Words Cannot Express

I really thought Kerry had a chance. Living in Massachusetts, or the Northeast at all, for that matter, has apparently skewed my view of progressive and conservative. I know people who think that Massachusetts is terribly conservative, despite the whole gay marriage thing, despite the recycling initiatives, despite the intellectual activity, and despite the fact that Massachusetts is entirely run by democrats (with the exception of the destructive Gov. Mitt Romney and his cronies). In fact, I know plenty of people, myself included, who think that democrats are conservative by virtue of being a part of the outdated two-party system.

The fact is the the rest of the nation thinks that democrats are threatening the moral values of the country -- this, in an election where 25% of the voter turnout (according to the Boston Globe this morning) claims to be "Evangelical Christian," the community most adament about preventing the possibility of gay marriage, restricting the possibility for abortion, and generally the community who sees it as their God-given duty and burden to save the rest of the us from ourselves.

The people who voted Bush because of fear of terrorism really are possibly the furthest away from possible threat. John Stewart (god, i love that man) pointed out while the Corn Palace in South Dakota may be an attraction, it certainly isn't getting Osama's attention as a Sodom or Gemorrah-type city of sin. New York, the state most threatened and the only one that has been attacked by a foreign terrorist group in this whole hullabaloo, went with Kerry. Who do you think the rest of the fear-driven voters should have voted for? Well, thanks again, Evangelical Christians, for saving us from ourselves, because clearly, as Stephen Colbert states, their safe distance from the threats of terror allows them an objective viewpoint that the people closer to "ground zero" actually attain. Clearly. Not to mention that all the terrorism in the midwest has been domestic. Hmmm....

And so i ask myself, "Really, how do we join Canada, or suceed?" Sure, there's been a lot of talk about it, and no one thinks it's going to happen. But if anyone saw that map in the Globe this morning, it's clear that the rest of the country doesn't want us, and i'm not so sure we want the rest of the country either. Can we really govern ourselves fairly under one president and one party with literally half the voting populus outraged, depressed, disillusioned, and conveniently all huddled together in one general geographic location?

The answers are complicated.

On the second question:
I don't think we can govern ourselves like this. Or allow ourselves to be governed like this. I mean, for pete's sake, Bush has already taken away enough of our freedoms. A co-worker speculated that if it gets bad enough, maybe in the next election the people will be ready for a change. I'm not necessarily sure about that. Evangelical Christians hold the viewpoint that the harder things get, the more it proves their point that God told them that the work of God isn't easy. But maybe the other 25% who voted for Bush will be tired enough of it. But here's the other problem: when you mention the word economics to a midwestern pig farmer (or a backwoods Mainer, for that matter), their eyes glaze over a bit as they fail to see the connection between decisions about taxes and how that affects health care, the price of pigs on the market, and the price of gas. To many of them, "economics" is an elective that you can take in high school that has no real connection to the real world.

Furthermore, stances on gun control, abortion, the environment, education, health care, religion, economics, etc have been neatly separated into two parties that are clearly not representative of how everyone in that party feels. The two party system operates on the notion that there are two viewpoints of the world. The current election certainly makes it look that way, but when you think about how many people voted based simply on economics, simply on foreign policy, or simply on the issue of the possibility of gay marriage, all perhaps without the slightest consideration for the other issues at stake, it becomes clear that there are a lot of different concerns out there that really little to do with a political party and more to do with issues that could and usually should be dealt with in the state legislature. And who represents us in Congress? The Senators.

And how well do they do that? What kind of accountability is there if they don't appropriately represent the state? Not much now that their terms are SIX years instead of two years. At least when it was two years, they had to represent more accurately, because otherwise, they'd get voted out. If it's six years? That's a lot of time to be able to misrepresent with no accountability.

The idea of being able to get out of the black and white two party system is ludacris at this point, since so many issues and motives are conflated and confused.

So back to the first question: just how DO we suceed? Would they let us? I mean, Maine might be able to sneak away without anyone noticing for a while, but the entire Northeast? It would certainly be nice.

So while i sit at my desk trying to convince myself for the umpteenth time that i should be studying for the GRE English Subject Test that I have in a little over a week, all i can think is this: I want out. I don't want four more years of THIS.