted to give them, and they didn't listen. Let's face it: KERRY didn't listen. As intelligent, dedicated, committed and enthusiastic as he is, he made fatal errors in judgment. I don't blame him for the loss. In the final analysis, the blame for Kerry's loss falls squarely upon the shoulders of those who voted for Bush and those who ought to have voted for Kerry but elected not to vote at all. 58 million people trumps 55 million people. And now we 55 million (and millions more here and around the world, who were truly powerless in this debacle of an election) will pay the price for the willful ignorance, intolerance, bigotry, venality and irresponsibility of the 58 million and the other millions who opted not to vote at all.
Now... How do I wish Kerry had done things differently? Let me count the ways.
- He's a liberal. I wish to Christ he'd said, "Hell yes, I'm a liberal," and proceeded to give JFK's brilliant apologia for liberalism, verbatim. GODDAMNIT, I want the leaders of this fucking party to TAKE BACK THE WORD LIBERAL. Even Barack Obama (whom I believe is going to be the first black President) dances around the fucking question. If enough strong, popular, elected Democrats EMBRACE and CHERISH the word liberal and apply it to themselves and our party with DIGNITY and PRIDE, we will CRUSH conservatism. The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation, in part because they have been uneducated and misled about the basic truth of political concepts like liberalism and conservatism. In their hearts, most Americans are liberals. They just don't KNOW it. There are more ignorant people than educated people. If you EDUCATE them, they will COME.
- He grossly overestimated the capacity of most people to absorb complexity. If the Bush Campaign Doctrine has taught us anything, it is that simplicity and repetition-- however inane it sounds to those of us who grasp complexity -- is effective. What really pissed me off about Kerry is that he is damned well smart enough to know that and to craft speech that adheres to that rule -- but his eagerness to educate the ignorant and bring them into the fold of the informed trumped the necessity of simplicity. Case in point: the $87 billion vote. For the love of GOD, man, the immediate response to the mockery of his supposed flip-flop should have been an endless repetition of the distilled facts: "I voted for the bill when it included a way to pay for it and the President threatened to veto it." I NEVER heard him say it in a way that could be turned into a soundbite. The only truly grave error he made in his speeches was the "I actually voted for it -- before I voted against it" line -- it should NEVER have come out that way. Kerry's biggest problem was in allowing the Bush campaign to force him on the defensive, when it would have been laughably simple to turn his responses into return fire. But he gave in to the urge to fully explain instead of simply demolish. Thus, a potentially great President was undone by the worst administration in U.S. history on the campaign trail.
- The failure to turn 9/11 into a giant, spiked club, pounding away at Bush's skull. With the preponderance of evidence pointing to gross incompetence on the part of the Bush Administration in the months before the 9/11 attack, Kerry and his team chose to... pretend it wasn't Bush's fault. Here's the gist of what should have been: "He didn't keep us safe then -- why on earth should we believe he can keep us safe now?" And damn the torpedoes of the opposition's cries of "Politicising 9/11." You know how we could have responded to that? Borrow Jon Stewart's montage of the Republican Convention. "9/11... 9/11... September 11th... September 11th..." Devastating.
- And the Biggest Fuck Up of All: "The goddamned war was a mistake. There were no WMDs. Bush I gave compelling reasons NOT to go into Baghdad; Bush II made every mistake his father avoided. If I knew then what I know now, HELL FUCKING NO, I wouldn't have voted the same way. I made a GRAVE ERROR in judgment when I allowed myself to trust this President with the authorization to go to war. In any other circumstance, with any OTHER President, I believe it would have been the right vote. With THIS President, I have to admit that my vote was the wrong vote. The war is a mistake. And when I am President I will do everything in my power to bring our troops home as soon as humanly possible." (minus the profanity, of course.)
Sure, hindsight is 20/20. But the thing is, many of us were saying this stuff ALL ALONG. I wasn't saying it in public, for the reasons I gave above -- but you can damned well bet I was saying it in my fervent pleas to the Kerry campaign, in letters and on their blog. I NEVER STOPPED BEGGING THEM. They didn't listen to me or to anyone who begged them to do it differently. And so they lost. And we lost. And I lost.
In conclusion, I would like to express, once again, my gratitude to those of you whose tenacity and commitment to truth, justice and the American way has spurred you to continue the fight. I am with you in spirit, though my body is weary and my will is weak. The beacon of hope I saw until November 2nd is flickering, at least in my perception, and my melancholy continues unabated. I take refuge now in fiction, in my family, in the undaunted efforts of my beloved Daily Kos community to make the world a better place. It may be a while before I am ready to wade back into the fray; I am so very tired and dispirited, you see. There is so much wrong with the world, and my relative powerlessness in the face of a seemingly endless parade of evil makes me want to retreat into solitude and denial. I feel no God in the universe, though I continue to hope God is there. Whenever I lose my spiritual connection, I strengthen my tenuous grasp of the belief with two tools: Shakespeare and the Desiderata.
Shakespeare's line from Hamlet perfectly describes an appropriate default response to my inner depressed atheist:
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
And the Desiderata... well, read it for yourself and see if you don't feel just a little bit better:
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant- they, too, have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for there will always be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let not this blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, surrendering gracefully the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive him to be. And whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Strive to be happy.