As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,
The sickening stars fade off th' ethereal plain;
As Argus' eyes by Hermes' wand oppressed,
Closed one by one to everlasting rest;
Thus at her felt approach, and secret might,
Art after Art goes out, and all is Night.
See skulking Truth to her old cavern fled,
Mountains of Casuistry heaped o'er her head!
Philosophy, that leaned on Heaven before,
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more.
Physic of Metaphysic begs defence,
And Metaphysic calls for aid on Sense!
See Mystery to Mathematics fly!
In vain! they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.
Religion blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires.
Nor public Flame, nor private , dares to shine;
Nor human Spark is left, nor Glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread Empire, Chaos! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal Darkness buries All.

Alexander Pope, 1742

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly
long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening
center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say –
God, when he walked on earth.

Robinson Jeffers

This is a tragedy of global proportions and the biggest blow yet to everything decent and good left in America. I'm in terror at what Bush will do now that his ego has been informed that God has just re-affirmed his mandate of power :/. (Oh come on, you KNOW that's what's going through his head, well that and Homer Simpson in an infinite "Woohoo!" loop :P)

The Second Coming -- W. B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I'm really kind of angry about this concession thing. Wasn't the war cry that we weren't going to make the mistakes of 2000?

I don't accept these results, either. As far as I'm concerned, Bush got in on an incumbency that wasn't his. What I *don't* know is what the hell to do about it at this point.

I didn't sleep much at all last night.

When I heard this morning Bush won the popular vote, I knew it was over. The only decent and wise thing for Kerry to do would be to concede, and he's done that.

Reportedly, Kerry told Bush that he had to do something about the divisions in the country. For Bush, this will mean explaining to the Blue people, in his earnest idiot stammer, that we'll have to try harder to be more like the Red people.

F#$ him and the fearful, hateful, hicks and mediocretins who elected him.

Catie --

If they don't accept the legitimacy of voting, the options available have historically been limited.

The obvious option available to you as Americans now is to do everything possible to achieve a majority in the House in 2006.

2006 is too far away and, I fear, not enough. This is scary NOW. I'm afraid of the next four years. I'm afraid of the next year. Something needs to be done now and no one is going to do anything.

Conceded. Conceded. Gddmnd mthrfckng quitter. The people who stuck their necks out for you thank you, sir.

This is reading like one of Mark Twain's instructional fables for young people, about the two brothers, and how the good one loses everything to the bad one. The Triumph of Goofus.

Ronald Reagan is now the Alabama of US Presidents, instead of the Mississippi.

Fortune Favors Diebold.

Good night, Gracie.

The only way that could happen, Graydon, is for people to be really, really angry about something.

I think it's quite possible that the administration could supply them, through its hubris and gross incompetence, with something to be angry about.

Unfortunately, this would have to be something in the nature of a national tragedy, or terrorist strike, or economic bust, or environmental disaster.

No one's ever going to be able to talk me out of my gut feeling that the Republicans won this in Ohio by making it as hard as possible for people in the state's Democratic strongholds to vote. (Well, that and inspiring evangelical Christians to protect the country from [ominous chord] gaaaay marrrrriage.) What was up with the shortages of voting machines in urban areas? Given that turnout was high all over the state, isn't it a little suspicious that the people still waiting in line to vote at midnight were in the cities and not the suburbs?

Stefan - Bush said he hit the Trifecta last time. What do you call it when four of your horses come in?

Last came Anarchy; he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.

And be wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
And on his brow this mark I saw--
I am God, and King, and Law!

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he past,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.

And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down,
Till they came to London: town.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken,
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers who did sing,
Thou art God, and Law, and King.

“We have waited, weak and lone,
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.”

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering-”Thou art Law and God.”

Then all cried with one accord,
“Thou art King, and God, and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!”

And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education,
Had cost ten millions to the nation.

-- Shelley, "The Masque of Anarchy"

One of the first things that will happen, I suspect, will be the purge of the Republican Party. Remeber the "RINO" jab? They laid that aside for the election, but it will be back. Remember all the people mentioned in places like Shrillblog, who were suddenly turning against years of loyal membership and daring to question God's Appointed? They're marked. Be prepared to treat them gently and kindly--whether they try to hang with their party, set up as independents, or join another. As Shakespeare noted: "When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom the gentler gamester is the soonest winner" (Henry V III.vi)
Building a coalition requires respect among its members. Make sure they know they have a welcome.

Many's the time I've been mistaken,
and many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken,
and certainly misused.
Ah, but I'm all right, I'm all right.
I'm just weary to my bones.
Still you don't expect to be bright and bon vivant,
so far away from home,
so far away from home.
And I don't know a soul who's not been battered.
I don't have a friend who feels at ease.
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered,
or driven to its knees.
Ah, but it's all right. It's all right.
For we've lived so well so long.
Still, when I think of the road we're travelin' on,
I wonder what's gone wrong.
I can't help but wonder what's gone wrong.

And I dreamed I was dying.
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly,
and looking back down at me, smiled reassuringly.
And I dreamed I was flying,
and high up above my eyes could clearly see
the Statue of Liberty sailing away to sea.
And I dreamed I was flying.

And we come on the ship they call the Mayflower.
We come on the ship that sailed the moon.
We come in the age's most uncertain hours,
and sing an American tune.
Oh, and it's all right, it's all right,
it's all right.
You can't be forever blessed.
Still tomorrow's gonna be another working day
and I'm tryin' to get some rest;
that's all - I'm trying to get some rest.

