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The most bizarre fallout from this election season was-- and apparently is going to remain-- the destruction of relationships. Massive, total destruction of personal relationships. In my family and among my friends.
Serious. I am not now, and don't think I will soon be, speaking with 5 or 6 people I had considered friends.
Since this election, we realized that we are too far apart on important issues to be friends. We're just kind of done. We have nothing to say to each other anymore. Overnight, we have nothing to say. And we gape at each other with perverse, almost slack-jawed, alarm. None of us is who the other thought s/he knew.
I can't talk about events current, political or religious with a very dear family member because we will curse each other and never speak again. I know we love each other dearly, but our initial reactions to each other on this crap are identical: What is WRONG with you?
Here's the crux: the people who voted for Bush think people who voted for Kerry are immoral, godless heathens who've turned on the troops, and want France to run the show. I and other Kerry voters find myself thinking of Bush voters as unenlightened, bigot ed, knee-jerk religious wingnuts with an overdeveloped sense of knowing what's good for everyone else topped with a big dollop of fear and loathing.
That, my friends, is a divide of an almost insurmountable natur e. Why?
Well, when someone consciously or even subconsciously thinks another person is immoral or otherwise spiritually and socially stunted, there's no respect for the person or the positions. None. Easily discounted and ignored. Just flies to be swatted.
When someone consciously or subconsciously thinks another person is bigoted, unenlightened and overly religious and intrusive, there's no respect for the person or the positions.
So here we are. We're supposed to just pick up and move on and 'support the president.'
And I can't.
He and all of his ilk turn my stomach. I don't respect him or his positions--same as he and his followers don't respect me or mine. They think I am misguided and just don't get it. And by "not getting it" they mean Jesus. You can't buy into the Bush Doctrine(s) without Jesus. You just can't. Because he's a 'values' guy, a 'morals' guy.'
If the Bushies are the values and the morals of the US of A...well, I'm just sorry for them, for me, for the rest of the world. Because the values and morals Bush and co. front are bigotry, fear, hatred, selfishness, an undeserved sense of superiority and oppression.
Bush is not my president. He does not have my respect, and frankly, if I found myself in a position where I would have to encounter him, I would turn my back on him. I am repulsed by everything he represents, and am thus repulsed by 51% of all Americans.
I dread the destructive swath that he will plow across the hearts and minds of this country. I dread the division that he sows while pretending to be a 'uniter.' Unity is the true anti-Bush. Unity and education.
I am disturbed that over the next 4 years, the gap between rich and poor will grow further, that Social Security will turn into a windfall for the mega banks at the expense of my generation.
I am sick because the level of ignorance and stupidity will only increase as these education mandates of his succeed in doing what the neo-cons have long desired--bring about an end to public education and place it squarely in the hands of opportunistic businesses.
That's coming.
Because of the underfunding, No Child Left Behind, more and more schools will fail and be closed. School boards will be painted as incompetent, when in truth they are hogtied and gagged by this legislation. Then, the 'saviour'--the free market, the almighty dollar, profits--will be shoved down our throats until suddenly, people WANT their children's education to be subject to an aggressive business model designed to generate profits and produce measurable, quantifiable results.
Of course, results are measured in dollars.
How to you measure learning in dollars? If it turns out to be a losing proposition, do you just quit doing it and suddenly kids are without an education?
Although, an uninformed, poorly educated electorate is exactly what the neo-cons need to maintain power. And for some reason, the Red Staters like to be uninformed and are wholly resistant to information. As with Bush himself, reality, facts, information simply have no place in a Red Stater's world.
Ignorance is bliss. How I wish I could just turn off my brain. I wish I could. I wish I could not care, and go about my daily routine without the slightest interest in reality. Not have all these unanswered questions. Not care about anything outside my narrow existence. It must be marvelous, really. Marvelous.
I guess when you leave it up to Jesus, then you don't have to give a shit. Poor Jesus. Man, that guy is seriously overburdened. He's doing all the work and the folks who call themselves Christians get to be smug, self-righteous, repressive, judgmental and sail on through life at the expense of others.
Not very Christian of them.
When you live in Jesusland, though, why would that occur to you? It's people like me--misguided, immoral, non-Jesus-loving, not really God-fearing, baby killing, education-valuing, question-asking, answer-demanding, America-hating, liberal spawn of Satan-- that mess up your good life.
Thankfully, I'm not living in Jesusland. I live in reality. When facts to match the story, I ask the story-teller. I don't hand it off to Jesus.
In the end, I don't care what people think, or how they go about their daily lives, how they raise their kids, who they sleep with, or how much or how little a part religion plays in their lives.
I care about the Morality Police atmosphere, this Armageddon, apocalyptic version of religion being brandished in my face. It's unAmerican to do this. It is. I get to be how I want to be. I get to say what I want to say. I get to have God, gods, goddesses or not and I'm not going to lose my job or break any laws.
I cannot abide the movement afoot to legislate morality according to a narrowminded, bigoted, fearful view of the world and life.
C'mon people--2006 isn't too far away! Let's get the morals and values back in houses of worship where they belong! Do what you want at home, at church, at temple, whatever. But keep it the hell off the law books.
Morals and values...recipe for destruction.
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