The road ahead: reflections on Election 2004

[judy]

The United States of America just entered a cycle of theocratic fascism.

How did it happen? Regardless of whether the election was rigged or not is not the issue anymore now that Kerry has conceded. Smirk also gained a lot of votes from aiming at his base of Evangelical zealots and bigots who were afraid of Gay Marriage.

As awful as it might sound, it is a good thing that Kerry is not President. If Kerry had been elected, with a Republican Congress, he would not have been able to do any of the things we would have liked him to do, such as withdraw from Iraq, etc. Besides, Kerry never attacked Bush on the moral issues. He treated him like he was just another Republican. This is not the case. We need to be fully conscious of this.

The way things stand, Bushism is like an abcess on the face of the world. It needs to mature so it can be lanced. Things will get worse before they can get better.
As a new citizen, I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. The United states Constitution is under attack, and we are here to defend it. We can't stop just because we lost an election, (which was probably rigged anyway, though it can never be proven).

There are Democrats, Greens, Libertarians and Republicans, rich and poor who oppose this immoral war, who are outraged by Abu Ghraib, and who want to defend the Constitution against the Bushists.

Why didn't Kerry argue on the ideological level instead of pandering to the "War on Terror"? Why didn't he mention Abu Ghraib? Does he really think that the buck stops with the guards? Not only did he not energize his base, by adopting the "we can win the war" stance, he never really defined a base. It's amazing he did as well as he did on such shaky grounds.
You cannot fight ideology with "I have a plan". You need to fight ideology with your own ideology, and ideology based on the best of Christian, Jewish, Muslim etc. values: the maintenance of Peace through Peace, the respect for others, human dignity, and the idea that violence can happen, but can never be a strategy.

We need to be uniters not dividers. We need to reach out, and stay focused on the issues that really matter:

The moral fiber of this Country
The moral position of this country in the world.
The demystification of the fake "War on Terror"
Stopping the destruction of all social programs since Roosevelt
Stopping the wreckage of the Environment
Establishing a fair, unified, verifiable and auditable voting system in this country.

We need to call War Crimes by their name, and keep our voices loud. Support candidates who are on our side regardless of political parties. This is not a Democrat/Republican thing. This is a fight for real moral values vs. fake moral values. This is not politics. This is survival of the human race.

We need to expose the fake War on Terror. Spread the word on PNAC. Anyone who reads PNAC, will know that these people never intended to give up power, no matter the cost.

It will take a while to reverse this cycle, but it will be reversed. We have a better chance for that now. If Kerry had been elected, he would have been unable to act, and under constant fire from the Media. 2008 would probably be the year of Jeb or the year of Arnold.

Now, we have a real chance to watch the Empire disintegrate and present the face of true moral values and reason. The price of the collapse will be very high unfortunately. But this price will be a reflection on Bush, not on "our candidate" John Kerry.

Let's stay focused, not play politics, not play dirty, just be ready to speak out and act on the real issues. Happiness, consciousness and love of life and fellow humans are the best weapons against fascism!!

Let's keep up the fight!!!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Preserve Protect Defend

I think the Constitution is the key. We can use it as our basis for arugment-our moral compass. I dare Bush to trash that-after all, even he has to have the appearance of limits.

[asjr]

2. You are certainly right. No one can prove the election was stolen.

But something occured to me after watching the Lehrer hour on PBS. Bush won because a few years ago, either before or right after his election, he became a soul collector. He latched on to the religious right very quickly by telling them he is a born again Christian. He has used that every day, every hour since he first took office. He collected souls the way someone else might collect stamps, teapots, or dolls. Never mind that his Christianity was a menopausal occurrence, it nevertheless connected with Christians. I am not blaming Christians for this. They like to see good people. Who doesn't? But I think they were conned over a period of time to connect Bush with God. When it came time to vote, there they were, ripe for the collecting. A collection through scare tactics--Trust me, I will make you safe, I am a man of God, he speaks to me. And they GOTV as well as Democrats. They were literally scared into voting for him. I am sure they would protest they did not, but I think it is there to see. Maybe I have gone off half-cocked with this theory but it works for me.