"American Tune," Paul Simon, from the album There Goes Rhymin' Simon, 1973

Please don't be angry at Senator Kerry for conceding. He fought the good fight, endured incredibly twisted attacks, kept his cool, kept promising hope and help until it became obvious that people didn't WANT help, just "security" (which isn't really secure.) Kerry's team has been up all night trying to calculate the possibilities, and the "facts" (such as they are) are that the votes just aren't there. People apparently voted their idiocy. I always said people are stupid. The sheep want Bush as their bellwether. Frankly, I think Kerry is the lucky one, because he doesn't have to try to dig us out of this hole. God knows what'll happen now that there's absolutely no opposition left standing. (Kerry will probably say in a minute here that he'd like to extend a hand across the aisle and work together bipartisan-wise, but Bush never did that, even here in Texas, and he's contemptuous of those not as powerful as he is. A word to the wise--be careful what you say from now on, even couched in diplomatic language. I'm going to have to tighten up on my own comments.)

Mostly, I'm concerned about what'll continue to happen to erode our civil rights and freedom of speech (to speak out and criticize the gov't and its decisions). I can't worry about all the war killings, because I've realized something. Something daunting.

About half of the USA . . . WANTS to fight and "kick ass" and kill. They always support attacks and war and invasions/occupations because they feel we're the policeman of the world. If there's no enemy, they don't know what to do. When there's an "enemy" to focus on, they feel normal again. That is all I can conclude when I hear all the comments about "homeland security" and "fight the war on terror" and all the confusion that is associated with each. The warlike half is about 52%, looks like to me. The rest of you who aren't white Protestants or who need Social Security or wanted gay people to have partnerships or whatever . . . well, unfortunately, the high school cliques just shouted, "Majority rules!" and raised their hands in a pep squad cheer. Unfortunately, they have not realized that they NEED diversity and balance or they, too, will lose their way. Continue to lose their way, I mean.

People get the gov't they deserve. And while I would not be surprised to discover that "the fix was in" in Florida and Ohio already (in other words, cheating took place somehow that we haven't completely seen yet), I can still see that the ones who like to censure others and feel superior are still out there, and they're in the majority. Like always. How is this different from business as usual? We had a good run there of freedoms. Now the pendulum has swung back, as it historically often does. We can only hope that people will wake up and organize to take the country back . . . unless they outnumber us, in which case we'll just have to cope if we want to carry on living.

Looks like for now . . . they outnumber us.

4 years is a long time, a long time for plodding turtle mistakes to catch up with sprinting jackrabbit personalities.

I say impeachment in 2 years. Most definitely Democrat in 2008. Noone is insane enough to vote for Cheney. I'm thinking that's the only reason there hasn't been an assassination attempt on Bush yet.

Graydon, Stefan--

I think you're both right. The thing to do is to win the mid-term elections; the problem with that is the people must be angry, and it seems that there may not be enough of us who are angry. Revolution in any form is sponsored by the downtrodden, not the fat and happy, and I'm afraid Americans in general are too fat and happy. I honestly thought this election was going to be revolutionary. The idea that Bush took the popular vote (however it was achieved; I can't speak to how much disenfranchisment there may have been) is something that I can barely wrap my mind around.

On one hand, I cannot recognize this as my country. On the other, dammit, it *is* my country, and while I've been threatening to leave if Bush is reinstalled, this morning I find that I don't want to leave. I want the sons of bitches who have taken over my country out of power.

Larry Brennan - Bush said he hit the Trifecta last time. What do you call it when four of your horses come in?

The Apocalypse?

As long as we're putting together a spontaneously poetry anthology that expresses our ineffable feelings with regard to this all-too-effable election:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--Dylan Thomas

[I need this myself, to keep from sinking into despair.]

Dieboldt delivered the vote. At about 5:30 PM on Skippy I called OH and FL for a Dieboldt delivery.

A cynic is an optimist who sharply observes the real world, and speaks to said observations.

Ellen, I said for horses not horesmen.

If you want to see visual despair, check out Fotolog. My Friends and Favorites page is a good launching point.

Gee, the way I've been linking to Fotolog, you'd think I worked for them. (I don't. Which is probably a good thing because they seem like inept businesspeople.)

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.

From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen,
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men,
From sale and profanation
Of honour and the sword,
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord.

Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall,
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to thee.

(Gilbert Keith Chesterton)

I've had that one famous line rolling around in my head all morning. Thank you for posting the rest, ers.

Teresa, I hate to say this, as it is probably the very last thing we will ever say to one another, as I asume that you'll write me off after this (as if you didn't already about 30 years ago), but you've finally gone off around the bend and become a flaming moonbat.

Do you *really* actually truly sincerely *believe* what you've posted? If so, then it's obvious that you're incredibly, essentially, completely and totally at your core undemocratic. You are an authoritarian; a dictator! "By the way, I don’t accept these results. I never will. And if you have any sense, you won’t either. I don’t care what your politics are." Yes. All power to the *CORRECT* people. Only YOUR vote and YOUR position count; all others don't, because they're WRONG and only YOU are RIGHT.

Never mind the majority. Also, never mind the minority either. You've got to break some oggs to make those omelets, right? Of course.

Sounds like representative democracy to me; a-yup.

Enjoy yourself in your house made of illusion; I do sincrerly hope that someday you'll return to the real world

As I said, I don't doubt that you won't speak to me again, after this. You, as I predicted 30 years ago, have opted to return to going to temple. Ah well.

Have a good rest of your life.

The rest of you, have good lives too. Me? I'm going to finish *my* book, and raise my kids, and live my life. And in 2008, vote for a different President once again -- despite all of the wringing of hands and wailing and gnashing of teeth now occuring amongst all of you right now.

Because, ya see, life is gonna go one; and nothing truly essentially much is gonna actually change.

I just want to cry.

I keep thinking about those I love: my husband, my brother, my cousins--they're all younger than me, and when when the draft comes, I'll be the only one too old to be eligible.

I keep thinking about the impending public health disaster: continued budget cuts for NIH and CDC, continued loss of jobs with health insurance, my parents and their generation retiring and going on Medicare, the fiasco that this administration has made of HIV/AIDS research and prevention.

