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My Life Goes On 2004
From my reading chair in my main room I can see the park across the valley where people have brought their dogs out. The dogs are running, chasing each other, clearly having a great time.
The clouds are beautiful today.
I'm sad and sorry about the presidential election results and what it says about the United States. I fear many more will die as a result. The rich will continue to get richer, there will be more poor. Things will get worse before they get better. The silver lining is, I suppose, that Bush has to deal with some of the mess he's created. But it's sad to know that half the country sees the world in black & white, good guys & bad guys. Particularly sad that some of my dearest friends are seen as bad guys and are now to be legislatively told in many states that their love is not legitimate. Hatred for homosexuals and support of wars are the most shameful things about many so-called Christians in this country. I truly don't know how that hatred is reconciled with "Love thy neighbor" and "Thou shalt not kill".
But then what do I know about theology? I guess there's some clever trick to it.
Well, at least I live in the right city. A lot of good will be done here in the coming years. We can only hope it will teach some other communities ways to be more supportive of all citizens.
Posted on November 3, 2004 at 03:01 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink
Comments
Seeing the world in black and white is brittle, silly, and deleterious, but there is a whole lot of black right now, so it's understandable. There really is actual, true evil going on. Torture, mass murder, the end of due process, erosion of civil liberties, insane religious fundamentalism, racism, misogyny, the death of the middle class, wild reaction against scientific thought -- the United States is every bit as evil as its enemies, and more effective.
What's really sad is, we no longer have the "it's the government, not the people" excuse. It is us. We are responsible, and we are evil. The left wing was too weak to stop the right wing, and is just as culpable if not moreso.
I'm completely nauseated. People voted for torture. Fuck us all, we worthless pieces of shit.
Posted by: Chris at Nov 3, 2004 8:49:26 PM
Dinah,
I just wanted to say that I personally appreciate that you're a vocal ally.
We homoattracted people often times don't say thank you enough to our allies for their efforts and that they have taken brave and courageous stands.
I know you're in San Francisco, probably one of the most GLBT friendly cities in the nation, but nonetheless, taking a stand takes effort and courage.
I live in one of those states where same-sex marriage is now unconstitutional and work in another. (Ironically, Cincinnati, Ohio, near where I work, passed Issue 3 which repeals the anti-gay discrimination from the city's charter, although the state just added anti-gay discriminatory amendment to the constitution.)
I know this is turning into my own mini-blog entry on your blog; But one final thing, thank you for being positive. I've been in a negative funk all day. (which just got topped off by a speeding ticket)
Thank you once again for your insightful blogging.
Nick
Posted by: Nick at Nov 3, 2004 11:00:25 PM
Chris,
I'm not a religious person, but I'll quote something I saw on a Church sign once. "He who angers you controls you." Be wary of losing control of yourself, because it is the one thing that you're always guaranteed to have the ability to access.
Posted by: Nick at Nov 3, 2004 11:02:25 PM
Hi Dinah, I've been reading your blog for a long time now, and thought I'd de-lurk to comment on your post. I feel the same way. And I also echo Chris' sentiments, too. I am sad because it is the people who voted him in, after all they know about him, they still voted him in. That is is the real tragedy. And I have people telling me that in order to win elections we progressives will have to make our views more attactive to these fundamentalists...I'm sorry, I can't allow thier bigotry and hatred to be acceptable.
Thanks for your blog and your insight, from a fellow sjsu slis graduate :)
Posted by: Monica at Nov 4, 2004 12:43:01 PM
Hang in there, Dinah. I truly believe you are fighting the good fight. And I'm one of those strange creatures, a Christian who really thinks that when Jesus talked about loving our neighbours and our enemies, he meant that. Just so you know that there are some! I think the religious right phenomenon is much more about ignorance than about faith, though many would equate the two.
I'm particularly saddened that the gay-marriage amendments were so cynically used by Karl Rove to bring out people who otherwise might not have voted for Bush (or at all). I just saw a great film called "Tying the Knot" about the issue. I saw it the day after the election, and the director, though disappointed, was happy to be in Toronto where he was marrying his partner the next day. It's so strange to see America looking so backwards when Canada and Europe seem to be taking the lead in so many ways on human rights issues.
There's a lot of work to be done, but the film showed that the strongest argument for gay marriage is just that people are the same. Most fearful American fundamentalists don't really know any gay people. And I'm sure that many gay people are just as fearful of meeting fundamentalists. I wish there were a way to just get people to meet, and not to discuss the "issues". Just to share a meal or something.
Posted by: James at Nov 5, 2004 8:38:04 AM
James, I think you're right about people just needing to meet. I see blogs and Flickr (a photo sharing site) as a step in that direction. If we just share ourselves and connect on some level, maybe it gets easier.
Posted by: Dinah at Nov 5, 2004 9:29:55 AM
Sigh...I hate having my opinion of most Americans confirmed this way. No Democracy can survive with this nation of morons. However, was Mr. Kerry really the best man we could offer? Or are the best men not interested in going through that process?
Anybody ready for a West Coast Secession movement? Let's call our new nation either the California Republic (reviving the Bear Flag Revolt) or Nova Albion. Hey, we could enforce England's original claim to the territory!
Posted by: Rydell at Nov 5, 2004 7:53:05 PM
Long live secession!
It will never work, but that doesn't stop blue-state radicals from insisting they have the right to break up Bush's -- and Lincoln's -- "imperial" union. A revolutionary guide to American history.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Christopher Ketcham
printe-mail
Jan. 20, 2005 | The idea of an American right of secession -- a state's right to abandon the union -- today invites a veritable cyclone of scorn and bafflement. Secessionism, you will be told, is immoral, treasonous, seditious, the failed machination of slave-holding Southerners whose nutty dream died in the judgment of 1865. "What insanity it is to reopen this issue," says Pauline Maier, professor of American history at MIT.
What you will not hear is that secessionism is as old as the states themselves, that is was not always a reviled idea, that it cleaves to the heart of a celebrated but perhaps outmoded American principle -- the rebellion against centralized power -- and that it is a founding American act enshrined in our most revolutionary document. "[W]henever any Form of Government becomes destructive," counsels the Declaration of Independence, "it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government."
Although secessionism today is politically impossible, if tenuously legal, the secession specter has arisen again, waking to the Declaration's call to self-governance. In 2005, it is the blue-state Northerners, bitter from the defeat of Nov. 2, who are, ironically, wearing its robes.
SuccessionNow@egroups.com
263 Eucalyptus Court
Chula Vista
Perfecture of CAlfironia
91911-3030
619.420.0209
donlake@sbcglobal.net
reformpartyofcalifornia.org/vetspage.html
Posted by: Citizens For A Better Veterans Home at Feb 1, 2005 11:40:26 AM
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