Disappointment In Democracy
by Cari Crosby


I'm just so depressed.

And it's not even that I was all that optimistic as to what would-be President Kerry could provide for the country.  It’s that I saw the possibility of Americans uniting against what I consider (along with much of the rest of the world) a common evil.  I thought all of these "get out the vote" campaigns mattered.  I thought that young, educated, idealistic people had finally gotten the clue that they really did have the power to get out and change the world.  Well, the voter turnout was huge.  But Bush is ahead in the popular vote by nearly 4 million.  What HAPPENED?

A few of my liberal friends have been joking about how they too will want to move to Canada now, and how lucky I am to be away from such a messed up country.  I don't like that idea one bit.  I consider myself at least somewhat patriotic, and I always have.  I've always believed that democracy works, and that united Americans are a smart group that will do what is right.  People are innately good, right?  Right.  Yes.  I must be able to believe this for my own sanity.  So forget the outcome of the election, there must be some logical reason.  People are still good; people are on a whole at least somewhat smart.  …Right?

Of course I know that the good ol’ U.S. of A is a relatively Christian country.  And I understand that a man who is a born-again Christian, and who has a large backing from the religious right has a bit of an advantage.  Of course we're a conservative country - and I'm not blind to the fact that it would be suicide for a presidential candidate to come out and admit that he supports gay marriage.  While I understand all of these things, it's really hard for me to understand how it is that as a country we have come together to re-elect Bush, a man who has continually tried to take away civil rights.  The patriot act allows all sorts of crazy privacy invasions.  And on top of all of that, he lied to all of us about WMDs, took us into a war that had nothing to do with 9/11, and convinced a large percentage of the population that it did.  He lied when he said "We have Prevailed" last April, as the death toll has continued to rise, and is now well over a thousand US lives (not to mention the countless Iraqis).  He has given us a larger deficit than little naive me thought was possible in just four short years, even considering the attacks of 9/11.

The rest of the world thought we were just a little nuts.  I can't imagine what they're thinking now - we didn't realize our mistake the first time and elected the idiot again. What are we thinking??

Eleven states voted for banning gay marriage. So not only have we re-elected an extremely conservative president, but we have also told the homosexual community that we will not only deny them the freedom to marry, but we will not recognize marriages from other states.

Yeah. I'm depressed.

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