Hear the lonesome whippoorwill
His song's too blue to fly
The midnight train is a-winding low
I'm so lonesome I could cry

I've never seen a night so long
When time keeps crawling by
The moon is gone behind the clouds
To hide his face and cry

Have you ever seen a robin weep
When leaves have turned to brown?
Like me he's lost his will to live
I'm so lonesome I could cry

(Hank Williams) a la Cowboy Junkies

Teresa,

Your comment about 225 years exactly catches my mood ... and Rea got to the Jeffers poem well ahead of me.

America: a good idea while it lasted.

I've said this elsewhere, and will repeat it here.

Conceding is a divisive act. Regardless of whether Kerry and his team thought that the provisional ballots would bring him a vicory, there were two good reasons to fight for them to be counted:

1. He promised. As late as Tuesday night, Sen. Edwards rreiterated the campaign's stance that every vote would be counted, and every vote would count.

2. Counting produces a clear, unequivocal result. We saw what happened when not all the votes were counted in 2000; there are now a significant fraction of Kerry supporters who believe that there were in fact enough Kerry votes among the provisional ballots to have won. (Not to mention those who think there was jiggery-pokery with the Diebold machines that were used in Ohio.) By challenging all the votes, recounting all the machines (and having their software examined under court order), counting all the provisional ballots, if Bush had still won (quite likely), there would have been far fewer doubters than there are today.

I call it cowardice and divisive, myself.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

My site went black today, in mourning for the Republic.

Then, in hope, I wrote a little PHP script that counts down the days till this is over. That's the "failed Bush administration" line at the top of my site.

But I won't forget what happened in Germany between 1932 and 1934. (I'm being a little vague here in an effort not to attract more comment spam. Go look it up in Wikipedia.)

And that is what I fear.

It can happen here.

That quickly.

Short on time, and keeping melodrama and poetry out of it:

I accept the results. It's not the resolution I wanted, but it looks like a clean win to me. While I'm sure there was dirty pool on both sides at a lot of local levels, I've seen no evidence that there was voter fraud on a scale large enough to tip the balance. If it was there, I'd think both the Democrats and the press would be all over it. And while I'm as skeptical of electronic voting as anyone, there were enough states not using it and showing similar numbers for Bush that Ohio and Florida hardly stand out as aberrations. The results are disappointing, but they make sense.

I understand why Kerry conceded, and agree with him that when faced with such numbers it was not in the best interests of the country to drag out another few weeks of ugliness simply to grasp at straws. Even if he somehow won in the end (which doesn't seem likely) he'd simply be this cycle's Hated Usurper. Would Bush have conceded? Probably not. But I don't see how that matters.

Bush won the popular vote. And not by a couple here and there, but by millions. It was an ugly fight, and you can keep on hating him. But it doesn't matter. The nation's sentiment has shifted in his direction. The system hasn't done what you wanted, nor what I wanted either, but from what I can tell the system worked.

And to me, that's still more important than one particular president.

well, unfortunately, the high school cliques just shouted, "Majority rules!"

My high school civics teacher once asked the class to define democracy. We responded with what we'd always been told up until then: "Majority rules." She sharply answered, "No. That is the definition of mob rule, not democracy."

Tim and Steve: Hear, hear!

The country has survived much worse, many more trying times. Far more important is that people not be consumed by their hatred, do what they can to make the USA the country they want it to be, and keep on keeping on.

Ok, everyone has to work through their five stages of grief. I want to strangle Kerry for conceding, myself, but it was his call. The fact that Edwards was opposed to it increases my opinion of him.

For me, I'm a parent. I don't have the luxury of giving up. We lost this battle. We claim to be the smart ones -- let's figure out what we did wrong and how we can win. We're the reality-based contingent-- let's face facts and adjust, regroup, and recover. Ideals alone will not bring victory -- we need analysis, strategy, tactics, and persistence.

And I need to find myself a copy of "Don't think of an Elephant".

Sigh...sympathies, Teresa. If it helps any, I don't think the radical right is going to have to long of a run--too many chickens coming home to roost in the next few years. But, still, that doesn't make this feel better.

All I know is that I've been sitting here all day, unable to do anything even vaguely useful and fighting against the Mother of All Panic Attacks.

Anybody, please -- tell me how we move forward from here. I haven't felt this distressed since the morning of 9/11 as I sat on the grass outside my workplace looking up at an eerily empty sky and realizing that I'd put one of my coworkers onto flight 11 that morning.

Tim, I don't know about your history with Teresa, but it looks to me like you are deliberately misreading what she wrote. She, and I, and many other people I know, don't accept the results, not because we only want the "right" people's votes counted, but because we don't believe that all the votes were counted. The missing ballots in Florida, the endless entertainment that Ohio provided running up to the election, and, of course, Diebold. It's bizarre to call such concerns "completely and totally ... undemocratic."

I don't believe the results. I never will. I admit to the possibility that Bush could possibly have won this election. I do not admit that the vote count was fair.

Suzanne: Here's one idea of mine. It does little to defuse the Supreme Court appointments and other tragedies due in the next two or four years, but it might make possible some recompense afterward.

Well, I'd been putting off buying a "nutbar conspiracy theorist" tote, but now I guess I'll have to get one. I was hoping not to need it.

I'll use it as my bookbag for the library.

And I won't stop fighting.

Because, ya see, life is gonna go one; and nothing truly essentially much is gonna actually change.

Mr. Kiger, the rest of your post is not mine to take issue with. But I must ask you: what do you consider "truly essential"?

In two weeks, I become too old to draft. My brothers, my cousins, my friends and other family, however, are prime candidates. I consider the loss of any of them, or of any human life, whether I know that human or not, to be something quite essential.

I do not believe that the people who may be killed, tortured, persecuted, driven further into poverty, or denied basic human rights or civil liberties would agree with you that "nothing truly essentially much is gonna actually change." Perhaps you meant that you thought nothing much would change for you. Perhaps you will be right.

Mr, Kyger, sorry about misspelling your name above.

What I don't get is that the people who were least affected by the 9/11 attacks are the ones who are most afraid. And most likely to think that Saddam was responsible. And most likely to think that Bush is fighting the good fight.