[JimGinPA]

3. A Couple Of Thoughts

I believe one of the major obstacles in this election was the way that Kerry was portrayed by the media. You have to give that slimey bastard Rove a lot of credit on the one hand for their spinmasters being able to completely dominate the media, but in my opinion a great deal of the blame for the outcome of this election, and its eventual unimaginable effects on all of us, lies directly at the feet of the media. And they're the ones who should be held accountable.

BushCo didn't "define" Kerry (as was so often intimated by the press), the media did. They didn't let any momentum build after the Democratic Convention by running with the "Swift Boat" story, even after they KNEW it was all completely false. Instead of debunking it as they should have, they put Kerry on the defensive, from which he never fully recovered in the minds of a great many people who may have considered him a viable alternative to Dubya otherwise.

FOX NEWS - Everyone is aware of their agenda, but rather than the rest of the press strongly admonishing them for their bias and calling them on their outright lies, several became imitators instead. Thank God for 'Air America' finally coming along to challenge them for their deceptiveness and misrepresentations (although with their late start and with the limited access to their broadcast their effect was minimized). As they grow I suspect they'll eventually become a force Fox will be have to answer to, but it's pretty sad that until they came along the only broadcasts to call them on their bullshit have been Comedy Central's "Daily Show" and HBO's "Real Time".

Nearly as much to blame as the media for the Fox spin are the Democrats and other "progressives" who let themselves be used by appearing on their programs. They should be completely boycotted. They will have no "debate" if they are made to only talk amongst themselves.

Not only that, but their sponsors should start being seriously pressured as well. If they want to advertise on Fox their products and services should be boycotted for supporting their garbage.


MSNBC - They have become 'Fox Light'. How much more transparent could they have been than when they "covered" the Democratic Convention and debates with nearly ALL republican operatives on their "panels". Nearly every report on Kerry contained a disclaimer at the end ripped straight off the pages of Roves "talking points".


CNN - Not a "respected" or "trusted" news source for years, but when they chose to keep that treasonous slimeball Novak employed on their network after he outed Valerie Plame, not much more need be said. Their "pundits" were absolutely shameless throughout the election.


CBS - Possibly the "fairest" of the networks, they committed such a major gaffe with the "forged document" scandal that it not only kept the "Swift Boat Liars" in the news for weeks but kept the entire Abu Ghraib debacle from barely even being mentioned for the rest of the election cycle.


NBC - Possibly my biggest beef with them (other than their parroting the Rove talking points daily) is with how "Meet the Press" covered the election. That punk Russert, after slamming Kerry and Edwards with non-issues time and again, showed such deference to the chimp it was nauseating.


Finally, I'd like to give special "credit" to all the rural and Evangelical voters, especially in all those "red" states, who voted en mass for the president-select. They've destined not only themselves to a bleak economic, sociological and environmental outlook with their stupidity, but dragged the rest of us down in the eyes of the rest of the world with them. With their strengthening of the republican grip on the congress and the guaranteed right-wing makeup of the supreme court for decades, our very liberty is in jeopardy now.

[JimGinPA]

4. I took so long posting this

it moved nearly to the bottom of the page so I'm bumping it so it may be seen and responded to.

[rockydem]

5. "You cannot fight ideology with 'I have a plan'"

You are so right. We need to talk about the USA being a "liberal demcracy" like Wes Clark did...

There are many ways we can frame the issues in moral terms. We need to quit making public arguments like policy wonks.

[rockydem]

6. .

[Cinletharwi]

7. Challenge Corporate power and control over our society

If we are to ever again have a voice in this country, if we are ever to again have honest, reasoned, logical discourse, we have to attack the corporate owners of our government and politicians, and attack them where they are most vulnerable: our dollars we give them.

Until we do that, we're pissing upstream and fondling false hopes. Corporate power is the core of what's wrong with our society, they control everything - our policians, our government, our voting machines - and it's their control of the media now that has choked sanity from public consciousness to the point where there is no room for truth and factual reality.

There can be no consensus on the state of problems, and no practical solutions forged, as long as honest, reasoned discourse is barred from public consciousness.

The rise of fundamental "values" over factual reality in determining an election is merely a symptom of a greater cancer that is the current state of Corporate America. It has us fighting with each other and the other party, all th while we give Corporate America our money and our labor and our Treasury.

It's a really good scam they've got going.


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