I will survive

I'm a little depressed about the results of the election. I'll get by, as I usually do.

But I'm worried.

I'm worried about my nephew, growing up in a country where weapons are considered more important than education.

I'm worried about gays and lesbians, living in a country where their relationships are condemned and they do not have any rights. I'm afraid that the next step might be to make hate crimes legal.

I'm worried about my pocketbook, trying to come up with the money to pay for gasoline every other time (Keem and I split it) and laughing to myself when people ask me why I don't drive. Why? I can't afford it.

I'm worried about men who are just turning 18 and who may end up being called up for the draft. Even though Bush says there won't be one, I'm sorry, I just have a little doubt in my mind about his honesty.

I'm worried about the men and women who are overseas, fighting in a war that just doesn't make sense.

I'm worried that people are dying for oil and not for freedom, as we've been told.

I'm worried that more jobs are going to be lost because it's cheaper to ship them overseas and I thank God that I work for a bank who values people first, not the almighty dollar (which is pretty odd but NABABNA's a great company).

I'm worried about the division in our country and that unity may be impossible.

All I can do is go on, continue to fight for others' rights and realize that there's only 1458 days until the next election.

Previous Comments:

At 12:02 AM, brooksba said...
DM,At first I was afraid, I was petrified. That about sums it up. Unfortunately, the fear is not subsiding. I agree with your sentiments. I just hope the world realizes that there are Americans who chose a different man, maybe not the best man, but a different man. I read somewhere else a good thing, "Perfect wasn't running in this election." It's too bad that perfect never makes the ballot. When you are standing there, voicing your opinion, I'll be there backing you up. We are not alone. Beth
At 9:21 AM, Anonymous said...
Look at the amount of money that is spent on education at the federal, state, and local level. I hardly think that any sane person thinks guns are more important than education.A crime is a crime.. Doesnt matter what group the accused is from and what group the victim is from. Legislation against what a person is thinking sets a dangerous precedent.The price of gas has alot more to do with the modernization of the Chinese economy and the new 1.2 billion consumers of a limited supply of oil. It has nothing to do with anything any past, current, or future president has done. Do you really think gas would have dropped 50 cents overnight if Kerry had won?I dont know how many times the president has to say he wont implement a draft for people to believe it. This was a lie spread by the left to scare mothers and fathers of 16 and 17 year olds out of voting for Bush. It was Kerry who wanted to add 2 full division (around 50,000 new troops). Bush has continually said he will keep the military at its current levels.Outsorcing is GOOD. You will not find any economist who says otherwise. Outsourcing allows the most efficient allocation of resources, and allows us as consumers to purchase the goods at lower prices. It forces companies that stay in the US to become more competitive. You cant be against outsourcing and for free trade. They are contradictory views.Has our country ever had unity? Even in the best of times, our country was sharply divided. Case in point: "The Monica Lewinsky Scandal"Your post has a lot of good one liners and sound bites, but not much substance. Kind of like the Kerry campaign. Seriously, this will be the last time I talk politics. My Dad is a huge Democratic activist and we still get along fine. Sorry I posted anonymously. I forgot the username and password you set up for me and Katie. See you Sunday.(as long at Katie isnt hungover again) :)
At 4:02 PM, The Lioness said...
I'm worried abt all that too and having recently discovered the infertile ladies who call themselves the Barren Bitches Brigade (especially Grrl at Chez miscarriage and Tertia at So Close)I'm even more worried now. They may be refused abortions even when their health is at risk, like with Cicely and her pre-eclampsia. One of her twins died and the pregnancy had to be terminated at 22 w lest or she'd die. Bush wants to have it changed. Reading them was and is a revelation. I don't know, I'm so angry. Not disappointed though, I never believed he wouldn't win. Next elections... You do know he has a brother, right? Such a comfort.
At 8:50 PM, Anonymous said...