How do you fight willful ignorance? Do you grant it credit as faith and then try to use that lens to change perceptions? Do you call it what it is and harden the enmity of the deluded? Do you sow division amidst their ranks and encourage internecine warfare over minor points of doctrine? Do you find an even more compelling bogeyman to rally the haters around? There's an answer here somewhere. The one thing that we know doesn’t work is accommodation.

I'm not ready to give up on the republic just yet.

Kudos to Tim and Steve for retaining their sanity.

Teresa, I take it back. This is my favorite conspiracy blog.

If we're to cite poetry today, we must remember this.

SEPTEMBER 1939
W. H. Auden

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-Second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz ,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating the morning vow;
'I will be true to my wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To unfold the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another and die .

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Some lyrics from a CD a co-worker lent me yesterday.

You know I've seen that face before
I'm not sure if I want it to be
That old face I used to see
Cause that's the one that left me all alone
Took my feelings and hung them out to dry
Never gave a reason why
Yes I know I fell from grace before
But all that's gonna end

Sun's gonna rise again
I'll be listening to those lies again
Sun's gonna rise

Cos I went back for more
Guess I never learned my lesson well
I went straight back into hell
But when the lightning hits the stormy sky
No one cares about who'll be left to cry
And there ain't no reason why
Yes I know I led the chase before
The chase is gonna end

Sun's gonna rise again
I'll be listening to those lies again
Sun's gonna rise

You’re feeling sorry for yourself
Don't affect my mental health no more
I've had enough and it's over
- Sass Jordan

Now that the Rupublicans control all levers of power (the House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, and the WHite House), it will only be a matter of time before Bush and Rumsfeld implement their plans for a new draft for the invasion of Iran.

Who is that I see in the distance? Oh, it's Jeb Bush. The next president.

Please don't be angry at Senator Kerry for conceding.

Too late. I'm gonna savage that man if he concedes (as I write this, I have only CNN's word for it that he will, and I trust them like I trust Rove himself).

And FWIW, I think the "conspiracy!" types are, as someone said above, misreading Teresa's comments.

Oh, and Teresa, remember that silly bet we made? I believe I won, in which case please buy yourself and Patrick a drink from me!

All I can say is that today I'm grieving and tomorrow I'm finding a new way to fight. I'm not giving up my America, and you shouldn't either.

Kerry is conceding right now on NPR.

What I don't get is the "we must heal the divisions" stuff. It's a nice sentiment, but after the way Bush completely ignored antiwar voices, it's a moot point. The neocons thrive on division; what they want is an electorate of herbivores that they, the carnivores, can worry and herd at will, and feed off whenever they please.

Bush won a certain segment of the vote, but he should try to be a President to all of us, and I don't feel like he gives a rat's ass about my opinion.

So I don't accept these results either; I don't accept a society that sees fit to obliterate my views.

I will continue to keep voicing my opinion and working to change things.

I've always felt like an outlier on society, so in that sense, my life won't change much either.

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.

Is there any reason not to despair ? I'm trying, but I can't come up with one.

"Your logo here" wrote the following:

The five stages of grief. Let's get this over with quickly.

Denial: We've still got those provisional ballots in Ohio to count. Absentee ballots all over the place. The electors could decide not to give their votes to Bush. It's not over yet.

Anger: FUCK YOU, America. FUCK. YOU. You like 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians because of your false war? 8000 wounded American soldiers and 1100 dead in Iraq because of imperial hubris and incompetent post-war planning not enough to quench your desire for misguided vengeance? Great, well you're gonna have a lot more blood on your hands. Don't want gay marriage? Fanfuckintastic. You got your way. A lot of good it's gonna do when you can't afford your prescription drugs, your unemployment benefits have run out, and your kid's fucking school is overcrowded. And don't think for a fucking second that "tort reform" is going to make a difference, because it won't. Global warming is real, motherfuckers, and you just sealed the deal. Balanced budget? Ha. And when the Bush Supreme Court makes abortion illegal again, and thousands of women are dying from unsafe back-alley abortions, that's on you, America. Thought the world just hated our government? Fuck that. The world hates you the people now, America, you stupid, weak, arrogant, ignorant sons of bitches. In thirty years, when people look back at what happened on November 2nd, 2004, and ask what people were thinking, all I'll have to say is, "Fuck you."

Bargaining: Please, America, think about what you've just done. We'll give you your tort reform and your partially privatized social security. We'll quit bitching about how the 2000 election was stolen. Take some school vouchers, give it another try, maybe it'll actually work this time around. More handguns for everyone. We'll lock away Michael Moore. Just please, please, please don't let Bush back in office for four more years.

Depression: Fuck. I mean, just, fuck. I can't take another four years of this. This is horrible. Disgusting. I just want to curl up in the fetal position and lie in the dark until it's over. Where's my tub of cake icing?

Acceptance: Bring it on, motherfuckers! Republicans control the House, the Senate, the White House, and Bush is gonna have three or four Supreme Court justices to appoint. Bring on the radical rightwing conservative agenda. No more blaming Clinton or the Democrats. It's on the Republicans' heads now. And on the bright side...umm...I'll get back to you on that one.

Jonquil, your Auden's been mis-copied. That should be: "We must love one another or die."

Douglas asks:

"Is there any reason not to despair?"

Yeah: Because doing so makes it easier for them to do what they want to do.

Last I checked, the 55 million or so people who voted against Bush have not been forced into house arrest. And fighting against the Bush agenda is clearly more critical *now* than it was 24 hours ago.

Bush won an election. He didn't win the divine right to rule. I'm a citizen of the United States. No one gets to rule me. I'll be busy reminding the government of that. You might consider doing the same.

His first version was "or die". His final version was "and die". (I dimly remember that he made the change sometime in the 1950s, but don't quote me.)

You're all being lied to about the draft. IT *Ain't Gonna Happen!*

IT CAN'T MAKE IT THROUGH THE SENATE!!!

You can stop worrying about it.

