There is no particular reason to fill this blog with all the disappointment and sadness that comes from these election results. We were wrong here on the blog -- voter turnout among evangelical "christians" carried the day. Men and women of good will failed to close ranks and defend civilization and democracy against ignorance and hatred. To love one's country, yet see it stumble so... willingly.
In the next four years we will see:
1. Thousands more Americans dead in Iraq, and no stable government there.
2. Another war somewhere, quite possibly Iran or North Korea. This president thrives on war, although he (blasphemously) claims to be a follower of Christ.
3. The end of the North Atlantic alliance, except in name only.
4. The health care crisis will come to a head.
5. The end of social security's guarantee, as we have known it, replaced by speculative private accounts that will disappear for those who need it most.
6. A conservative Supreme Court that will take away abortion rights.
7. A constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage and civil unions, even where they now legally exist.
8. Legislation to permit legal discriminaton against gays.
9. No attempt to reform the electoral system in any way.
10. Patriot Act II - the Attorney General will have the right to take away your citizenship and deport you. The FBI will begin to investigate those of us with blogs like this.
11. Patriot Act III - effectively repealing the Bill of Rights as we know it. Jose Padilla will become commonplace, as the Bush administration locks up people it calls 'terrorists' and throws away the key, denying them any right to any judicial process
12. Legalized prayer in schools - evangelical christian prayer.
13. A budget deficit that will increase so greatly that the government will have to drastically cut funds for education and medicare.
14. Continued exodus of US jobs overseas, and the wal-mart-ization of the US workforce.
15. Skyrocketing cost of education and health care, with no end in sight.
16. Increased pollution. The end of any real effort to increase fuel efficiency.
17. Massive new logging, mining, and drilling in the West and North.
18. An end to affirmative action, even in places where it is the only remedy for ongoing proven racism and discrimination.
19. More terrorist attacks on the USA, because our domestic security efforts are so ill-prepared, and because of massive anger at an increasingly imperialist US foreign policy.
20. The dollar will continue to decrease in value.
21. Reinstatement of the death penalty, without changes, where moratoria have been in effect to examine its application.
22. Increased unemployment among minorities and inner cities.
23. Increasing jingoism, nationalism, and militarism. God and Country substitute for democracy and liberty.
24. Defeat of efforts to remove the confederate flag from statehouses and other public places.
25. Public taxpayer money used to fund private religious education.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Heartbroken
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 9:51 AM
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5 comments:
I'm afraid that most of these things will at least be attempted and of those most will get pushed through by Republican House, Republican Senate, Republican White House and Republican Supreme Court.
I would add that the abortion rights issue is just the tip of the iceberg. The basic right to privacy will be removed throughout the society. The Supreme Court appointed by the Republicans will protect the State's authority to: secretly investigate people including their medical, library, internet, credit card, records without having to first show probable cause or get approval from a judge. We will be repeated told to "trust" those in power not to abuse our rights.
James Madison will be spinning in his grave.
I can also see those in Gitmo are not going to get any relief in the near future either. Same goes for our asylum seekers locked away in detention camps. Just goes to show that Americans are as stupid as Australians. Although you guys are more motivated by religious fervour, rather than simple fear and greed with the possibility of rising interest rates. I cannot decide which is more abhorent.
We always knew the election would be close, and it was. Trying to explain why the chips fell precisely where they did yesterday is like trying to "explain" the movement of the stock market based on the news events for that day. As we discussed at length in earlier posts, 1-2% of basic randomness is all it takes to swing a swing state.
Let us hope that not all of LTG's dire predictions of the future come to pass. I have my hopes that #1-4, #6-8, #12-13, #22, and #24 will not come to pass (unfortunately, that leaves most of them as plausible.)
Yes, Anonymous (is this Sam?), it appears as if the American electorate is just as bad as the Aussies. But rather than tar all Americans and all Australians with the same brush, let us all remember that enormous numbers of Americans and Australians voted against Bush and Howard. And did so for well thought out, reasonable reasons. Like Master of Time and Space said, this was VERY close to 50-50.
What is alarming in the US case now is that normally such close electoral divisions result in mixed control of the institutions of power. But right now, the same faction has barely won control of all the major institutions of power in Washington. So the 49% of the population that voted against them have no representation other than the rather crude weapon of the Senate fillabuster.
If one is looking for a cause of the polarization, that's it. Our country is in a very unusual period of total institutional domination by a bare majority. This is the closest our country has ever been to the "Tyrrany of the Majority" that the Founding Fathers feared more than anything.
Very sad...
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