Seriously dana.... the DRAFT! Get over it. The all volunteer army is the ONLY one that will ever work in this country. Drafted servicemen and women have very low morale and very high desertion rates, it makes no sense whatsoever.Second - your afraid hate crimes will be legal? So, murder/assualt/rape/ are now legel in the US? According to Cameron Diaz rape is... at least according to what she said on Oprah, just before the election. Not only that the word "hatecrime" should remind you earily of another word 'MINDcrime' remember that? That is WAAAAAAY too Totallitarian, even for a left wing loon like you! Christ, you think The Patriot Act is bad? Wait until the Government starts arresting you based on your thought processes.And to all those who will claim, that it's just not fair, he doesn't represent me... he isn't "my guy"... Shut up... really the take your own advice... and "MoveOn".org. Now you know what 52% of this country was going through as we watch Bill Clinton try and nationalize 1/7th if the economy. There is always someone whose guy loses. Deal wit it.And as far as the war not making sense? To who? Michael Moore...?!?! sorry charlie but about the only thing that makes sense to that man is whatever strokes his ego for the moment. Nothing else.... I would suggest that anyone that has seen his "docu" checks out Farenhype 9/11 it shreds this knucklehead's movie to peices.This war is about one thing... making sure that EVERYONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOESN'T LIKE US... is WATCHING! Ask Momhar Ghadafi... he took some notes on what went down in Iraq... said, "Well shit... this Bush guy actually does what he says he'll do... "I give Up"."Lastly - Just remember Dana/Beth/Keem, everything you say about G.W. or the Republicans, you say about me.... and you know me, and you know what i believe in. Keep that in mind. I am the Republican Party, George W. Bush is OUR president, and he WILL make us safer than John Kerry EVER could have. And that this "diversity" that the left is always crams down everyone's throat should have room for the conservative voice as well... peace and love ya freakin hippies....Donovan
At 8:37 PM, Robert ~ Marlénè said...
It's not my usual practice to comment on the comments made in somebody else's blog (though I do it all the time in mine), but Anonymous and Donovan both raised interesting questions upon which I would like to offer opinions."Look at the amount of money that is spent on education"... education in this country is grossly underfunded. Yes, billions are being spent, but billions more are needed. People are simply not getting educated. There are more and more people in the country, and education becomes more and more expensive as it becomes more and more sophisticated. People who do not have children, or whose children are all grown up, are reluctant to continue funding education with property taxes, and so schools have to go begging for supplies. And nobody said gun nuts were sane. But there are people running around in this world who think it is more important for a person to have the right to own automatic weapons than it is for a person to have a mind-enriching secondary education, who think that it is more important to fund a military capable of conquering and/or destroying the planet than to fund educating people instead of killing them."Do you really think gas would have dropped 50 cents overnight"... of course not, because petroleum companies would still be unregulated for the next few months. And even with regulation, the price of gas will continue to rise and rise and rise until the planet runs out of fossil fuel (which it might just do in our lifetimes if this SUV craze doesn't slow down). But when necessary-commodity prices rise faster than the median income of a nation, we have trouble; and oil companies are padding the price of gasoline, which rises at a greater rate than the price of crude oil because the oil industry is completely unregulated right now, thanks largely to the Bush family oil-company buddy system."I dont know how many times the president has to say he won't implement a draft for people to believe it"... when he gets to the end of his term and there's no draft, THEN I'll believe it. His Daddy said "no new taxes" so many times that it's one of the only things we remember about him (along with the Thousand Points of Light and puking on diplomats), but two years into his term: OOPS, sorry, can't be helped... new taxes. And I agree about Kerry, I wondered WHERE he thought he was going to get 50,000 new volunteer troops; but one hopes that military spending would have been funneled into military salaries and benefits (instead of no-bid military support and infrastructure service contracts) better under a man who actually served in the military and knows that, yes, soldiers DO need money and health care for themselves and their families (a little fact that Bush and the Republican Congress don't recognize, as they've tried to cut VA programs to the bone and keep neglecting to pay our servicemen)."Outsorcing is GOOD"... tell that to the guy who got laid off from his telecom job because