2004-11-03 - 11:36 p.m.
To even start to enumerate the complicated feelings, frustrations and sadnesses feels overwhelming. For me, I don’t think any of these would have been alleviated had Kerry won the election. For me they come from a whole system that is rotten. I remember saying last time Bush was elected “we’re going to go to war,” and it turned out to be true. This morning Lauren said, “There goes our right to choose,” and I will fight my damnedest to keep this from being true.
When Kerry announced he was conceding cries of “NO!” went up around my school. People shook their heads and started conversations. “Why aren't we rioting?” one boy asked. Later, walking towards the train and taking it downtown to POV people were walking around and sitting on the train in a state of shock, eyes cast downward, trying to comprehend what this will mean for four more years.
I feel lucky that most of my day was spent processing, that I have those spaces available to me at school and at my internship at POV. At one point I said, “Not to become a sloganeering anarchist, but I really feel like it’s true, our dreams will never fit in their ballot boxes. Where is the space for visionary politics in this country? Where is the public space for that that is not private in our family or friendship groups or under some kind of corporate control?”
To this Geoff responded, “Our dreams were never supposed to fit in their ballot boxes!” Meaning, this government has not been about visionary politics as expressed through elections. To me, more evidence that the whole system is not working.
We are so much more than “red” or “blue” (okay, duh...) but it’s frustrating. I feel lucky that through my conversations at school my rage and anger towards “red states” had tempered somewhat. I was a bit more ready to be moved towards compassion, or at least, not hatred, as we know life is complex, etc. etc.
Words are failing me, though I feel like I’ve been trying to write this entry in my head all day. Part of me feels like I should not be so depressed because Kerry would not have changed anything anyway. I guess it was the hope that there would be a slim opportunity to concentrate on what really matters, instead of trying to protect ourselves again and again from attacks by religious fundamentalists and their ilk.
I tried to be encouraged, reminded that ACT UP did not start until 1986/87 - well into Reagan’s second term. Everyone keeps saying “Maybe this will galvanize people.” But for how long have we been saying that? We can’t keep waiting and we’re not, we’re already struggling. But now we have to think about what strategic struggle looks like and all the levels it has to occur on. Dialogue? Hope? Ideas? Let me know.
