The Day of the Dead

"America our nation has been beaten by strangers who have turned our language inside out who have taken the clean words our fathers spoke and made them slimy and foul

their hired men sit on the judge's bench they sit back with their feet on the tables under the dome of the State House they are ignorant of our beliefs they have the dollars the guns the armed forces the power plants

they have built the electric chair and hired the executioner to throw the switch

all right we are two nations."

John Dos Passos

Ok...we lost the other day, at least on paper. I spent yesterday in total shock and despair. Ready to move out of the country, or at least to a blue state. I felt like a foreigner in my own country.

After spending a week where I did almost nothing except work to get out the vote for Kerry it was a shock and disappointment. After 13 hours in the rain Tuesday to come home and watch that...to say I felt sick to my stomach would be an understatement.

Today my resolve is back a bit. And frankly to me the gay marriage amendments passing all over is just as or more upsetting than Bush being elected. This isn't about democrat versus republican. It isn't about Bush vs. Kerry. People are all talking about reforming the Democratic Party. What do we have to do to win? Fuck the Democratic Party and fuck winning. This is bigger than all that. This is the age long battle from ignorance and superstition to reason and compassion. It's the same battle we fought to form America. The same battle to free the slaves...for civil rights...for women's right to vote.

The fight is against the same type of people. The people who are in the Taliban, the Islamic extremists, dictators, kings, communists, the bigots, the religious right. All cut from the same cloth. And it's about people who for some reason or another (usually based on some book somewhere: The Bible, Communist Manifesto, etc etc) believe they know what's right and are intent on making others live that way. It's the same mentality that won't let gays marry each other, makes women wear veils over their face, makes black people ride in the back of the bus, and lines Jews up at concentration camps. And anyone who says it's not the same mentality is full of shit. It's a matter of degree not a matter of mindset. As MLK said:

"Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal."

We have to take words back and use them. This IS about morals and values. But we need to join that debate fiercely and talk about what our morals are. We have got to stop letting the right own that debate and say what we think we need to say to compete there. Fuck traditional morals and values. This is a progressive world. The very nature of our universe is progressive. People who fight for the traditional lose. Kings fought to keep power, it was traditional. It was traditional to own slaves. We need to turn the debate to TRUE morals and freedoms. Let's drag bigotry, close mindedness, lying, selfishness, fear and greed out into the open and call it what it is. We need to take this moral debate head on. We need to take the words morals, values, faith, and freedom back. We need to stop them perverting the words of our forefathers, who created this country, for their own narrow-minded uses. We need to learn more about our country, our history and teach people the truth. Washington and Jefferson, despite the incredibly out of context quotes that conservatives drag out, did not want a theocracy. They did not want a government that was Christian. There are mountains of evidence to the contrary. We need to find that and bring it out. We need to talk about what Jesus really said. If he is going to be a focus point for values and morals then we need to stop letting those words be twisted. I'm not a Christian but there are lot's out there who are and who also believe in freedom and true values. Stop letting the right use your religion for its own fear based agenda.

This is about whether America is the land of the free or a theocracy. And right now they are winning.

But the good news is they will lose. They always do. It might take much longer than we want. Too many people have to suffer in the meantime but reason and compassion will prevail. Humanity is on a course towards reason, compassion and decency. We take steps back from time to time but we are evolving and moving forwards.

The numbers look bad according to the election. But more people voted than ever before. More people were active on the progressive front than ever before. Millions and millions truly do believe in freedom, not Bush's perverted sense of it, but true freedom.

We need to find ways to build an infrastructure like the religious right has. They have churches and the whole support communication network that entails. We need something similar. We have to look at what that culture offers people. Why they embrace it and become so fervent. What can we learn?

But it's time to stop calling this Republican or Democrat. It's not about that, and right now it's not about jobs, the economy or even Iraq. Those are all symptoms of something deeper.

People have said the soul of the nation is at stake and they are right. Bush likes to say they hate us for our freedom. That is patently wrong. He may very well believe that....but they hate us for our limiting of others freedom as well. Our sense that we always know what is best for everyone is what they hate. And why? Because we act the same as they do. The great irony is that we have created our own Taliban of sorts.

Of the women who started fighting for women's right to vote not a one of them lived to see the day where they could cast a vote. Truth, compassion, values and justice take a long time in certain cases but they will always prevail. But we have to frame the debate around those words. We need to take them back and own them. It's time for empty hate and rhetoric to stop. But we have to stop it first.

We can’t quit or go lie in a hole. Moving solves nothing….we need to lick our wounds and come back stronger and know that truth and justice are on our side. We need to be smarter. We need to stop treating this as political. There is a political component but it’s much more that that. The right has united behind a common message, we have not been so clear.

Anyways….enough of that.

I’m off to see Paul Westerberg in Minneapolis for the weekend. A chance to see something real and true in a world where that is more and more rare.

Comments

[Citizen Keith]

You should run for office. Seriously.

[Roland]

You are right....wait, that word probably bothers you so I'll say you are correct about one key theme in your rant. There is a separation happening. People like you that loathe people that profess a belief in a Higher Power ( I am only speaking about the "Christian voters" that pollsters measured as having the highest concern with 'morals' when casting their vote for Bush) will be more and more hated. Because the progression you mention is indeed true. There are many more humans that truly believe in the power of self. And it truly can be said that in many aspects Christians are holding back a majority of the population that wishes to let it all happen. No matter what the consequences. This is a very common theme with intellectuals and people that harbor the utmost disgust for others that believe and have an abiding faith in their God.