he needed enough money to pay his rent and his American-sized salary was cutting into the shareholders' 7% return. And I keep hearing that "Economists agree outsourcing is good"... but economists know as much about individual economy as an historian knows about clinical psychology... it's all after the fact and theoretical. The economists never seem to think that sometimes the needs of the economy are different from the needs of the people, and that democratic government serves the people, not the economy: after all, slavery was one of the most effective production models ever produced, second only to complete automation, but it was nevertheless evil. Outsourcing increases productivity which lowers consumer costs, true... but if the consumers don't have jobs with which to pay for these cheapened items, there's not much point to it, is there? When productivity increases in the same ratio as consumer debt (which is rising to alarming levels), perhaps it's time to reconsider the concept of outsourcing before we end up in another Depression."Has our country ever had unity?" No, even when it was founded, there were those who'd rather have King George back. But unity is an ideal to reach for, not an historical concept... and when a presidential term has increased DISunity, there is a problem. Would Kerry have increased unity? I don't know, but the Bush Administration has proven that it not only can't, it won't... it has instead fostered disunity by constantly belaboring hot-button issues like civil and reproductive rights, freedom of speech versus keeping the peace, individual rights versus societal needs, etc.Let's put it this way, Anonymous says his dad is a Democrat activist and they get along fine; but my Grandmother and I have nearly come to blows over Bush on a number of occasions, something we have never done over a political figure, or even over anything that happens outside of our house. That's a creation of disunity, and I blame Bush for it.On to Donovan's comments: I agree that the Bush Administration would be insane to try and reintroduce the Draft, and that if they did there would be a huge rise in desertion and drop in morale. But the Bush cabinet doesn't seem very interested in morale, if they quite publicly cut funding for servicemen's benefits right in the middle of a military action. And where do you think someone could desert TO, out there in the desert?I agree that a crime is a crime is a crime, and the thoughts and beliefs of the person committing the crime cannot be policed. However, intent is a huge portion of law: murder with malice aforethought is always prosecuted differently than murder in the heat of passion; a person's thoughts or beliefs regarding the victim are and have always been part of the US justice system. And hate-crime legislation is not intended to make one kind of victim more serious than another, nor does it seek to police our thoughts; it is intended (and works) to encourage law enforcement agencies to prosecute crimes that they have in the past solidly ignored. If hate-crime legislation is repealed before it can do its work of reeducating law enforcement agencies, then I can assure you the prosecution of the murders of homosexuals will wane, but the murders themselves will not. All crimes are hate-crimes, but when criminals are allowed to get away with killing fags and niggers and kikes and bitches without any interference from the cops, because those aren't really people and don't count... well, then we have a problem.I agree that Michael Moore is a propagandist, just as rabidly and mindlessly devoted to his position as Bill O'Reilly. But he's OUR propagandist, our own left-wing liberal oracle, and we are more inclined to believe his facts and hearken to his opinions than we are to the facts and opinions of Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner filtered through their media empires. And I do believe he is actually devoted more to rational investigation and truth-seeking than his right-wing counterparts. He may be a knucklehead, but he's a progressive knucklehead instead of a recidivist knucklehead, and progress is the nature of an ever-expanding universe.And finally, I don't think that scaring However-he-spells-his-name in Libya is a really good reason to sacrifice the lives of thousands of our soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent civilians... I mean, if all the shopkeepers in the Bronx are scared to death of Don Corleone, does that mean that killing all those shopkeepers who didn't pay their "association fees" was a good thing? I don't want to sleep safe because my country's goons are bigger than the other country's goons; I want to sleep safe at night because there are no enemies. Fighting wars doesn't remove enemies, it just disperses them and sows the seeds for revenge; reconstruction and good diplomacy (rather than the industry-driven corporate-greed diplomacy that has characterized US foreign policy since the Fifties), open dialog and mutual respect, these are what makes enemies into friends rather than beaten foes.Anyway, sorry for taking up so much space, Dana, these comments have been boiling about in my mind since Wednesday, and it seemed better to write them here than in my own blog. But I'll link to it, anyway ;-)