Instead, what'll happen, is that the current National Guard/Reserve and active military will bear the brunt of it all (whether fair or not; and it isn't fair, in IMHO anyway). They'll move troops from Germany and Japan and Korea first to take up the loads in the Middle East.

CHip will tell you that I should see instead the movie "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington," to see what the power of a fillibuster amounts to in terms of it being a useful tool by Senate Democrats to keep anything bad happening. (This is in response to an earlier post of mine on this subject.) (Hello CHip, whoever you are; I don't know you, I don't think...) Well, I do think that I do know more than CHip in this instance, having actually worked for 15 going on 16 years as a political professional (i.e., getting paid to do it, and having to actually have *results*, too), and I'm not worried about the ability of the Democrats, even led by Senator Reid (assuming he ends up as the Minority Leader -- and that's the way to bet; he's got it wired up) to hold their own in the Senate against all sorts of Bad Things (such as Supreme Court appointments, too, BTW).

The reactions to the election that are envinced by everyone on this blog are typical of the Democratic party; and that *will* energize them, including those of them in the Senate.

In short: There is NO WAY that cloture will be arrived at in the Senate for a vote on ANY bill to institute the draft.

It just ain't gonna happen! Stop worrying!

Thank you to Pathos for the Yeats, one of my favorites and alas, all too appropriate right now. Thanks to all who posted poetry; somehow, realizing thesse feelings have been written about through the ages makes it a *little* easier to bear. Shelley is early 19th century, and his poem was right on target as well.

Otherwise, it's all been said. I'm still vacillating between anger and horror.

The draft is not the only thing I mentioned, Mr. Kyger.

Douglas wrote:
Is there any reason not to despair ? I'm trying, but I can't come up with one.

No terrorists attacked in the weeks previous, or on election day, as foretold by many. Nobody was assassinated. There's no rioting in the streets. The government has not collapsed. Most of us don't have to hire private security to drive to work. We have a free (albeit stupid) press. You can vent your anger in blogs without fear of interment. The stock market is open today. You can watch Lost tonight, or pop in a Buffy DVD which Netflix can deliver to you via our functional postal service, or play violent video games, or read a Tor novel. It is relatively unlikely that someone will beat you to death for your religion or ethnicity. You will continue to collect Social Security until the money runs out, and probably for some time after that.

The world hasn't ended. Our leadership wasn't great in the late 20th century; it got worse in 2000; and the results from yesterday and today are yet another slide downward. But it's not Armageddon, people. Bush didn't proclaim himself Führer. He won an election. The fight was ugly, and it ended in a result 49% of people hate, but the system's functioning. And it's functioning in an entirely functional -- and mostly pretty decent in spite of itself -- country.

You want to be angry? Fine, be angry. There's plenty of reason for that. But you find no reason not to despair? Give me a frippin' break.

*delurk*
What worries me, aside from the Court nominations is a comment Bush made in a speech in Ohio on Monday about "bringing the gift of freedom to the people of Cuba in the next four years". I'm surprised none of the enlightened minds here have heard that sound bite from NPR.

I remember history well enough to recall what happened the last time colonialism or "nation building" was in place. It ended in WWI. I fear we are headed that way again. Please don't let me hear Bush say, "We need a little elbow room".

I'm too Jeffersonian for my own good. The masses scare me. I believe in the democracy of an informed electorate. If only that were enforcable.

*Relurks*

(I posted this on electolite too)

I could throw my hands up in the air and say to hell with it. But the problem with that is it will only make me more miserable. I'd be lying if I said I didn't care anymore. So, I can either let myself slide into inaction, indifference, silence, and hope to numb myself to the self-inflicted pain that would surely follow. Or I can be true to what's important to me in the face of defeat. Personally, I'd rather admit I care and scream the truth than silence myself and pretend it doesn't matter.

I have no optimistic words to offer. Only the choice between hard honest work and easy self-deception. One offers the pain of defeat and the other offers the pain of lying to myself.

But then, the operators manual for democracy never said it was going to be easy or painless.

What Tracina said.

Has anyone else had trouble getting onto Making Light for the past 24 hours? Work, home, my parent's house... I'm having periods of not being able to get on, then everything's fine.

I think a lot of people need to calm down. I survived eight years of Clinton, with some wailing that any day they expected the black helicopters to start rounding up Christians and dumping us in camps. I didn't believe the conspiracy people on the right, and you shouldn't buy into the left's equivalent. Is it so hard to believe that educated, intelligent people can reach a different conclusion than you? That what one side calls facts, the other calls distortion and bias? (And that goes both ways.) For every person here shaking their heads in disbelief, there is another on the other side sighing in relief that they have been spared the nightmare scenarios they saw in a Kerry presidency. Simply relax and realize that no president has been elected by 100% of the vote. Someone is always disappointed, and this time it is your turn.

Oh, yeah, I'm very reassured when a long-time Republican staffer tells me what a strong position the Democrats have in the Senate.

"That what one side calls facts, the other calls distortion and bias?"

Like the documented fact that we found no WMD in Iraq?

No person who is both intelligent and educated, and who furthermore is intellectually honest, disbelieves that one.

It is relatively unlikely that someone will beat you to death for your religion or ethnicity.

Easy for you to say.

Sorry, but as a brown-skinned, disabled dyke, I'm feeling pretty damned scared right now.

Mostly what Larry Brennan said.

Here's the problem - four years ago, Bush absolutely did not get the popular vote. Florida was kind of dicey. So we had every right to be pissed off, not just at Bush but at the process.

This time, in addition to the minority and majority election judge every poll gets, there were all kinds of independent observers, both from groups like MoveOn and from foreign countries. So while there was probably some vote fraud, and some voter intimidation, the evidence that it was pervasive just isn't there. Sorry. I'd like to say it was there. I'd like to blame it on Diebold. But I need evidence, and it just isn't there. If Diebold was doing some sort of massive fraud, someone would have noticed.

