Wednesday, November 03, 2004

It's hard to type

when you're licking your wounds. I must say I felt in my bones that Bush would win, and so I can't say I'm surprised. The major television and print media didn't fairly cover the campaign and didn't critically address the nation's problems under Bush; and if you check out the geographic distribution of the Red States you'll see that it tracks exactly that part of the US that doesn't subscribe to learned journals much, doesn't think critically about government and follows the loudest, most common media message, which is this case was, Vote Bush.

We now face a Congress, an Executive and a Judiciary that has set its face in a nasty, mean-spirited direction, to a frightening purpose. They'll be able to enact their agenda and enforce it through the courts for the foreseeable future. Unless there's a cataclysm of some kind, I don't see the Democratic Party finding a way to win back the Congress or the White House for twelve years (Bush's next term plus two more). I know that sounds pessimistic, but I've been listening to the post-election hand-wringing by progressive bloggers and major media pundits and it sounds like they're predicting that the Democrats will move more to the middle (to the right, that means), which not only will leave liberals wholly on the outs but that the best we can expect is watered-down privatization of virtually every function of government, the true ascendancy of the capitalist nation-state, governed by powers wedded to corporatism, driven by religiosity and greed, and, because of its ownership of the media, immunized from scrutiny.

Back to wound-licking, shortly after which--Revolution!!

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