At 3:52 AM, brooksba said...
To all those who read this,Troy - Don't take this personally. None of it is at you. Thank you for voicing your opinion, you have that right. Thank you for not attacking Dana or I. I have a lot of respect for you.Robert ~ Marlene - (sorry, I don't know how to do all the ` and ' over the e's) Your comment was well put. Donovan - I hope this doesn't upset you, however, I need to say it. You wrote: "And to all those who will claim, that it's just not fair, he doesn't represent me... he isn't "my guy"... Shut up... really the take your own advice... and "MoveOn".org."What I took out of this is "Shut up." Then you wrote: "should have room for the conservative voice as well". You have the right to voice your opinion as do the rest of us. You seem to preach the freedom of speech right but you have told others to keep quiet. Does the right only apply to you?I remember a conversation we had once where you told me, "They should just keep their mouths shut." Have I ever told you to "Shut up?" I doubt it. I ask for the same respect. We're all Americans. Every group has the right to express their beliefs. If Kerry had won, I would allow you to complain and voice your concerns. It doesn't matter who won and who lost, there is still a division in this country and people have concerns on both sides. Just because Bush won does not mean the entire country would rejoice. It wouldn't have happened if Kerry had won. As I see it, the conversative voice has had a lot of listeners recently. 52% of the voters chose it. It was obviously heard.You know why I voted for Kerry. It was because I believe Human Rights Belong to ALL Humans. That includes white, heterosexual males as much as it kills me to say it. As for the draft comment (I'd react to all of it, but that will get too long). The draft is not a good idea and I have no idea whether or not one will happen. Kerry may have been more prone to reenacting the draft. Here's the thing, Dana is scared of a draft happening as many Americans are. Just because it's a bad idea, that doesn't mean it won't happen. Anyone who thinks Bad Idea = Won't Happen is using faulty logic. There are many bad ideas that still happen when human beings are involved. One example comes to mind but I'm not going to trivialize this by using it.I'm not taking your advice and "Shutting up." I'm not claiming "It's not fair". The results of the election are what they are. I'm saying that all Americans have the right to their voice and that this country is divided. There are concerns out there and the solution is not immediate. We all have a long way to go.Beth
At 8:02 PM, Anonymous said...
Beth... and everyone else... your right. "Shut Up" was a bad choice of words... and it wasnt meant to stifle your thoughts... just the complaining. It just so happened that that particular night around 30-40 Macalester Students were having a candle light vigil because 50% of the population isn't represented by Bush, and that is the sort of whining that just infuriates me. I have no problem people voicing their opposition on an issue, but when knuckleheads just sit and whine and cry (like some in Hollywood as of late) it makes me mad, and I tend to go into broad and sweeping generalizations... sorry. - Donovan.P.S. Michael Moore is muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch more than just a partisan hack/propagandist... he is a flat out LIAR, unlike Rush or Hannity or O'Reilly. I would agree they espouse a conservative view, and they admit it... but Faranheit 9/11 will go down in history with the likes of those by director Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite film maker. There are soooo many rebuttals too his film that just show the immense editing done by Moore in order to propegate his distorted point of view... anyone who is the least bit intillectually honest should take the time to view these other films and then make up their mind... one thing that I might postulate if I may - the reason that the left in this country has lost the last 3 elections straight - is because of people like Michael Moore/Cameron Diaz/Leo DiCapprio/George Clooney/Ed Begley Jr./Barbara Streisand/Bette Midler/Bruce Springsteen/Eddie Vedder/Michael Stipe et al... these people are the extreme and are severely out of touch with what people in this country are all about....Thats it dammit. I'm starting my own blog - there is just toooooo much to talk about, and I'm eating up all of Dana's storage for her blog.