put your hands into the big sky
Nov. 2nd, 2004 02:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aruanOkay, after a night of Halloween candy gorging and attempting to write unbiased, uncynical headlines about tomorrow's election, I'm going to put forth a few things about this dubious time of the year.
This will be the first election in which I am eligible to vote. I wanted so desperately to vote in the last one, but though of age, I wasn't yet a citizen. I live in Florida and was consequently glued to the television through the endless weeks of recounts and pregnant chads and fraud allegations and remember so clearly my horror at how we arrived at the end result and deep resentment watching Bush's acceptance speech.
I had no idea of its ramifications. Four years later, we have a senseless war, a record budget deficit, a shredded First Amendment and half a nation of people willing to do it all for four more years. And I. Don't. Get it.
Why are people voting for this man? How are people supporting the regime that all but put the Constitution through the shredder, that sent hundreds of thousands of the very people they disenfranchised in a thousand ways, from cutting off funding for social programs to outsourcing jobs, to a desert halfway across the world on a lie? The man who let - yes, let - this all come about in the first place? I'm at such a loss as to just where half of this country has had their heads up for the past four years, because it sure isn't where fresh air and sunshine live.
I researched my county candidates and filled out my sample ballot tonight. I'm getting in line and staying as long as necessary to cast my vote tomorrow as soon as I get out of the tutoring lab. Alachua is a traditionally Democratic county, but the theme of this election, especially in this state, is that it counts. It all counts. I'm hard-pressed to come up with when it could've possibly counted more. Because while Kerry doesn't exactly light my fire, I am passionate about getting Bush and his power-happy, fiscally irresponsible, warmongering chronies out of Washington before they can do any more damage. And that's reason enough in my book.
I've been wearing a Kerry-Edwards pin on my bag for the past few weeks. I've been sneered at, taunted, and snubbed with pointed looks through the course of it. I've returned the courtesy exactly never, though mostly because I was too shocked to respond. I treat people who are cruel to small animals or bump into me without apologizing like that, not fellow classmates merely going about their day. I am afraid of what we'll wake up to on November 3rd. That's if we even have a president, which is a headache I refuse to start feeling until there's just cause.
Staci and I have decided that whatever else we do on Roommate Night this Thursday, there's gonna be alcohol, and we're gonna liberally toast either the end of the world or Bush's ass. But for now, I'll settle for surviving work tomorrow night. We've done election nights before, but tomorrow's gonna be something insane.
In other news, Dow Jones Newspaper Fund application has been mailed off, La Timberlake and Snoop would have me believe disco's back in style with their new song, Leonardo's made their outrageous garlic rolls even better, summer can go fuck itself, and this is really cool.
Quotes of the Day:
"Who here knows election laws?"
- Sports editor, to the newsroom
"If you are undecided, please, for the smallest remaining remnant of dignity in your family name, grab the person next to you and ask for help. It is not safe for you to be out in the city alone."
- Jim Ellis
[ETA: And wow. So, Simon LeBon can sing live, eh? Rawr.]
This will be the first election in which I am eligible to vote. I wanted so desperately to vote in the last one, but though of age, I wasn't yet a citizen. I live in Florida and was consequently glued to the television through the endless weeks of recounts and pregnant chads and fraud allegations and remember so clearly my horror at how we arrived at the end result and deep resentment watching Bush's acceptance speech.
I had no idea of its ramifications. Four years later, we have a senseless war, a record budget deficit, a shredded First Amendment and half a nation of people willing to do it all for four more years. And I. Don't. Get it.
Why are people voting for this man? How are people supporting the regime that all but put the Constitution through the shredder, that sent hundreds of thousands of the very people they disenfranchised in a thousand ways, from cutting off funding for social programs to outsourcing jobs, to a desert halfway across the world on a lie? The man who let - yes, let - this all come about in the first place? I'm at such a loss as to just where half of this country has had their heads up for the past four years, because it sure isn't where fresh air and sunshine live.
I researched my county candidates and filled out my sample ballot tonight. I'm getting in line and staying as long as necessary to cast my vote tomorrow as soon as I get out of the tutoring lab. Alachua is a traditionally Democratic county, but the theme of this election, especially in this state, is that it counts. It all counts. I'm hard-pressed to come up with when it could've possibly counted more. Because while Kerry doesn't exactly light my fire, I am passionate about getting Bush and his power-happy, fiscally irresponsible, warmongering chronies out of Washington before they can do any more damage. And that's reason enough in my book.
I've been wearing a Kerry-Edwards pin on my bag for the past few weeks. I've been sneered at, taunted, and snubbed with pointed looks through the course of it. I've returned the courtesy exactly never, though mostly because I was too shocked to respond. I treat people who are cruel to small animals or bump into me without apologizing like that, not fellow classmates merely going about their day. I am afraid of what we'll wake up to on November 3rd. That's if we even have a president, which is a headache I refuse to start feeling until there's just cause.
Staci and I have decided that whatever else we do on Roommate Night this Thursday, there's gonna be alcohol, and we're gonna liberally toast either the end of the world or Bush's ass. But for now, I'll settle for surviving work tomorrow night. We've done election nights before, but tomorrow's gonna be something insane.
In other news, Dow Jones Newspaper Fund application has been mailed off, La Timberlake and Snoop would have me believe disco's back in style with their new song, Leonardo's made their outrageous garlic rolls even better, summer can go fuck itself, and this is really cool.
Quotes of the Day:
"Who here knows election laws?"
- Sports editor, to the newsroom
"If you are undecided, please, for the smallest remaining remnant of dignity in your family name, grab the person next to you and ask for help. It is not safe for you to be out in the city alone."
- Jim Ellis
[ETA: And wow. So, Simon LeBon can sing live, eh? Rawr.]
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Date: November 2nd, 2004 07:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: November 2nd, 2004 07:33 am (UTC)