Insomnia on the North Coast

This election has been different and more important than any other election in my life. For the first time in my life and even as poor as I am, I actually gave money to the Democratic Party; this means that much to me. I have been scared and hopeful and excited for months now… but mostly scared that Bush will get another four years and the consequences that could result from that happening… especially after everything that has already happened over the last four years. I never thought that I would see our country devolve to the point of our government actually spying on U.S. citizens, much less detaining people for years without access to lawyers, outside of our own borders… it’s reminiscent of an earlier era… McCarthyism. I had thought we were sooo over that already, but apparently not. I wonder sometimes… what kind of country will we wake up to on November 3rd. It’s kept me awake some nights… this insomniac really needs that kind of stimulus to stay up all night. Heh. Not.

I’m concerned about what the rest of the world thinks about us, too. Right now, they understand that it’s our government that is out of control and arrogant, doing these imperialistic acts… the invasion of a sovereign nation in a pre-emptive strike and prolonged occupation. Most people in other countries don’t necessarily hate Americans, they (like some of us) hate what our government is doing and understand that we have very little control over what’s being done. I’m afraid that if Bush gets four more years (either through election or judicial selection), they’ll begin to place the blame on us, as a people… even those of us that don’t vote for Bush. That worries me.

I think Kerry will win… I hope he will win… but there is this tiny nagging worry in the back of my mind that somehow the election will be “stolen” from him, like it was for Gore in 2000. And the consequences of a Kerry loss could be worse than even my over-active imagination can dream up. Karl Rove has tried pretty much every dirty trick in the book already, many of those smear tactics have had an impact on what people think of Kerry or his wife or his running mate, but none of that crap is true. Factcheck.org does a pretty good job of debunking these rumors; there’s a search box in the upper right corner of their website for whatever you’re looking for.

About six weeks ago I found a couple of online forums where I could commiserate with other politically-minded people about what was going on with this country and this election. I became an active poster and began to help with some of the background research on various issues (I’m pretty good at doing research, if I do say so meself). I later found that some of the research I’d done, indeed, some of the things that I posted were used by John Kerry in the second and third debates. Wow! Someone (likely one of his many aides) was reading the things I was writing and the candidate for president was responding on national television! Then, too, imagine… me… getting involved in politics… something I avoided for pretty much my whole life. It’s all been so… argh, I don’t have the words for it and “awesome” sounds so… immature. Hehehe. Just to know that someone cared, someone was reading, and someone was bringing these things to John Kerry’s attention… I’ve never felt so involved in an election in my life, even if Kerry doesn’t actually know who I am. It’s okay… it’s really very okay.

By contrast, I feel I must mention that the Bush campaign doesn’t have a forum open to the public. He doesn’t want to hear what we think. He screens the people that attend his campaign rallies. (Take another look at those pictures from the Kerry rally in Madison, WI… can you imagine trying to screen that many people? He doesn’t do it. He’s not afraid to hear hecklers.) Dissenters, and even “friendlies,” are not particularly welcome at Bush rallies… even if you are peaceful. Some of the more extremist neocons have gathered at the freerepublic website, but I’m not sure they represent a cross-section of Republicans… most of their posts seem very militant and extremist. Some remind me of neo-nazis. I sometimes wonder if any of them ever saw American History X or understood that it wasn’t a movie in favor of that kind of ideology. Somehow, I doubt it. And no, I’m not exaggerating. I’m through talking about them, it makes me feel like I need to go take a shower.

*smirk*

I am also thinking about Osama bin Laden and this latest tape that Al Jazeera broadcast on their television network (I haven’t seen or heard it yet, but there are a few news stories online about it) - according to those links, OBL says that our security “depends on neither George W Bush nor John Kerry, but on US foreign policy.” Admitting for the first time that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden said he did so because of injustices against the Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel and the United States. And that what happens in the future is not up to Bush or Kerry, but up to us… the American people. See, this is where things get really scary, because the only thing we can do is vote and write letters to Congress, we don’t formulate foreign policy. So if, somehow, dumbass Bush gets another four years, we’re probably doomed because he won’t change course and his administration’s foreign policy has been a disaster.

Yet another thing to keep me awake at night… the spin machine.

At the same time, the Bush campaign will attempt to spin this as OBL dictating what the American people should do, and that if we choose Kerry, we’re doing what bin Laden wants us to do… which is utter bullshit. None of us in the United States support Osama bin Laden. The important fact here is that bin Laden, ringleader to an organization that uses terrorism as a tool, and whose organization murdered 3,000 people on American soil was allowed to go free by the Bush administration choosing to outsource the job of capturing OBL to Afghan warlords in the winter of 2001 at Tora Bora. And that Bush’s poor judgment is unacceptable in a president of the United States.

And sometimes, I lie awake at night and wonder… between the fear instilled by the terrorists and the fear instilled by the incompetence of the current administration of our government… how long can we (and the rest of the world) live in fear? And what is it doing to us as human beings?

Update 01:51am : This just in. Walter Cronkite on Larry King Live says the Osama bin Laden tape was a Karl Rove setup. We don’t know for sure how long the tape has been around or whether the Bush team suppressed the release of it until now, or even altered it, or outright generated it via computer programs. The thing to find out: did it come to Al Jazeera through standard channels? Links to transcripts of the tape are in the extended entry.

Bin Laden Tape Transcript link.

**Note the uses of the word “god” here. Would bin Laden say “god” or “allah”?? I also can’t vouch for the authenticity of the source for the transcript. I don’t know much about worldnetdaily. Haven’t checked it. Looks like Jerry Falwell is a contributor to content there, though. Heh. Also noticed the about page goes waaay out of it’s way to insist it is an “independent” news outlet… mentioned that word about 3-4 times… with emphasis. I’m skeptical.

Reuters has another transcript. Looks quite a bit different from the one above, and it’s excerpts. And the word “god” and not “allah” appears in it multiple times, as well. This is looking fishy to me.

Here’s another transcript from the Washington Post via Reuters.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo has some interesting observations, as well.