lowmag.net

This is going to be a bit long. Get comfortable.

Way to go America. I have given up hope in the entire process. I don’t even think NC counted my early vote. In fact, I think they may have thrown it out with the other 100,000 wake county early votes, like they never happened. I live in a state where my vote doesn’t matter, because I’m out-voted by 1.3:1 by people who don’t weigh anything before voting. They react without thinking, and they do what they are told. I knew moving to the home state of NASCAR would be like this.

CBS lied. They called things as soon as others did. Everyone was salivating over exit poll numbers again. Early exit polls said a lot of states were the opposite of what was called. PA had amazingly high margins overall for Kerry. NC had Bush by something like 7%, but like I said above, no surprise there. Easley won our gubernatorial, and Bowles soundly lost to Burr for Senate. Even the Republicans I voted for (treasurer and auditor, the only ones I can trust to be fiscally conservative) lost. It’s like the lotto, no matter your numbers, you’re gonna match only one of them.

Once again, it’s down to one undecided state. Ohio is the big target, even Florida is a certain outcome, unless they didn’t count their absentee and early votes like they seem to be doing elsewhere. New Mexico and Iowa are still processing, but it’s tight in NM, and IA looks like it’s going Bush.

Eleven states voted to ban ‘gay marriage’ showing that any state can be intolerant of other groups. At the moment, I bet they could block ‘interracial marriage’ as well.

I wonder a few things. I wonder if news stories about Bush’s allegedly going after Iraq from day 10 of his term are true, and if 9/11 was just an excuse. I wonder how Albert A. Gore would have handled the situation. Would we have stopped in Afghanistan? Would we have got bin Laden? Would we be in the same boat?

What really bothers me is the ignorance in polling that I keep seeing. ~70% of people believe that Iraq had WMD, and that we haven’t found them yet. Kudos to the administration on telling a lie long enough that it becomes true. Great historical propagandists would be proud.

Whatever the outcome of this election, It looks like we’re in for a rough four years regardless, thanks to a large amount of social-conservative / fiscally-liberal Republicans in the Senate and House of Representatives. That’s why I voted against Bush. He’s socially regressive and he likes to spend money we don’t have. I do not think for a second now that Iraq was avoidable. Now we have wasted $180bn and more on it, and we are now going to bleed money and lives there until the end of time. Or the end of our country.

Fox News will see this as a mandate. This will just confirm to the non-reality based community that whatever FedGov says is right and the truth. I cannot stress this enough: it’s not a fallacy to believe in a slippery slope when one is directly below your feet. It is simply too late. We need more organisations like Democracy Now watching the elections of the world, and the state of the media.

Also, to the newspaper editors of the world: if something is a lie, call it out. It is not partisan to tell the truth of the matter. If a group tells you that unemployment is at 4%, and yet the actual numbers read 9% including those who are not on unemployment but have given up completely, then report 9% no matter the official number. In fact, the best weapon we have in this cultural and political war is the truth. Frame the truth in ways that get around spin, so we don’t have another 50/50 split. I’m not saying that one side is good or one side is evil.

I’m saying that “Truth is a three-edged sword: My side, Your side, and the Truth”* No matter what both ’sides’ (and there should be more than two) say, there is a truth behind the sides. Thank you, and here’s hoping we are at the bottom on our way up.

*apologies to JMS