Onward and Upward

Deep breath. I'm home. No more bagels. My headache's gone. I'm less nauseous. OK.

Thoughts from Amp:

The big mistake the Democrats, and most of the left, made was to believe that by winning elections we will change the country.

Just the opposite is true. It is only by changing the country that we will win elections.

We need to stop thinking in terms of winning elections, and start thinking about persuading more of the country to believe our ideas. If we do that, elections will follow.

What does that mean for the left? We still lack an effective left counterpart to the Heritage Foundation and the Fox News Network; by which I mean, we lack effective institutions dedicated not to pushing our candidates but instead to pushing our ideas. And that's killing us.

Family Fun

And, it appears my family has shown up in the comments section.

I love the internet.

More Perspective: From Xeni

8:15am: Four more years of a nation led by criminals. I was making coffee with one eye on CNN when the news broke, and I called my dad, a man who's spent many years fighting for good things, sometimes at great personal cost.

"Get over it," he said, "The way you feel now is exactly how I felt when Nixon won a second term -- crushed. I just couldn't believe America was that stupid. But remember what happened to Nixon that term."

And, I'm glad others are feeling just as sick as I am right now. I'm really pissed that this is such a gut bomb for me. I'm skipping kickboxing, going home early, and going to bed (early-to-bed mainly to avoid a food binge).

Nicky

Nick's got some more good stuff up. I've been eating too many bagels, and have started in on the post-Halloween candy hidden all over the office. Not a proper binge, thank god, but not morsels I should be eating. Nick's is a good reminder that they're both shitty candidates. The Lesser of the Evils shouldn't cut it.

Yea. I know. "Marriage is only between a man and woman," and "abortion is Evil and Wrong, but..." were spoken by the dem. Hitler just didn't add any "but"s.

I've been told that I'll grow more cynical as I get older. Give me until January. I'll turn 25 then. It's all downhill cynicism from there on out.

"..the elections are over, let the politics begin."

Perspective

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whos frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandius, king of kings:
Look on my words, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

- Percy Bysshe Shelly

Here We Go, Ladies and Gents

Just got this from NARAL Pro-Choice America. I recommend signing up for their newslist.

Help us (and yourself!) out. We've got a Supreme Court Justice not long for this world, and three more over the age of 65. Hitler's just waiting for the old guy to die, and then we're fucked. So --

Here's what you can do TODAY:

ACT. Put Bush on notice that you and all pro-choice Americans will not give up. Sign our petition to tell him that you'll firmly oppose any Supreme Court nominee who doesn't support Roe v. Wade, then spread the word to your pro-choice friends and family.

TALK ABOUT IT. You're among friends here. Join our post-election discussion by posting a comment on our blog.

STAY INFORMED. Read today's headlines about what this really election means for choice.

Thank you for all you've done over the course of the last four years.

It's the resolve of the pro-choice movement that secured a woman's right to choose in the first place. It is that resolve that will secure a woman's right to choose over the next four years and beyond.

What's that again? Oh, yea --



Don't forget it.

Post-Concession Bagels

Am currently enoying some post-concession bagels here at work. Half our office voted dem. the other half, for Hitler. So it's a mixed post-concession bagel bag.

In other worklife news, one of our two accountants left her husband and kid, left her keycard in the office, and got on a plane Friday. She hasn't come back, so our head of HR fired her, and only half-jokingly asked if I was interested in learning accounting.

Sure, why not? Give me a hardhat and a couple months training with Sarah our Construction Manager, and I'll be able to run this office all by myself.

Ha.

Jiggity-Jig

More thoughts, from Amanda. Basically, if you're a woman, poor, and/or a minority, you're fucked.

But we knew that already.

I'll be here in Chicago (hey, at least it's a blue state - our buddy Obama is headed east) until summer 2006 (I'm committed to finishing out my time as Jenn finishes her Ph.D.). I was flirting with going back to Alaska, perhaps living in Juneau, but it looks like I'll be doing a year or two overseas. London or Auckland (our company has offices in both of these locations) would be great, though Our Friendly Neighbor to the North exists for a reason as well. Terribly friendly people there --

They've been taking in disillusioned patriots like me since 1775.