We lost, plain and simple. It's painful, but it's true. And, speaking as a person who worked hard for Kerry on this campaign, I'm disappointed. But his concession speech was because he is a realist. When I got up and 4am and did the math this morning, it was clear Kerry's election wasn't going to happen. Kerry is a realist, not a coward.

It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be pissed off, but that it means we need to avoid too much hang-wringing and blaming.

But here's what we've got to watch for.

For one thing, the politics of fear clearly beat out the politics of reality. That's frightening, because history shows that countries often go down the authoritarian path when the government knows that works.

An oddity of our electoral map that I noticed this morning that sort of plays into the fear thing - did you notice that the states that had the highest number of 9/11 deaths (New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California and DC (and those blue-leaning northern counties of Virginia)) all went Democratic? As someone uptopic said, the folks with more direct experience with foreign terrorism on our soil DID NOT VOTE FOR BUSH!

For another thing, the social/culture war is doing more damage to this country than the Islamist terrorists have done so far. I don't accept that I am less moral than Dick Cheney because I approve of gay marriage and birth control -I haven't raped and pillaged my government. I will never accept it.

I think this event has the chance to energize progessives, and if Bush and buddies behave as badly as I expect they will, it'll piss off the right-leaning moderates, too.

We also need to have our eye on the 2006 elections. There are now a couple of Senators actually to the right of Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania's awful (as opposed to kinda bad) senator. I've already started. This morning, I bought the following domain:

http://www.dumprick.com

(Notice how "dumprick" sounds a lot like a description of Senator Santorum?)

Tim, I'm glad for your confidence that the Senate will adhere to its rules. But we should all remember that the Senate’s rules are not law and can be changed, perhaps more easily than we imagine. The GOP managed to re-district Texas when they shouldn’t have been able to, so I expect them to try to change the Sentate's rules of order, probably using judicial nominations as a wedge.

Nonetheless, I sincerely hope you're right. The problem is that Democrats have a history of accommodating, and fracturing. Which might just become manifest by allowing a vote on a draft to come to the floor of the Senate.

Jonquil, I have no desire to get into a big argument over assorted points. I will only say, documented by who? I have seen reports of the insurgents trying to use nerve and mustard gas shells as bombs against our troops. I have read reports that indicate that there is a high probability that the majority of Saddam's WMDs were smuggled into Syria in the time before our troops moved in. I can point out that we found entire fighter planes buried in the desert by accident, so how hard would it be to miss spider holes containing toxins? I can turn to my own *memory* to recall that everyone, including the U.N., believed that Saddam had them before the war. It is easy to use hindsight to condemn someone. Therefore, I do not have to be intellectually dishonest to hold a different opinion, I simply have to access different sources that are willing to admit that the Democratic party line may not be the entire truth.

As I said, I did not come here to argue points, simply to say that doomsday is not here. America is still America. Clinton didn't throw me in a camp, and I sincerely doubt that anyone here has anything to worry about.

(And Darkrose, my friend, considering where you live, I really don't think you are likely to run into roving gangs of racist homophobes. They would have to be bussed in.)

I'd like to not be angry at Kerry for conceding but he had ten days to count all the ballots, to make good on his promise. Instead, he folded in twelve hours. It's sad, but even Gore put up more of a struggle. What this says is that the last six months of fighting meant nothing. He rolled over before the Republicans even started to make noise and there's no more talk of bette rluck next time, or maybe in 2008. It'll be too late by then.

I'm so angry and sad right now, it make sme sick.

I don't accept that I am less moral than Dick Cheney because I approve of gay marriage and birth control - I haven't raped and pillaged my government. I will never accept it. (Laurie Mann)

While watching the election coverage and especially the exit polling, it really galled me that the media has come to use the phrase "moral values" to represent opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion. Just how is it that I'm "immoral" to believe that people should be allowed to love one another, and that babies should be born into loving families who want them? Another example of how the right has co-opted the language and moved itself into the mainstream.

Darkrose:
Easy for you to say.

With all due respect, that's a presumption. You know no more about me than I know about you.

Sorry, but as a brown-skinned, disabled dyke, I'm feeling pretty damned scared right now.

More than before? Seriously: that does sound like a tough situation and, having no idea what you go through every day, I will not belittle it. But is your personal safety really any more at risk today than it was on Monday?

I would agree that the odds of discrimination getting better any time soon have likely been postponed. But let's keep things in perspective. Things I do know about you: you're alive, you have sufficient resources above your survival needs to have access to the Internet one way or another, and you have freedom to speak out for yourself on the Web and fight the good fight. It may be a black mark for America that you have to fight it, but it's one up on some other parts of the world that you can.

That's all I'm saying. Not that things are really good. Just that the world hasn't suddenly ended.

I must admit I find myself particularly annoyed at Repubs like Tim Kyger and L.G. Booth who act like this election was a football game, and our team lost. "Too bad, try again next season."

It's not a game. It has very serious consequences. While I admit it is certainly not the Apocalypse, some seriously bad things are about to go down, and if you weren't wrapped up in your rah-rah mentality, you might see it.

Or perhaps more accurately, if you were truly Christian (instead of just playing one on the Web), you might see it.

Wow.

Tim Kyger: I can't address your somewhat astonishing personal comments, since they weren't addressed to me and it's bad form to be grossly inappropriate, don't you think?

I can say that an electoral strategy, and there is no question at all that this was such an electoral strategy, which is based on the party in power disenfranchising as many as possible of the people who are paying the greatest cost for their policies is not an electoral strategy which can lead to a valid result in an participatory democracy.

Pathos-

The Second Coming was ruined for me when it was used as the frontspiece for Bork's _Slouching Towards Gomorrah_. I think your placement of it is more appropriate.

L.G. Booth, some of us are concerned with more than our own self-interest ("...I sincerely doubt that anyone here has anything to worry about"). Do I believe that I, personally, am likely to be abducted and sent to Syria to be tortured? No, I don't. Do I believe that others are, if the Bush administration gets its way regarding H.R. 10? Yes, I do. Do I believe that I, personally, am likely to be driven over the edge into poverty in the next four years? No, I probably won't be, although it certainly could happen. Do I believe a significant number of other people will? Yes, I do. And those things bother me enough that I'm not willing to shrug and say, "Oh, well."

