Category: Boston

‘The people have spoken, the bastards.’ While John Kerry’s concession speech didn’t include this gem of a quote by congressional candidate Dick Tuck, it certainly could have. Kerry made the usual entreaties for national unity, healing, and an end to the partisan divide, but they rang hollow. His running mate John Edwards claimed that ‘the fight will go on’, but it’s hard to see where we have left to fight.

George Bush won the popular vote by over three million, solidifying his party’s leads in the House and Senate, and defeating the Senate majority leader. By anyone’s count, it was a good day to be a Republican.

Republicans will likely interpret this victory as overwhelming. Compared to the squeaker in 2000, it is a mandate from the people. But given how he governed when he lost the popular vote, I shudder to imagine how this victory will manifest itself in his policy proposals. He will almost certainly get to appoint three or more Supreme Court justices, as well as the new Chief Justice. There is renewed momentum for a ban on gay marriage, which will legally have to come as a constitutional amendment. Our preemptive foreign policy will continue and expand. The Patriot Act will be reinforced. The tax cuts will be made permanent. Social security will be privatized. America will continue to spread freedom from the barrel of a gun.

But before Democrats become utterly despondent, let’s remember that 48% of the country, over 55 million people, voted against George Bush and his ideology. This was not a blowout, and we put up a good fight, but we were clearly beaten.

Whatever it was, John Kerry didn’t have it. Maybe he pulled out of Missouri too early, or spent too much energy on Florida. Maybe he was too negative, or not aggressive enough. Maybe the campaign outsourced too much of the ground work to the 527’s. He was probably too nuanced and equivocal. There will be plenty of time for recriminations and accusations among groups on the left. The now leaderless party will wallow in its own self doubt and pity for the next few months. It’s hard to tell whose head will roll that hasn’t already been cut.

Before we degenerate into finger pointing, let’s savor this moment of sadness. There is a lesson to be learned here: a majority of Americans support Bush. Why exactly is a matter for the pundits to argue, but it’s undoubtedly true. Americans see something powerful in their plain spoken leader; something that we who get our news from the New Yorker and the Nation don’t. Although some of us would like to dismiss Bush as an ignorant cowboy, his victory forces us to realize that he is more than that. He is the man a slight, but clear majority of us chose to lead in these troubled times.

Bush promised in his victory speech to try to earn the trust of Kerry’s supporters. It’s hard to see how he will, but I’ll try and give him the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t steal this election, we lost it fair and square. Now it’s time to see what Bush will do with a lock on all three branches of government.

As our military surrounds Falluja yet again, ready to reinvade, I’m not hopeful about the future. Bush often says that history will judge his mistakes. Now that he doesn’t have to fear the electorate again, this is certainly true. But history is a harsher judge than the American people, and this chapter is Bush’s to write.

“Whose streets? Our streets.” The chants at the massive demonstrations against the Republican National Convention in New York City last Sunday were usually as short, but rarely as true as the above. Half a million people and I took over two miles of Seventh Avenue from Union Square to Madison Square Garden; several thousand then made their separate ways to Central Park for a gathering in defiance of a city ruling that it would destroy the grass. The biggest demonstrations ever during a political convention showed that at least some in this generation haven’t succumbed to apathy.

Various actions continued through the week, including a day of “direct action”, a code name for civil disobedience and anarchic action, on August 31st. While the New York City Police had been remarkably restrained for the first two days of the convention, they lost patience as small groups harassed delegates all over the city. As soon as more than a few people gathered on a street corner, and unfurled signs or began to legally march on the sidewalk, the police simply wrapped the entire area in orange netting and arrested everyone inside. Many members of the press, civilians merely in the wrong place in the wrong time, and peaceful protesters were wrongly detained.

Nearly 1,700 arrestees were taken in city buses to a dirty pier on the Hudson, made to lie on an oily cement floor without padding, and held in excess of the legally mandated 24 hours. The rational for this long wait is either incompetence, or a desire to keep protesters locked up until the President left the city. Either is unacceptable. On Thursday, a New York State judge ordered the the release of those prisoners held for more than 24 hours, and fined the city $1000 per illegally detained person.

I had left the city before the mass arrests began, but did experience some action. I narrowly missed an arrest and perhaps a beating in front of the Broadway theater where my state’s delegates saw the play Bombay Dreams. I was able to converse peacefully with delegates and members of Congress attending a party at a bowling alley late on Sunday night, until the police showed up and cleared the sidewalks under threat of violence.

Some at the Republican Convention questioned the patriotism of the demonstrators. Zell Miller, a renegade Democrat who gave the keynote address on Wednesday, claimed that Kerry’s protest of the Vietnam war “weakened our military.” He said that “it is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.” While the solider does defend that right with his or her blood, the right itself is given to all by the Constitution, and expected as the behavior of an active citizen by our founding fathers. No less a man than Thomas Jefferson stated that “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.”

While Zell Miller may compare me with a terrorist, dissent is our most important political right, enshrined in the First Amendment. Whatever your views, speak up. Dissent has been curtailed in previous times of war, and it is often the first right to go in dictatorships. To truly honor those who sacrificed themselves defending our freedoms, practice the rights guaranteed to you in the Constitution. Silence is the ultimate act of condonement and defiant dissent its antithesis.

Both political parties claim that this is a defining moment in our history. It couldn’t be more true. While both candidates use remarkably similar language on certain issues, particularly the war, we are faced with a choice between two radically different visions for the future of government. Unlike the last election, where it seemed we were given the choice between Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the choices these two candidates make, and the people they surround themselves with, will take this country in different directions.

Which future you support is your decision, but participation in democracy is not. I don’t care who you vote for, just vote. Request an absentee ballot from your state, read a real newspaper, and make an informed decision. Thanks to the peculiarities of the electoral system, your vote in Massachusetts is meaningless, because the state is guaranteed to go for Kerry. If you want your vote to count, vote by mail.

You don’t have to risk arrest or bodily harm to be a patriot, but you do have to vote.

– Published in today’s Tech