It can't be a conspiracy...that would be too easy. Plus it is the old cop out for white middle-class, liberal, educated America. For the other lower-class, non-white, street-educated, especially Black and Indian America, everything that happened for this 2004 presidential elections was every day policy, and few folks will care or notice a difference. What exactly did happen? Let's retell the vivid stories told by all too many Americans, as they seemed to be describing the politics of some foreign dictatorship, or the American dream of politics twisted into a nightmare. In Florida and Ohio many voters had to wait up to 10 hours just to cast their vote, and then had to deal with broken or outdated voting machines; American democracy meets American technology, both the most advanced in the world. At many poles representatives of the Republican Party, acting as "polewatchers" - a fact that should reinforce our faith in free and fair elections - were making other pole watchers stand 100 feet away from the voting area. Somebody forgot to tell the world that Republicans had more riechs....rights, than the rest of us. Besides these few examples a plethora of other scandalous acts of "disenfranchisement" were carried out Actually, the word "disenfranchisement" does not appropriately express the emotional frustration felt by citizens attempting to exercise their right and responsibility as Americans, as humans - what happened was political thievery and humiliation . Political "division" must be the unspoken attitude of American election culture, because when I went to vote, the only people talking were the pole workers, and they were not discussing politics. I remember filling out my provisional ballot (although I reregistered to vote several months ago and never received a piece of mail confirming it, much less a sample ballot) and feeling the tension in the room. I looked up and saw mugshots on my neighbors. It reminded me of a saloon just before a duel. Kerry and Bush would meet in the street at high noon, and guess who their posses were made of? I wanted to accidentally say Kerry's name out loud, but I did not want to create division; damn, this must mean I'm another wannabe Democrat. As I walked out I glanced at a man who was standing near the doorway. I wanted to greet him, you know, to express some kind of camaraderie as a fellow voting citizen - I did not care who I was voting for who, I was just happy I voted - and he was as stiff as a log. "What a shame" I thought; my compatriots think we are all participating in a democracy because we are voting, but we are all to afraid to even salute one another, much less talk about who we supported, or more importantly, what the two elite-gangsters were (not) debating over. So what does the outcome mean for America, and the world? Ofcourse, besides the blatant reality that democracy and freedom are illusions, myths, and that we are being ruled by, and have been for the past 500 years, by the same "Old-World" European fuedal Lords who now call themselves Republican, Democrat, and American. The masses still bare a haunting resemblance to serfs, and the lord's castle can be found in the White House, City Hall, the Court House, the Police Precinct, and Governor Shwarz-on-temper mansion. It matters little what we, the masses of people actually need, say, or do. Our rulers will behave according to their own laws and rules, by their own definition of democracy, indeed by their own definition of America. I can already hear the progressive-left talking about the crisis we're in, and how dark days lay ahead of us with Bush in office again. I agree. What I'm wondering is if the American left is going to rely on the same tactics it has used up until now. If so, then dark days will only be accompanied by loud chanting. I do not mean to discourage my radical peers of all ages and cultures. I know that people care and show it the only way they know how. My proposal for a possible alternative - more so for the sake of having folks do a little research and imagining the possibilities of what they find, than anything else - is for intellectuals to check out the movements in other countries. It's revolutionary and revealing. Because I believe, and want to believe very strongly, creating positive, progressive political change is possible.
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