Teresa, that bet about the October surprise? I'm not going to take your money, not on this day. Please give it to a good cause, whatever you feel deserves it. (Blackboxvoting.org might be worth it....)

If a draft returns, it could happen covertly. Bits and pieces of the laws will be hidden in other bills until someone points out that everyone of certain ages is required to perform some public duty. Of course, some folks won't be skilled enough, according to those administering the program, for anything but the military.

If it happens out in the open, it will be on account of Bush and company starting another war with an Islamic country that spreads quickly to include most Islamic nations declaring war on the US. At that point, we'll need a draft to mobilize enough forces to survive.

For every person here shaking their heads in disbelief, there is another on the other side sighing in relief that they have been spared the nightmare scenarios they saw in a Kerry presidency.
-L.G.Booth

The problem with this is that the nightmare scenerios dreamed up by conservatives were just that: dreams. What we're worried about from a second Bush term isn't figments of our imagination, fed by one too many Hal Lindsey and Tim Lehay novels. It's based on what's already happened. The Patriot Act is real. GTMO is real. Aby Grahb is real. Iraq is real. And so is an invasion of Iran. (My sister in law is in the Army and they've already been told that's where they're going next).

We aren't rambling on about black helicoptors and bodies burried in the Rose Garden. We're afraid of what we've seen and what we are seeing with our very own eyes.

Good grief, Tim Kyger! You waited 30 years to say "I told you so"? You must have a permanently crippled back from that chip on your shoulder.

Eric - You're right about the language thing. My head nearly exploded listening to NPR last night.

Darkrose and Steve - To keep my mind active while looking for work, I signed up with the Taproot Foundation, an organization which provides service grants (branding projects, web sites, etc.) to charities. I got assigned as a brand strategist to a project for a youth center in San Francisco that works with LGBTQQ youth. (The QQ stands for queer and questioning.) My initial reaction was, wow, I don't really identify with teenagers, and despite living in SF, I don't know if I can identify with the challenges faced by queer youth.

Well, I can safely say that I've never met a more dedicated, open-minded group of people. And the teenagers I met made me think of my own experiences as a teen and young adult. I'm proud to be working with them.

Only now, after the election, I wonder if I'm helping an organization that will produce well-adjusted kids who will ultimately get rounded up and shot by bigots.

Darkrose, I won't minimize your feelings of fear, but you need to know that there are people out there who see you as a whole person, and who will fight for your rights. And this group includes at least one fat, straight, pushing-40 white business guy.

*carefully separates Ms. Booth and Darkrose*

And as the designated moderate in this trio, I promise to get Hendak to open the back rooms at the Copper Coronet tonight so you two can go at it. And then we can go back to being living proof that three people with very differing politics can still be close friends.

Let us mourn before you start the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps, already" routine. Please?

Larry Brennan said: What I don't get is that the people who were least affected by the 9/11 attacks are the ones who are most afraid.

IMO, that's because those people were able to directly confront the reality of terrorism. Those folks from the red states, especially those for whom New York, or even Washington or Pennsylvania, are just distant points on a map and pictures on TV, have only an understanding of terrorism at second remove (at best). The images they've been fed are distortions, and facts are much harder to digest than are authoritatively spoken sound bites.

I have been taught that "fear" can be understood as an acronym: "Fantasy (or Future) Expectations Appearing Real." Images we visualize (and visualization has very powerful results) generate a response; in terms of fear, that response is fight or flight, which itself is a powerful motivator. The best mechanism I know of to defuse fear, and its fight or flight response, is confrontation of the expectation or image.

Unfortunately, that's kind of hard to do, with terrorism. The more so because if we did, we'd probably panic large numbers of folks.

But I know one thing. Fearmongers and hatemongers don't have what I want. Don't have what I want for my family, my friends, my country. And I won't just sit around, allowing a country built on hopes and dreams to rot and fall into a pit of fear and hate. I lost half my family to the last major outbreak, half a century ago. And damned if it's happening again on my watch.

Hal, I really don't see what my religious beliefs have to do with anything you complained about. I have a church that I regularly attend, so I am not 'playing a Christian on the internet.' I do not see why you feel the need to be insulting.

You are right, the election was not a game, and I did not intend to imply that it was one. I was trying to point out that no matter who wins, the losing side will be disappointed and upset, and that it will pass. I remember my husband foaming at the mouth when Clinton was re-elected, and I said the same thing to him... "This, too, shall pass."

And I would like to point out that many Bush voters feared that "some seriously bad things" would result from Kerry winning. Do you truly think that half of the U.S. went into the voting booth and said, "Hmm, wonderful things if Kerry is elected, terrible things if it's Bush... what the heck, I'll go with Bush!"?

The election was not a game. There was a lot riding on it, on many levels. But it is silly to re-hash the campaign slogans at this point. If you see things happening that you disagree with, speak out, become involved. That is what makes our country great. Heck, complaining about the government is our *real* national pastime. If they tried to jail people for that, they wouldn't have anyone left to pay for the prison guards!

L.G. Booth writes: " If you see things happening that you disagree with, speak out, become involved. That is what makes our country great."

We've seen what the Bushies do to people who disagree and speak out.

That'll only get worse.

JeanOG, m'dear, no need to bother Hendak. How about rousting Bernard for a round of drinks instead?

Let us mourn before you start the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps, already" routine. Please?

No bootstraps were being invoked, just an attempt to calm the panic. Eight years ago I went through the same reaction ("I don't believe this!? How could he be re-elected? Can't people see????") and the country survived, and I survived with it.

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I retire. As I said, I meant to sound a note of calm, not become a designated whipping girl for others to take their frustration out on. We can debate and argue, but only the future will show if yesterday was a good or bad thing for this country. Adieu.

L.G. Booth writes: "I sincerely doubt that anyone here has anything to worry about."

