Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

It's All Over 'Cept for the Cryin'

Kerry has conceded, and surveying the scene this morning I can't agree with those who say he was wrong to. Imagine losing the popular vote by millions and then eking out by a few hundred provisional ballots a slim electoral margin to preside over a consolidated Republican Congress... I don't see that as more than marginally better than the concession itself.

I think the Diebold disenfranchisement, the racist shenanigans, the stealing and the cheating and the hooliganism are all a disaster -- and they should be addressed on their own terms and not through a focus on Kerry's concession or refusal to concede Ohio.

The Supreme Court is a disaster that will outlast my life, unless I survive long enough to find my way to a shining robot body in some far-flung future, I fear.

The fact that the mobilization of widespread American hatred of gay people like me was essentially the force the Republicans rode to victory doesn't exactly inspire confidence, either.

Still, one has to hope that the archipelago of democratic organizations like ACT, MoveOn, Air America, and the rest -- inspired and shored up by resistence to Bush's lies, incompetence, and ugly ethos -- will survive this defeat and form the basis for a powerful countervailing force to rising militarism, market libertarianism, and the evangelical urge to theocratic dominance.

Faith-based American imperialists may deride the rest of us, but to deny the reality of the wider world is not to become immune to its impact, faith-based American racists and homophobes may despise the rest of us, but to deny the reality of diversity will not successfully insulate them from our righteous demands for justice. They can't win, for losing. The fight will be uglier than it had to be, the suffering will be deeper than it had to be, the fear will be wider than it had to be, but the blame cannot go anywhere but where it squarely and palpably belongs.

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