worse. this is really real.
we hadn't even heard the news yet. we weren't even aware. jen and i were busy, looking up the most recent lab information, checking up on our patients, and making sure that the orders for the next day's procedures were in. i had just admitted a new patient and was busy getting the paperwork squared away for him before our noon conference (we hadn't planned on going, since it was about library research - BOORING - but then clyde, the chief resident, came in and asked us to go since there was only 1 person attending so far). since work rounds had finished early, around 9:45am, we spent a few minutes clicking around on the internet(s), looking up election information and crossing our fingers that ohio had snapped for kerry. it was still going 51-48 for bush. we were all in different stages of optimism and hope. i was still trying to rally their spirits, telling them that we may still win ohio, and if not, we could drag out the election with unfulfilling lawsuits, but still, still! there was hope. tom didn't really think it was going to go our way, but he found it far more comforting to be optimistic. jen said she felt like crying. even our attending was joining in on it, doing his best impression of the average republican voter.
but we were just too busy. by the time we made it to our afternoon lectures with clyde, jen and i were the only ones that didn't know. we all talked about how depressing the election had been, how little hope there was left. i made some comment that "it ain't over till ohio's votes are in"... and that's when we found out. kerry had conceded.
it was so depressing.
i had heard all morning that the youth vote didn't pull through; that they had been the same dwindling percentage of the total turnout as they had been in 2000. i was bitter. (later i learned that the youth vote had, in fact, increased - but so did all the other demographics, including the religious right). we tried. and we failed.
tomorrow we will wear black. it's kind of a joke among the pediatrics house staff. wear black to mourn the election. we mourn the loss of hope. of decency, intelligence, and reason. we mourn the loss of civil liberties. of women's rights. of progressive policy. of even-handed and benevolent foreign policy.
america, you asked for it. we have had a difficult four years, and now we will have an even more difficult four. we have given back the power to a government that we know has lied to us, will lie to us, and will lie to us again. we have chosen an administration that is arrogant and ignorant. we have voted in a deceitful leader of a deceitful party that tried to suppress the vote this election. i fear what this administration will be capable of, with a "mandate" of 51% of the vote, and no re-election campaign in 4 years to worry about. now we will send ourselves, our children, our grandchildren, citizens of other nations into war. we have bought into the administration that walks and talks as a corporation. we have surrendered all three branches of the government and are asking to surrender our freedoms in the name of patriotism and fear. we have foolishly labeled our candidates with values that we could never possibly know and are only veils with which they drape themselves to conceal the fact that they are gunning for our vote, and it worked. and it is not only americans that will suffer.
we are divided. we are a global laughingstock.
(seriously, i'm totally pissed. and depressed. but i vow to be even more politically active over the next four years.)
this educational lesson brought to you by dr. j around 10:11 PM |
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Dude, what you wrote brought a tear to my eye.
This whole thing is very depressing and just plain shocking.
dropped by 
ye ole vinegar soaked manacles of doom! on 04 November, 2004 15:31 [*]
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This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
dropped by ye ole vinegar soaked manacles of doom! on 04 November, 2004 15:32 [*]
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watch that boring library talk! librarians own you and your privacy rights until they get taken away in the next four years. :)
dropped by chickadee on a dodge dart on 04 November, 2004 17:23 [*]
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sorry j-noodle, but that wasn't a dig against librarians. just lectures on library research. which, essentially, was a power point lecture on how to use a search engine.
dropped by dr. j on 04 November, 2004 17:33 [*]
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drop some science: