pegkerr | Overwhelming grief

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Overwhelming grief

Rob, who had been watching the election returns all night, came and woke me about forty-five minutes ago and held me while I cried.

Injustice won. Now this man who has made an unprecedented power grab for the executive branch, who authorized the use of torture, who has trampled on civil rights, who has lied and lied and lied to the American people, is going to have the chance to reshape the Supreme Court for the next generation. Bigotry won. I cannot bear it that the bigot's side of the argument on a civil rights issue that I care so deeply about, gay civil rights, was what pushed conservative voters out to the polls to return this man to the White House. Stupidity won. He totally lost track of who attacked us on September 11, he has ignored the threat of North Korea and Iran, he has failed to guard the borders, he has taken us into an unjust, immoral and unnecessary war which has killed our people and a hundred thousand Iraquis, spent our resources, inflamed the world against us and multiplied our enemies a thousandfold.

And we have rewarded him by returning him to the White House.

I have never been so ashamed to be called a Christian, if people who call themselves Christian feel that they are honoring their religion by voting for him over John Kerry. I have never been so afraid and so grief-stricken for my country, no, not even after September 11, because this time we are administering the wound to ourselves.

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Soren called me when he got off work, and warned me that things looked bad (I've asked him to call me every morning when he gets off; waking up and hearing his voice on the phone makes me feel better) -- which I had somehow expected. He came home, almost in tears.

I think I'm numb. I actually think the terror and despair have frozen me. Which is good, perhaps, because otherwise, I'd be in tears, too.

It does look bad, but CNN says Ohio is still too close to call, and it may come down to who has the best lawyers.

The way this is being portrayed frightens me too--all the talk about "moral values" being what pushed people to vote for Bush. As if civil rights are somehow immoral; as if morality has been conceded to the far religioius right.

Peg, please don't despair.

It looks horrible, I know, but don't despair.

Get your copy of RotK out, and sleep with it under your pillow tonight. Or read it, the Sam bits most of all.

It's not over.

There are provisional ballots that still need to be counted in Ohio. Kerry can win the state by taking somewhere between 55 and 75 percent of those, well within his ability as they are likely to come from urban areas where Republican challengers caused them to be needed in the first place.

Then there's the whole issue of e-voting fraud that weighs heavily in Florida and Ohio.

We don't have a new President until all the votes are counted.

It so amazes me that so many people I have been friends with for so long, shared thoughts and ideas with, seen and appreciated the beauty of their vision and soul (and vice versa, it would be hoped)--how we can differ so radically on this. I'm in the weird position of being up about the election (assuming it ever ends and Bush wins), and being down because so many people I care about are depressed about it.

I'm still pondering this, and what I told someone on Heidi's LJ--holding others to your own interpretations will always limit an ability to understand their perceptions. Things you seem to take as self-evident, I may not consider to be valid. If two sides don't start on the same page, with the same assumptions, the conclusions cannot help but differ. So for a very broad response, I'd say that I don't share some of your assumptions, and so have not reached the same conclusions.

Cold comfort for you, that; or none--except maybe that the vision you have, full of reason to despair, is far from the only future possible; just the only one you're seeing right now.

~Amandageist

Thanks for your kind words,

amandageist. I'm sure it must a rather strange position for you. I will admit I was thinking of you and a few others when I went back to change my entry to put it behind a cut tag, because yeah, I can see sort of, if I squint really really really hard how the people who voted for George W. Bush did it because they thought they were doing what is best for the country. I want you to keep reading my journal and commenting.

I am capable of changing my mind about things, and I have. But I think that the America you want is not the America I want. And I don't think it's the America that the rest of the world wants.

And I KNOW it's not the America I want for my children.

Think of Ohio and repeat after me:

I do believe in Kerry. I do. I do.

I have you on my flist because I met you at Nimbus and love to read your posts - I felt I should delurk to share your sadness.
Our family is grieving with yours this morning, Peg - just dropping a word of encouragement your way - hang in there.

Our children, especially my teen-aged son who left for school this morning weeping, are devastated. They do not want to go to school (here in rural NW Wisconsin) to endure the crowing of their conservative classmates whose parents voted as a)Christian fundamentalists, or b) on the issue of gun control.

I have never been so ashamed to be called a Christian, if people who call themselves Christian feel that they are honoring their religion by voting for him over John Kerry. I have never been so afraid and so grief-stricken for my country, no, not even after September 11, because this time we are administering the wound to ourselves.

It amazes me - and my heart is breaking for the people this most deeply affects. I hope it is possible in four years' time to reclaim the soul of this nation. My oldest will be an adult by then - old enough to be drafted into Bush's war but also old enough to cast his own ballot. I pray with all my heart that one will not preclude the other, and that the pendulum will swing before we destroy ourselves.
Take care and God Bless.
-Mary

This, yes, THIS.

