Emergency Room

It's election night, and the country is in intensive care

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, November 11, 2004.

I spent election night in the emergency room. No, despair had not gripped me. I had not overdosed or slit my wrists. My wife, however, had fallen down a flight of stairs and banged up her arm. As soon as we arrived at the hospital, I realized that this was the most fitting place for me to view the election returns.

Adding the perfect surreal touch, two ceiling-mounted TVs spewed out election night coverage across two rooms filled to capacity with the uninsured injured, sick and dying of America, none of whom sported chirpy "I VOTED TODAY!" stickers. Many, I got the distinct impression, did not speak English. Some did not appear to know where they were. One TV set was tuned to Fox News, so we moved closer to the other set. While the wounded shifted and nodded off in their seats below, the bad news played out above us, like the telescreens in Orwell's 1984 . To no one's objection, I reached up and hit the "mute" button right after the network anchorette had soiled her undies gushing over what a power broker Tom DeLay was, how his shifty tricks had worked and, as a result, we had five new Republicans from Texas in the U.S. Congress. Oh joy.

I would not have wanted to be anywhere else but in that emergency room. These are emergency times. The election was a terrible injury, a fall down a flight of stairs. The patient is in intensive care.

Those who voted for Bush chose fear over hope, fakery over authenticity, ignorance over intelligence, the Wizard of Oz over Atticus Finch. In the process, they chose to ignore four years of miserable failure. All that talk about nervous Republicans, and libertarian-leaning conservatives disturbed by Bush's assault on civil liberties and "swing voters" was just talk. When the game was on the line, these folks didn't walk the walk. They whiffed at a pitch right across the plate; they went in the booth and voted for Bush. Was it the visceral attraction of his raw power? Gay marriage?

Let those of us who have had our hopes dashed not succumb to fear or violence, no matter how tempting or easy it is, especially when Republicans are gloating and strutting around like their little Caesar. Admit that those urges are there, but leave them to fantasy. Channel the energy elsewhere. This uphill bid to unseat an incumbent during wartime -- most of the effort spurred by ad hoc organizing by Internet activists like moveon.org, Daily Kos, Eschaton, Liberal Oasis -- was inspiring.

I, for one, never felt better in any election than when I cast my vote this time. What was called a shoo-in for Bush at the beginning of the year became by Nov. 2, a virtual tie. With closer scrutiny of some of these voting machines and illegal efforts to intimidate and scare away voters, even that result would be in doubt. After all, only in Florida and Ohio, the two contested states, do the exit polls not match the voting results. Hmmmm. Greg Palast is all over that story ... does anyone care?

What Bush should do, were he a man of substance, is to moderate his extremist agenda and reach out for compromise. But we know he's not a man of substance; he will push his agenda even more forcefully throughout his second term.

We can hope the Democrats will not again behave like abuse victims and roll over like Tom Daschle, whose demise should be an object lesson to those Democrats who refuse to show native grit. We should not, however, rely on Democrats to do the work we should all be doing every day, as real citizens, believers in truth, peace and justice.

© 1995-2004 New Mass Media
reprinted from The Hartford Advocate