Today's Mixed Bag

Because there are other things to do today.

Check out The Paper Boy for a cool list of international, national, and local papers you can browse. The "full service" member treatment is $2.95 a year, and you get all of your handy papers in one place, with a user-friendly searching tool.

Also, Vandermeer has some thoughts about America's warped failure of imagination, Nick Mamatas runs for president, World Fantasy Award winners have been up for awhile, Lithaven's got up a link to the Worst Analogies Ever Written in a High School Essay, check out Osama's War On the Red States (Expert Approved!), and if you're looking to do something worthwhile to alleviate your frustration, check out Volunteer Match and help somebody out. Of course, you could always just do this, but I think getting outta the chair might be slightly more productive.

Or so I hear.

Going Forward

Some more thoughts here.

I'll try and say not too much more about this, because I'd like to move on to covering women's rights, fantasy fiction, and health issues. All of which are likely going to be of even more importance from now on.

I think a part of me was hoping I'd be able to get off the hook a little bit, with a dem. presidency. I wouldn't have to worry so much about the repeal of Roe vs. Wade and the erosion of women's rights. It wouldn't be perfect, no, but I wouldn't have to worry about a Supreme Court packed with people who declare my body not my own once a guy's semen fuses with my egg.

I'm genuinely appalled at the results, not just that baby Hitler won the popular vote, but that the dems lost... everything. The House. The Senate. Hell, they're a minority of govenors. I can't believe Americans did this. I can't believe they bought into the Fear: Fear of terrorism, Fear of those Evil Gay People and their Evil Marriages, Fear of women having sex with men willy-nilly and getting what the men left behind scraped out of their uteruses.

Fear. This huge wave of incredible fear has carried this guy into a popular and political majority. Yes, it'd be great if Kerry won Ohio, and the vote's still out, but that doesn't change the way the other numbers have turned out, and doesn't change the popular vote. Little Hitler has his Mandate From Heaven.

I was flipping back and forth last night between CNN and The History Channel. HC was airing a show about Hitler's rise to power. They were interviewing Germans alive during Hitler's ascendence, and one woman said, "The young people now, they ask us why we didn't protest, why we didn't go out in the streets to try and change things. We didn't because we were afraid. It was a time of fear."

That one hit me in the gut.

It was the gypsies, the Jews, the handicapped, the gays (sound familiar?), who played Black Sheep to Hitler. Make everybody afraid, make everybody hate everybody else, and make everybody look back at their neighbor over their shoulder.

My grandmother lived in occupied France. My grandfather was an American GI on Body Detail, cleaning up concentration camps and burying soldiers.

I used to think that all of the Bush=Hitler rhetoric was a big leftist conspiracy, a spin show. And yea, of course it is - for now. Bush isn't as smart as Hitler, but what I'm seeing with these numbers is that people really *like* him. True Believers *believe* in him. They'll sanction wars with Iran and North Korea if he says so, because he says so. They won't stop to think about it, they'll just do it. No talking, no diplomacy, just bombing the shit out stuff.

And you know what? I'm a historian. Not only that, I'm a historian whose concentration is on war: the politics of war, the propaganda, women's roles in war, war and masculinity, etc. I've been boning up on the history of guerilla warfare, and after doing so, I can tell you this: these people have no idea what the fuck they're doing.

I have no doubt that all of my friends and family in the military - some of whom have already been to Iraq and back - are going to go back. If they die there, I'm going to be really, really pissed off.

The majority of Americans are eager to send their sons and daughters off to die in obscure desert countries to Save us from the Evil Gays, the Evil Arabs, and the Evil Welfare mothers.

I think it's fucked up.

I have no more to say about it - except that I am deeply, deeply, pissed off.

Wrap Up (abridged)

via Empire o' Dirt

And, if you're interested, here's someone else's rant.

I have work to do.