It should have been US --warning: long rant

[hyphenate]

I don't think I would have recovered if yesterday I had spent time on watching what has to be one of the biggest, hypocritical farces of our time. I would have likely curled into a small ball, and stayed in catatonia for what might be the rest of my life. I would have surely gone suicidal--not a far stretch from a clinical depression which has taken hold of me for quite some time now.

But the thought that we are going to be put through the wringer for another stomach knot-twisting four years makes me want to cry. WE won this election. WE did, and I don't give a shit who says we didn't. The election in several key states, most particularly Ohio, and likely in New Mexico and Florida, was fraught with voter fraud, cheating, manipulation of votes, collusion and high treason, and there is NO WAY in HELL that we lost. NO FUCKING WAY.

But we can't go back to November 1 and stake out all the voting sites in all the states. We can't go back to the actual morning of November 2 and tape, record and scrutinize every single vote. We can't shake up the system which is now controlled by the WRONG wing, and we can't do anything to educate the imbecilic 49% of our country's voters about the fascism that has creeped into the government that WE are supposed to control, not vice-versa. We speak up, we're terrorists. We say anything against this evil theocracy, and we're traitors, we're the enemy, we're not in our "right minds." We say outloud any rhetorical comment about wanting a particular person "dead" and we're visited by the FBI and hauled off to Gitmo.

I remember not more than twenty years ago when tales came out of the Soviet Union on what happened to dissidents--they were sent off to Siberia, or the gulag to atone for their comments. They were tortured, family members threatened and sometimes killed. There was no hope for many in the former Soviet Union for many who dared to question the system.

And now, in the year 2005, the die have changed, and it is the United States which is the oppressor and those in the former Soviet countries are holding free elections.

And it's not only our government--it's our fellow citizens. It's similar to the Soviet system of protect your own ass--report your neighbor instead. Here are the radical right wingnuts--feel superior to your "liberal" neighbor and report his "unamerican" activities to the Office of Homeland Security. The "anonymous tip" line that Asscroft wanted to resurrect. Look! Do I see the ghost of McCarthyism rubbing its hands in glee? Yes, those "good christian neighbors" who will justify war and lying in the name of their "god" to punish those heathens who dare to question their charismatic leader!

Fascism had nothing on these people--your neighbors, my neighbors, all the neighbors of those of us in our country. They want to feel some sort of moral superiority and can not see their own treason--their own failings, their own steely-eyed zealotry that borders on a form of fanaticism the world has sadly seen too much off.

We decry Jim Jones, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, the Moonies, and other cults as being filled with hopelessly lost and willing followers of their wickedness, but right now, here in these United States, George W. Bush is the new cult leader, and his 49% of the voting population are indeed the newly brainwashed hordes that severely need to be de-programmed. It doesn't matter that even 1/3 of the policies he endorses come from himself. It doesn't matter that nearly every single one of those policies is meant to trample the average person. No, like Adolph Hitler, GWB has his ministers to propagandize, to influence people, to spin intolerable offenses so they sound like they're all right. And like Adolph Hitler, this fourth "reich" has indeed taken over the airways, the soundwaves, and the cyberwaves to the point where George Orwell would have smacked his lips in satisfaction at his ability to predict the future.

But most importantly, WE should have been in Washington, D.C. yesterday, inaugurating the REAL 44th president of the United States. We should have had the joy of knowing that the neo-cons, the radical religious right and the harbingers of great hatred against all our liberal ideals were finally silenced. We would have been ready for their attacks--we learned during the Clinton presidency how quick they were to spread lies, all in the name of their fascist principles. We would have been far more capable of keeping that hatred and lack of compassion subdued as we showed the world the true and honest principles that drive our party's fervor. We would have been able to give the peoples of the world that hand up in transforming the past four years of propaganda, oppression, lying, heavy-handedness and hatred into a new era of hope and reconstruction.

We are only as strong as our weakest link, and we know that hatred forms a very strong link. It is because the radical right holds so much hatred that they have transformed our beautiful country into something ugly, something which only other bullies can appreciate. What we need to do is not to become as hateful or as cruel as 49% of our country has become, but embrace our differences as our strength.

It might sound corny, but many years ago, when Star Trek the original series was on, Mr. Spock always wore the IDIC necklace. The IDIC principle was Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. THAT is our greatest strength--that we as an entity, the Democratic Party, holds each and every one of our many differences in the same, equal regard. It should remain our strength, in as many different ways as possible, to remember that not one of us is the same as another, but that together we have the ability to move mountains, if need be.

Yesterday, I cried. Today, I only hope that others will see the need we MUST have for resolve. That we MUST fight this hypocrisy that is currently our nation's leadership, and that we must try to dis-entangle the minds of many in order to show them a true path--as far away as possible from the path many have chosen to follow as of now. But it is only with our showing of strength and unity in those differences which drive us all that we can ever hope to reclaim our lives, our country and our honor.

[opihimoimoi]

1. I join the effort to right the wrong...spear in hand, i take my place in

the line.

[KoKo]

2. I hear 'ya... I think I just keep telling my self...it's so bad, that it

has to get better. Which sounds more idiotic every time I think it or say it, but I have to keep believing that the Bushies have made such a mess that it's better to have them there to take the heat than to have Kerry come in an deal with the mess.

It's just so hard for those of us watching it all these years...we wonder how much longer we can keep going. There are good signs of a rebirth of grassroots, and a push back out there, though. The Media wouldn't be trying so hard to snuff out dissent if they didn't have a big force pushing back at them from the "people" who won't take this crap anymore and are on to their "game" and rooting them out one by one if we have to.

12,000 e-mails were sent to FCC about Armstrong Williams. Barbara Boxer got over 45,000 e-mails of support. Robert Byrd and others got almost as much over Iraq Invasion. I have to think that we have help coming.
It's just hard to see the whole picture right now, maybe.

[hyphenate]

3. That's why the contribution of Howard Dean

is so important. Like him or not, he has mobilized people into taking action into their own hands. It is through him and others like him that we can see a change coming.

I supported and believed in John Kerry all the way. I still can't believe that he would walk away as easily as he did, without confronting the horrendous actions of the conservatives. There is still a part of me that hopes he has other ideas, and that his sacrifice is meant to stand for something. I realize that the media and the radical right would have called him another Al Gore if he had "whined" and "bitched" but that would surely have been preferable to another 4 years of the worst and most evil groups ever to hold the reins to our country.

A friend told me that the election was one year too soon. In many ways, it's true. One year from now, the growing dissatisfaction will come to an inglorious head, and the 49% of our voting populace will finally figure out that they were hoodwinked. But it will be too late at that point. And those 49% will be the ones to suffer, as they should rightly suffer, knowing that they helped put this regime back in power.