SlowpokeBlog

Looking back over the past year, I am reminded of one of my favorite movies, Scorsese's After Hours, in which a hapless guy keeps finding himself in increasingly surreal situations one night in New York City. One misfortune leads to another, more bizarre misfortune at every turn.

I'll start by saying I am still skeptical about the Ohio results. Exit polls gave Kerry a decisive lead yesterday, and I still cannot find any detailed reporting on exactly what happened. Under normal circumstances, I would accept the results at face value, but we've heard too many stories about foul play -- from both the 2000 election and this one -- to think Karl Rove would leave Ohio to chance. These people have amply demonstrated that they do not believe in democracy. Maybe the numbers are legitimate, but they have given us every reason in the world to doubt the system.

Ohio aside, what we have witnessed is the triumph of unreality, a prospect I find more terrifying than anything. When reality ceases to matter, and when no checks and balances remain, anything can happen. This is how great tragedies come about.

The very first post in this blog, written back during the primaries in January, was an argument against picking Kerry as our nominee. I thought he would be too easily caricatured, and that he didn't have the charisma to win, since the whole damn thing is nothing but a beauty pageant anyway. But I don't think we can blame Kerry. While I'm curious about the alternate realities that might have played out with Clark or Edwards, I think we need to point our blame squarely at the disgusting campaign run by the Right. They "won" the race on bigotry and lies. Gay civil rights referenda brought hate-filled wingnuts out of the woodwork in eleven states; the smear campaign against Kerry was unforgivable, and the media's willingness to grant it legitimacy was beyond sad.

So, how to feel better about all this? Well, on the one hand, you are not alone. You are, in fact, joined by half of America and the rest of the planet. The human race is on your side. It's only a tiny number of insane people who have been successful. Unfortunately, they happen to control the most powerful nation on earth.