I'm a moral woman. I am also a liberal. Morality is not the property of the religious right.

There is a bottle of unopened booze next to my computer, Neil Young's Keep on rockin' in the free world on my stereo and tears in my eyes. I can't believe that Bush won the popular vote. And I don't want to live in a world where someone like Bush can win the popular vote.

Sorry, for spamming your journal, no, you don't know me and I don't know you, you just appeared on my friendsfriendslist and I had to comment.

I remember once in an undergraduate history class my professor told us about the end of the Roman Empire, or at least the end of it in western Europe; the image that stays with me is of these academics, these well-read, cultured, thoughtful people, clinging to their books while the illiterate hoards of blood-thirsy visigoths around them burned everything in sight and swung swords around. It's such a sad image to me, these people knowing what they do, watching it all go down the drain because no one cares anymore, no one will listen to them or learn from them, no one will fill their shoes when they've gone. Standing on the brink of the abyss, into a thousand years of forgetfulness.

I'm sure that's a very bright picture for you this morning, but it seems that people who think the way you do are looking into the abyss in the US, and an abyss that just grows larger with every passing year.

I will most likely sit down and cry as well. I feel the exact same way about the Christians voting for Bush. Bush to me does NOT represent Christian values. In fact, I can make a list of his actions that go against Christianity.

It is still too close to call, as of right now (9:00 am) and our only hope is for Ohio. Not all is lost yet, Peg.

I'm there with you. It gives me some hope for humanity to know that there are others who feel the same fear as I do.

Yes, me, too. And this is why I was light-hearted yesterday evening, driving down 35W watching people wave Kerry/Edwards signs from the overpasses: there were others. I was not alone. I doubt that they affected a single vote at that point, but what they did is promote my sense of my community when I sorely needed it.

I'm not at all light-hearted this morning. But I'm hanging onto what I had yesterday evening, because that was real, too.

And I KNOW it's not the America I want for my children.

Nor my children's children...

The repercussions may be endless, and that is what I fear most.

Every vote counts. Let's wait to count every vote.

I have hope.

See why, here.

I have hope.

I am for gay rights, gay marriage, saving the environment, etc. But I voted for Bush because I am for pro life more. Not all Bush voters are bigots.

For what it's worth, I'm a Christian and would never, ever have voted for Bush. Just because I hold certain beliefs doesn't mean the world does, and neither I nor Bush have any right to force them to conform to our morals. That would be a theocracy rather than a democracy.

I just about cried when I heard the results as well. I feared this would happen, but never really thought it would. And it may not be over yet. I have heard too many accounts to number of democrats being turned away from voting for no good reason, other than that they were Democrats. If Bush had won fair and square, that would be one thing, but this election just smacks of injustice and illegal behaviours. I hope TPTB hear something of this too, and it doesn't just appear in stories on LJs and other blogs.

No kidding. Since when did voting for Bush presuppose morality? Kerry's the one who actually served when he was drafted, and who has kids -- and stepkids he helped raise -- who are happy, healthy, successful and NOT BINGE DRINKERS who have been arrested with fake IDs several times.

Anyway, since WHEN did the difference between being a Democrat and a Republican become that the Republicans are 'moral' and the Democrats are 'amoral'? -- I know when; it was around 1980. That was a rhetorical question.

For what it's worth, I'm a Christian and would never, ever have voted for Bush. Just because I hold certain beliefs doesn't mean the world does, and neither I nor Bush have any right to force them to conform to our morals. That would be a theocracy rather than a democracy.

Yep, you're definitely too clever to have voted for Bush. :P

http://www.livejournal.com/users/peregrin8/166333.html

This post gave me a little bit of hope on a very dark morning. While I am still sad, deeply so, I am not quite so hopeless, not quite so sunk in despair as I was before I read it. So I pass it on to you in the hope that it gives you some hope too.

Nevermind, he just won Ohio.

I just don't understand how he won. I really don't because there are so so many people unhappy with him, it just doesn't make sense to me.

I can appreciate that pro life is an important value to many people who don't consider themselves to be bigots. However: I have tried and tried to think of a way to say this that doesn't sound too caustic. I'm sorry, but I just can't. Please forgive me, but I absolutely have to say this:

Pro life? Tell that to the families of the 100,000 dead Iraquis. And to the families of the people that Bush personally as Governor of the State of Texas sent to the gas chamber.

It's a war. There are casualities.

I don't believe in the killing of innocent people. If they are proven guilty of a crime beyond a doubt then yes society would be better off without them if their crime is so heinous as to deserve death.

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Overwhelming grief

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