I stand corrected.
Very corrected. Holy pants, but that’s a hell of a margin. V-dog stomped Slim Jim.
Though I think I was right on one prediction: apathy did rule. Turnout in the ’01 election was 37.67%; this time out only 30.3% did their civic duty. Negative ads work.
My one request for the new mayor of Los Angeles: ride the bus, dude. Ride it every damn day. Take a security detail with you, but get on the bus, the subway, whatever. The entire LA Metro area needs serious leadership to get us off our car habit, and what better way to show that leadership than by using public transit?
I’m going out on a limb, but I think apathy and fear will rule the day, meaning Slim Jim will have a second term. I think it’ll be a seven-point difference, but Hahn will get enough of South LA and the Valley to counter Villaraigosa.
Either way, the transit system will still suck. Rah, rah MTA! Go for graft, get some today!
Just to make things clear to anyone who wants to polish up an email accusing me of being a liberal secular humanist, homosexual agenda-pushing, Christian-persecuting, Satan-worshipping, Santa Monica lefty freak: I don’t give a good goddamn what you think and believe as long as it doesn’t involve forcing your views on me. You want to witness at me on the train platform? Knock yourself out; I’ll just keep reading my book. You want to threaten me to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior at cost to my bodily person? Then we got problems, jack.
And that is just what these Dominionist assholes want: they want an America that’s all-Christ-worshipping, all the time. So, all of America’s Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jainists, Santeriaists, atheists, Deists, Wiccans and agnostics are right out of luck. And after that, it’ll be the Quakers and Unitarians the Seventh Day Adventists, then those damned Papists, followed by the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, and then the Lutherans and the Congregationalists and the Mormons, and then the Baptists and Pentecostals will start infighting until there’s no one left except a bunch of inbread, thumbless jackasses who spend their days fighting each other in the ruins of Colorado Springs.
And do we really want that?
If you’re a High Episcopalian or a Low Atheist, you need to grab the May 2005 copy of Harper’s Magazine and read through the two cover stories on the Christianist Right. (I’ll call them the Christian Right again when they start with the compassion to the sick and needy and drop the cheerleading for Armageddon. Witnessing for Christ, I can tolerate; actively working for the end of the world, not so cool.)
This is your wake-up call, folks. You need to confront this jackassery in your homes and communities, because the leaders of the NRB and the New Life Church are coming for you. If they cannot convert you, they will crush you. And if I sound alarmist, it’s probably because the good ol’ Rakunas Survival Gene, which kicked in and made my grandfather take the whole family out of Lithuania before the Red Army swept in, is twitching something fierce. American Christianists are starting off by condemning gay people; what makes you think they’ll stop there?
UPDATE: Harper’s, in its awesomeness, has put both articles online: Part I is about a Colorado Springs megachurch that, according to family friends living there, is just as freaky as they sound, while Part II includes an appearance from my old morning nemesis from my days in Big Bear, Dr. James “Hit ‘em ’til They Howl” Dobson.
Oh, please, God, no.
1) Keep Terry McAullife, Donna Brazille, James Carville, Paul Begala and Bob Shrum (especially him) the hell away from the leadership of the Democratic Party. We thank you for your service in the past, but it’s time to go. We’ll call you, right after we take care of the next step.
2) Get a unified message of what it means to be a Democrat. Don’t be Republican lite, don’t be contemptuous, don’t be be equivocating. Come up with the message, and fucking stick to it.
3) Don’t forget: turn the compost pile this weekend.
(‘Cause life goes on, you know?)
I like to think that if John Kerry had won, I would have felt nothing but overwhelming relief. No gloating, no triumphant “In your FACE!” Just relief. The feeling that, finally, people have realized how incompetant and crooked the Bush Administration is and what a disaster four more years would have been. Relief and a feeling that, yes, things might be on the track to peace, prosperity and boobies.
I haven’t seen much relief from the other side today, at least on the non-partisan sites I check out. There’s been no “Thank God, George W. Bush got re-elected so he can continue his policies.” It’s been all-gloat, all the time. I feel like I’m on a third-rate junior high football team that just got stomped 1000-nothing by a team of pros who were loaded on steroids and buffalo testosterone. The phrase “bad winner” comes to mind.
Just two thoughts for you Big Winners, then:
1) Now that you’ve got all three branches of government, the only people you can blame for your screw-ups are yourselves.
2) Please, please, please get cocky and complacent. You’ve got the government you wanted. Try not to break it too much; we’ll be taking it back starting two years from now.