I'm Not Going To Bed

(November 04, 2008)
 
GAH, I can't stand it. Goddamn it Florida, you fuck this up again and there'll be hell to pay. I will boycott oranges and Mickey Mouse and I will come down to your penis-shaped self and hurt you. And Ohio, with your...what DO you have there anyway...well whatever it is, I'll boycott that too if you fuck this up.

I know I am not going to bed, that's for sure

I went to bed in 2000, the year of the hanging chad. I woke up to find that Bush had...kinda...won. Katherine Harris (remember her?) announced George W. Bush as the winner in Florida by around 500 votes. Later in the month it was revealed that a ton of illegal votes were counted, and a ton of legal votes were not counted. Gore would have won Florida. Gore DID win Florida. Bush did NOT fucking win that election. Not that I was a huge Gore fan. But, like they say, the devil you know (or in this case, the devil you know will at least take care of the environment and dependence on foreign oil). Republicans stole the Presidency of the United States in 2000. That happened, and we all let it.

I went to bed in 2004 too, the year of the Provisional Ballot. When I finally fell asleep I had no doubt that John Kerry would win; because how could he not? Because, is everyone in the country mentally ill? Because how could they re-elect Bush? Come on, America. But I woke up and Kerry had conceded. The spin doctors said he didn't have enough legal recourse to contest losing. Really? I can still recall the astonishing New York Times and Rolling Stone articles that carried the stories about the malfunctioning voting machines and the American ex-pats not getting their provisional ballots on time, and this:

"The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency." (Rolling Stone, Nov 2008)

I woke up the next day, but I haven't yet convinced myself it's not a nightmare I'm having. So, I'm not going to bed.