2008 Woodie Awards
A Sense of Despair
Kevin Agnese
Issue date: 11/17/04 Section: Perspectives
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It was a moment frozen in time. Unfortunately, it was a moment of shock and despair, not of happiness. As I stood in my room watching NBC on Wednesday morning November 3rd, at 11:00 am, I saw the AP report: "Kerry Concedes Election to Bush." Instantly, my body went numb, and it seemed as if the world had collapsed. Less than 24 hours earlier I felt confident, I felt hope, and I felt that change was coming. Now, I feel grief, despair, fear, anger, and a tense sense of hopelessness. This country is headed for some real dark and dangerous times.
The results of the election proved a few things: There are a lot of stupid, uninformed morons in this country who have absolutely no idea where George W. Bush and John Kerry stand on the issues. These are the people who think Bush presents "moral values" in presidency and life. I ask, what are moral values? Is it moral to be homophobic? Is it moral to destroy the environment, or give tax cuts to your rich friends and screw over the poor and middle class? Is it moral to ignore warnings about a massive terrorist plot, or to destroy the economy, or to lie about a war? Is it moral to not fund education initiatives, or to not care about health care or social security? Is it moral to not fight to renew the assault weapons ban? Is it moral to have your brother, and your friends steal an election? Well, if these are moral values, than I guess George W. Bush is one hell of a moral guy. I mean just look at the demographics of this election. A lot of rich white men and right-wing religious nut jobs voted for Bush. Who could have more values than them! I mean I would put Ken Lay and the rest of the corporate crooks in this country in the same breath as God himself. Sure, Jerry Falwell and a lot of the religious right believe that gay people and supporters of a woman's right to choose are heathens, but who can blame them! They are just presenting the "moral values" that the southern part of this country loves to hear about. Yes, a few days after 9/11 Falwell said that God gave us "what we deserved" (as was reported by John Harris on washingtonpost.com, September 14, 2001) because he was angry that we accept abortion and gay people in our society. Weird, this doesn't sound so moral to me.
The results of the election proved a few things: There are a lot of stupid, uninformed morons in this country who have absolutely no idea where George W. Bush and John Kerry stand on the issues. These are the people who think Bush presents "moral values" in presidency and life. I ask, what are moral values? Is it moral to be homophobic? Is it moral to destroy the environment, or give tax cuts to your rich friends and screw over the poor and middle class? Is it moral to ignore warnings about a massive terrorist plot, or to destroy the economy, or to lie about a war? Is it moral to not fund education initiatives, or to not care about health care or social security? Is it moral to not fight to renew the assault weapons ban? Is it moral to have your brother, and your friends steal an election? Well, if these are moral values, than I guess George W. Bush is one hell of a moral guy. I mean just look at the demographics of this election. A lot of rich white men and right-wing religious nut jobs voted for Bush. Who could have more values than them! I mean I would put Ken Lay and the rest of the corporate crooks in this country in the same breath as God himself. Sure, Jerry Falwell and a lot of the religious right believe that gay people and supporters of a woman's right to choose are heathens, but who can blame them! They are just presenting the "moral values" that the southern part of this country loves to hear about. Yes, a few days after 9/11 Falwell said that God gave us "what we deserved" (as was reported by John Harris on washingtonpost.com, September 14, 2001) because he was angry that we accept abortion and gay people in our society. Weird, this doesn't sound so moral to me.