so you know, it was hard to get up today. and i had a good cry though i'm not exactly sure what about. lots of things. and i've waffled on just how to address the current political climate, if i should address it at all. we are all tired and certainly there is enough fear and loathing and despair running around to keep us tired. so i decide, right now, this moment, to wake up. (too bad it's not sunny).

the situation is this: many political reigns, be it communism, fascism, or in this case, republics create and highlight difference in order to manipulate fear and exaggerate conflict so that the conflict will mask the true political agenda. the red states against the blue states is a political tactic to polarize a people that are not so fundamentally different. this polarization allows a candidate (any cadidate) to play off a few key issues, be it morality, economic, or cultural and ignore the bigger, or wholistic, picture. so people vote based on a few 'key points.' the result is a skewed perspective of exaggerated poltical/cultural divide.

i grew up in rural illinois, with pick-up trucks, guns, and hunting season, field parties, racist cops, and backyard punk parties full of rollins-like meat-heads. in high school the local police taught me how to shoot a handgun during 'students run the town day.' (I was the sherrif). i was indoctrinated with a hatred and fear of the east coast, particularly new york, and i believed that everyone in the northeast was a pretentious, over-educated, snob. i believed i would never fit in, and i never wanted to visit, much less live here. i almost moved to LA instead of new york in 1998 because deep inside i still had that fear, somehow, of being either inadequate or just 'outside' the canon (i didn't even know what a canon was until i moved to new york but that's a different story).

now illinois is a blue state, imagine the fear of someone growing up in a red state. the fact is i had great friends who thought about politics, who talked about ideas, and it wasn't a little outsider click. my friends were homecoming queens and cheerleaders and 'jocks' as well as punks and nerds. i was mvp of our school tennis team. i also painted a spider on my face and listened to john peel (RIP). however odd it seems, we kind of all found a way to get along with a few execeptions. i read the washington post and maximum rock and roll and preached about evil republicans and babbled about anarchy, but that didn't seem to effect my friendships. in fact one year, probably 1986, my friend danielle gave me a matt groening life in hell calendar for my birthday and said "i don't understand this, but i thought you would like it." she was right and i'd never heard of matt groening before.

ahh, but we were kids in a small town and had little choice to choose our friends. and so we grew up and went to college and picked our ideals and decided we were fundamentally different. i think thats a bunch of crap. we may believe different things but in the end love, loyalty, respect, trust, sharing, listening, playing, hanging out, sex, eating meals together, these are the things that count.

politicians know this. they know this enough to remind us AFTER the election that we need to unite. now that the game is over we can stop playing on our differences and come together as a unified america with limitless potential. well, ahem, money has limits... and we are completely out of money and we have blood on our hands, and half, probably more than half, the world hates us. and now red states and blue states hate each other too and send along funny little maps of the 'united states of canada' which expands to encompass the blue states versus the red states 'jesusland.' (sure, it was funny).

and there is a cultural divide, a real one, but it isn't determined by little lines on a map. though like minds tend to flock, it is not a rule. and it's a shame that we learn about such differences more through a digital map on CNN and less through dialog. as it's a shame that many people feel the role of the government is to sanction and regulate personal ideals (like abortion and same sex partnerships, and praying or not praying to god in public schools). i'm not trying to suggest that there aren't cultural differences or that bush's re-election isn't a travesty. it most certainly is for reasons most people i associate with could easily articulate. but im not so sure kerry is so clean either. hitchen's wisely pointed out that he certainly looked like a fool pretending to be duck hunting to appeal to 'red state' values. ugh.

the bigger issue is that we are being duped by a two party system with a narrow and surprisingly similar agenda - profit, ego, and an antiquated allegiance to nationalism. and this system is set up to manipulate single issues rather than look at a situation as a whole. it's set up to divide and draw little lines and create categories of dissent. it's biggest advantage is to raise gigantic funds for candidates who aren't actually all that far from eachother on the political spectrum. it's for viscious tv ads and propoganda, and ultimately, regardless of who wins/won they will all retire to their secret society of college lore.

it's time that this bullshit ended.

so i propose the following:

1. everyone become a republican. if we are all in the same party it will be harder to play off these differences. the potential for the green party, working families, or random independents to rise above a 200 year tradition is slim at best, and closer to impossible. i have registered as a republican for this very reason. i can now vote in the primaries, get invited to official events, and have real, open dialog with people who i might not otherwise meet (especially in new york city).

2. forget nader and look more closely at soros (www.soros.org) who has very elegantly and successfully chipped away at the false dichotomy of democrat and republican, left and right, first and third world, etc... granted he is doing this all in the name of capitalism, he believes we need a more level playing field for our capitalist economy to work, and you know, he is right.

3. mccain/clinton for 2008. now wouldn't that be a brilliant and viable clusterfuck. if hillary would just switch parties and duke it out in the oval office and congress i honestly believe significant social and economic advances would be gained that would benefit far more people in this country and abroad. the reason hillary should switch and not mccain is that the republicans are better organized (for better or worse) and have control now of both the house and senate.

i joke and am half-serious abooot moving to canada, and leading this non-violent revolution of thinking from a place that is slightly more open, safer, and less paranoid. im not particularly fond of being an american, though i'm not particularly fond of being identified first, no second, no maybe third, as belonging to any 'country' or map. i say third because first i am a girl and that was obvious from the pink baby clothes. second i am white and every form i've ever had to fill out wants to know this regardless of my citizenship (even though it's 'optional'). but right after gender and race we are citizens of a 'nation' and that is making less and less sense in a world of transnational corporations and transnational coalitions (like greenpeace or the WTO). so i'm not sure canada is really the answer, but it's an idea to consider.

yes, i'm discouraged. but i realize my discouragement is (related to but) far deeper than our president 'elect' or my right to have an abortion. im discouraged because as time goes on we have fewer and fewer political/cultural options and i fear this will result in either a dictatorship or violent, reactionary behavior when it doesn't have to.

as much as i support play and merry-making in the face of adversity i'm not going to send yet another "lets dance" or "get over it" email because that's just kind of missing the point and invalidating very real anger and hurt feelings. but i'm also not going to allow myself to sleep it off in my lonely pain cave of despair.

i'm looking and moving forward and trying to make sense of it, feeling angry and looking for a way to channel that into something productive.

so.....

love and more choice,
./kV




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