LIBERAL DESPAIR

I'm continuing to notice a lot of left-wing blogger depression in cyberspace this week. For some reason, the outcome of the election hasn't really emotionally affected me that much. Maybe it's because I think that Kerry would have been only marginally better than Bush. Maybe it's because I know there's much, much more that needs to be done before we can call America a just and righteous nation--I mean, Kerry or Bush, either way the corporations still run the world, and things will continue to get worse, not better, for working people. I don't know. I'm even a bit optimistic: perhaps, by the time Bush is finishing his second term, conservatism will be irrevocably discredited--it could happen, right?

Anyway, here's a sample of the despair I'm noticing from Rob Salkowitz's Emphasis Added:

Not Really Getting Over It

It makes me sad, though, because I truly loved this country and what I thought it stood for. I thought it was special and wise, and even if it went through periods of misguided policies, that it had the strength within itself to correct its path, to opt for right over wrong when given a clear choice.

Now I see that’s not my country. My new country will cross the street to spit on a bum, pick fights with the weak then laugh and brag at its victories, revel in tasteless displays of its own wealth, and laugh derisively at people who read books. My old country would bounce back from 9/11 with an affirmation of liberty and rise to the task of leading the world. My new country staggers wildly around like a madman who received a blow to the head, swinging its fists at passers-by and shouting wild nonsense through spittle-flecked lips.

Sorry, I can’t be proud of that. And I miss my pride like a phantom limb.

Click here for the rest. It's actually a pretty poignant essay, just depressing.

Here's what I wrote on Rob's comment board:

Of course, it's still your country, Rob. When you choose to think that way, you're forgetting that nearly half of the electorate voted against Bush and everything he stands for. The right-wing weirdos do, indeed, hold power now, and they do, indeed, have a great deal of popular support, but that has not yet translated into a fundamental metamorphis of America character. My take on the whole thing is that most of those Republican voters have been wildly misinformed by way of brilliant political strategy--remember that a large percentage of Bush supporters believe that Iraq had WMD and that they were cooperating with Al Qaeda; in their minds, this is enough to justify Bush's Draconian governance. And, hey, if Saddam really was about to launch nuclear suitcases at New York City, that point of view would have a bit more validity (only a bit more, mind you). America is experiencing dark days, to be sure, but now, more than ever, Americans whose minds aren't addled by GOP fear mongering need to turn their amps up to eleven and remind the other half of the country of what it means live in the land of the free. Don't despair; these are exciting times.

Hours after writing that comment, in one of those weird twists of synchronicity, I happened upon this really uplifting essay by radical historian Howard Zinn, via WorkingForChange:

The optimism of uncertainty

There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people's thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

What leaps out from the history of the past hundred years is its utter unpredictability. This confounds us, because we are talking about exactly the period when human beings became so ingenious technologically that they could plan and predict the exact time of someone landing on the moon, or walk down the street talking to someone halfway around the earth. Let's go back a hundred years. A revolution to overthrow the tsar of Russia, in that most sluggish of semi-feudal empires, not only startled the most advanced imperial powers, but took Lenin himself by surprise and sent him rushing by train to Petrograd. Given the Russian Revolution, who could have predicted Stalin's deformation of it, or Khrushchev's astounding exposure of Stalin, or Gorbachev's succession of surprises?

And

Looking at this catalog of huge surprises, it's clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience-whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland, Hungary, and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just.

Click here for the rest.

We do live in exciting times. Anything could happen. Maybe it's just that the direction of my personal life has changed dramatically for the better, but for the first time in many years, I'm optimistic. I've never seen the lines between right and wrong in our country so clearly drawn. I've never seen so many people reject what the Conservative Movement stands for. Change may very well be right around the corner, and I want to help make it happen. The opportunities for participating in staggering historical events are practically endless.

Cheer up, liberals. This is only the beginning.

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