Right. Because we're all pure-bred Aryans hereabouts, so nothing to worry about.

Steve, those things you mentioned - all good, yes. How confident are you they will persist through another four years of Bush ? This was not merely an election, but a referendum on what's happened in the last three years. Control of the executive and legislative branches is wholly Republican, under the kind of people who think outsourcing torture is a good idea. Justice Rehnquist has cancer and will be departing soon, after which the judicial branch will soon be under control as well. What remains to limit the imperial and fascist tendencies of this administration ? A few polite left-wing citizens.

I have lived in a police state, with conscription of citizens to fight unjust wars, and I don't wish to repeat the experience. It nearly destroyed me the first time around. That is why I despair.

Michelle, I had been trying all morning to get here, and it took until 1:30pm for it to work. So you're not the only one. (And I'm at work.)

I could be drafted. My sisters could be drafted. And I can't imagine my stick-thin younger sister surviving basic training. I doubt I could either, in truth.

I'm apprehensive about these next four years. I'm not a political person, but I voted. And everything I voted for lost.

How many of us here did something active to support Kerry and/or the Democrats? No, don't chime in, I'm sure many of you did; rhetorical question. My point is that I now feel that I didn't do enough in the past couple of years to help get the results that I would have preferred.

There are political organizations out there, in your home town or state and in mine, that would appreciate and benefit from some help. I knew about them all along, and I sent a few dollars here and there, and did a little bit of volunteering. But I'm not feeling smug and saying "Well, I did something." I'm feeling disappointed that I thought that the little I did was enough.

It's going to take more than sitting glumly in despair, and it's going to take more than just going about our lives as usual. But four years is a long time, and there are a lot of us. Surely we can all do some more heavy lifting this time around, and the results may surprise everyone.

(And to those who did do the heavy lifting on this campaign: thank you. You fought the good fight until the results were in and clear. Next time I plan to be in the trenches with you.)

I'm kind of shocked how many educated, intelligent adults think concession means they quit counting the votes.

It doesn't. It means Kerry can go get some rest, and everyone will keep counting absentees, and Ohio will count its provisional ballots on Nov. 13. And if by some miracle Kerry does get the 90% of them he'd need to be named President, he still would be. Conceding is a political move, not a legal one.

L.G.Booth,

If you want to calm some nerves, you could seriously help by buzzing off for a week or so until people deal with their loss.

L.G. Booth,

8 years ago, we had the healthiest economy in the history of the western world and people weren't being thrown into concentration camps in Cuba. Comparing Bush to Clinton is disingenuous. That you were delusional enough to believe the Conservative fairy tales about a man who, at his worst, fooled around with an intern and then denied it is your own fault, not that of any Liberal Boogyman, and certainly not a result of anything Clinton did in or out of office.

No one died when Clinton got a blowjob. 100,000 Iraqis and 1100 American soldiers are now dead because Bush felt like having them killed. And that's the only rationale that is left because all the others have turned out to be yet more Conservative fairy tales.

Are you beginning to see why we're a tad upset about the election and why this isn't just a case of our team not winning?

I keep thinking about an interview I saw last week with a young woman who was working for Nader, and how self-importantly she said, “We’re voting the movement, not the candidate.” The stupid chit had somehow failed to notice that what we elect are candidates.

I'm far angrier at the 51% of the population that voted for Bush than the .5% or less that voted for Nader.

Long time lurker here.

This is _Making Light_, right?

I can imagine how utterly discouraged many people are right now. I do not foresee any of us changing each other's minds in heated, accusatory flames. Obviously everyone feels very differently on what path that this administration will take us on.

Perhaps it would be best to take a moment... Breathe deep and step away from the computer. So often you can build your rage by forgetting to get enough O2. Take a break, bath, whatever.

Then take your concerns/thoughts and channel them into something positive. Work, write, edit, build, putter on things your believe in. Things you think will help this country or the people in it (or where-ever you happen to be). Help illuminate and educate. If people seem to you to be acting out of ignorance, do you part to educate them on where you're coming from, peacefully. Shouting at someone doesn't improve language skills, even if both parties speak the same tongue.

No one profits from anger and division in the long run. Not even those who sit atop the mount.

These are just suggestions, your mileage will undoubtedly vary.

--dru

ps. Take a gander at the blackboxvoting.org people. They filed the FOIA requests before the results. Regardless of the outcome, they seem to focusing on making the light in their own corner of this pale blue dot.

Jim K: I went to work for Kerry/Edwards in July, a few hours every week. I also gave an unprecedented amount of money to Kerry (and some to Dean last winter and some to ACT).

I'm normally a registered Independent, but I am tempted to register as a Democrat, just becuase...

I'm surprised by the town in which I currently live. Mount Lebanon is a very Republican suburb. However, Kerry beat Bush here by 1,000 votes.

Elisabeth: Did anyone here say they stopped counting the votes? If so, I missed that. You are correct--they don't stop counting.

After concession, though, it pretty much stops mattering.

What worries me a bit is the continuing demonization of the Bush administration. It's not as though I think it is entirely undeserved: heck, I consider Kerry a clear rightwing candidate; imagine what I think of Bush, especially given his and his administration's tendencies to play fast and loose with democratic traditions and the rule of law.

The problem is that digging trenches isn't going to get the Democrats anywhere. Notwithstanding rumors and/or conspiracy theories regarding voter fraud in Ohio, the majority of American voters consciously chose to cast their vote for Bush; no amount of arguing will make that go away. In other words, the Republicans have a very substantial base of voters that consider a Bush administration the superior option. And demonizing the president will not move a single one of of these votes from the Republican into the Democratic column at the next election, nor will it make any message more believable that the Democracts want to convey to these voters; instead, any such message will be greeted with doubt. To convince somebody who has a different opinion, you have to earn credibility with them first, and antagonizing them is generally not a good way to do it.

This is particularly troublesome because I believe that the majority of people who voted for Bush did so being unaware of many of the positions that the president holds on important issues. But how do you inform the