Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Halting the Grieving Process
If it comes to it, I will accept that Bush has won, but I won’t accept him as a leader with a mandate. As far as I’m concerned, this is a country without a leader. So, I’ve made it to Acceptance in my grieving process already, but I draw the line at following this scumbag as he ruins our country. I’m putting it in reverse, heading back to Anger, and staying there.
Last night? Utter despair. Then I find some great posts this morning that helped clear my head. MB over at dKos, Matt’s statement quoted by Fast Pete (in the story preceding this one) and the comments in those threads.
But that’s just people talking to me. Sometimes I need to hear myself talking to me from the past to really be convinced. (How’s THAT for self-important!) This morning I was messing with the site design when I noticed the snippet of a poem/song I wrote back when “Shock and Awe” was just getting underway. You’ve seen it, because it resides in the upper left corner of the pages on this site. I think it’s even more appropriate now than it was when I wrote it 18 months ago.
Hey Miss Liberty, where are you?
I did not know your name was hope
until you’d gone.
Should I just lay down and die?
Should I look them in the eye?
Who am I to say they’re wrong?
Your American son.
This Site's Role. In A Nutshell.
A November 9 election… and John Kerry would have been home dry. The momentum was clearly with him at the end there. Not quite enough, but still, an impressive performance by a Senator against a war President.
Okay. Enough said on those lines. I for one am ready for business. Seems to me that the outcome could well be a real windfall for this new site, unencumbered as it is by any raised hopes dashed.
This thought from Matthew Yglesias at 1.22 am kept me awake for a further brain-storming hour or two after I turned in:
One obvious idea is that if Kerry had somehow managed to put forward a more transformative policy agenda rather than the broadly popular, but incredibly conventional, ideas he really did put forward, that would have changed the dynamic. And maybe so, though what the exact content of that would be I can’t say at the moment.
I think we can say.... I think we can say. Coming up here, folks. WATCH THIS SPACE.
Moral values
We’ve killed perhaps 100K civilians in a country that didn’t attack us.
We’ve abandoned the most vulnerable amonst us, and we continue to chuck each other overboard as the water rises. We make the passengers in Hitchcock’s “Lifeboat” look like humanitarians.
We are willing to move towards MORE institutionalized bigotry in our civic life.
We condone torture, and throw out basic human decency toward captives.
MORAL VALUES?!?!
The Big Win
Staring at the sun
Scared Stupid
If you need cheering up, go somewhere else.
Call me a liberal elitist. Go ahead, seriously. I am a liberal elitist. You know why? Because it appears that slightly more than half of U.S. citizens are fucking retarded, that’s why. Someone has to look out for their best interests, and it might as well be me.
I was raised a poor, uneducated liberal welfare punk, so my label as a liberal elitist was earned, not bestowed upon me by birthright, like John Fucking Kerry. I had to work hard to get this badge, and I plan on wearing it with pride. If you don’t like it, you’re either stupid or you have no moral courage. (And if you don’t like me dissing Kerry, get used to it. The last ballots have been cast, and so I refuse to shut my fucking pie-hole.)
And so, here I sit, Mr. Liberal Elitist, with no country and no president and little hope. It appears that the people have spoken, and they have given hope a sharp elbow to the solar plexus. They have embraced fear and hate. Fuck them. Let them have their war. Let them have their nation, bankrupt in every way. Let them send their sons and daughters off to die for a lie. I, for one, do not plan on playing along. Their president is not my president. Their fuel is not my fuel. Their country is not my country. Their history will not be my history.
Best case scenario, we were hoping for what, the rebuilding to begin tomorrow? Rebuilding? Please. Where do you go when hate and fear have won? How do you rebuild from there? There is no solid footing from which to begin this process. Is there?
Honestly, I knew I was going to be writing about fear versus hate tonight, but I fully expected to be writing about how hope always trumps fear. I’ve been proven wrong, and I don’t know that I can take four more years of this.
Define this.
Yes, it’s too early for despair, and it’s too late to be writing such nonsense. Suffice to say that if Bush wins, this country will undoubtedly get what it deserves… more of the same bullshit. They can choke on it, too. If Kerry wins, well… they can thank all the liberal elitists like me that are stepping in to save their fucking bacon.
what's happenin'?
A beautiful cool, crisp day here in Northern Colorado. The mountains got a fresh dusting of snow last night.
I hear there was some big election goin’ on today. But Dear Leader said it’s just one of those EX-AG-ER-A-SHUNS.
What’s on your mind?
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Filling the Gap
I left dKos in September for a number of reasons. The differences I had with a blog that had at least temporarily lost its voice were very real, but were not the only reason I bolted. dKos and Markos were nothing but wonderful to me, and I treasure the time I was able to participate. I wish them all the luck in the world, and I'm sure dKos will sustain its rightful place as the #1 liberal blog in America.For me, that chapter is over. I've had this domain name sitting around for some time now... begging me to do something with it. em dash has stepped up and started pushing for me to make this happen, contacting folks on our common list of favorite posters (if you haven't heard from us yet, you just might) and working on the logistics while I write the software. The time has come to launch Liberal Street Fight (Exile_lsf). Our goal is to build a central resource for the kind of information sharing, mind-bending, opinion-defending, snarky goodness that isn't as readily available as it used to be.
We're especially looking to expand the number and breadth of main page posters -- conservatives, Libertarians, Greens, unaffiliated, and those with specialty expertise in foreign affairs, domestic programs, campaign management, economics, etc. -- with a large and varied stable of 10 or so main page posters.
That being said, we're not looking to actually "go live" until Nov. 3 (purposely after the election). We are in the process of picking our stable of writers and developing (for lack of a better term) an editorial calendar. I am also back on the off-again on-again project of building the custom blogware that will drive this site. Please be patient with me. Or, if you can't be patient with me, fuck off. (Did you miss me?)
We're looking for other folks who appreciate a good liberal street fight to blast the cognitive dissonance of uninformed ignorance on both the left and the right. Main page posting will be determined on an invitation only basis at this point so we can develop a full compliment of ideas and ideology. Additionally, Exile_lsf is a blog that welcomes and celebrates women's voices and perspectives on the issues of the day. This is a huge gap in many other popular liberal blogs. We intend to fill that gap.
Please join us...