I woke up at 7:33 am on Wednesday, November 3rd to the sounds of helicopters whipping about so furiously that it jarred me from my sleep. It seemed like they were right outside my window. There are a couple things you need to understand here. The first is that I have gone to bed at 7:33 am many more times than I have gotten up at 7:33 am in my recent memory. I am not a morning person. The second is that quite apparently, I did not sleep well last night. A friend always says to me 'people are funny. Given the chance to disappoint you, they will do it every time…' Never was that more true than on Election Day 2004. 'America, the Disappointing', he said. I am disappointed right along with him and without question countless others. I'm a playahata and so, decidedly not a flag-waving type of individual. An American by default, but that doesn't mean I don't have hopes and aspirations for this place. Doesn't mean I don't want to see things go the way I believe they need to. But when I look at that electoral map and see that sea of red states that Bush won, I can't help but get sick on the inside. What do the people of this nation have to be shown, what do the people of this nation have to bear witness to in order to understand what this crew of super-radical neo-conservatives is about? The proof of lies, of corruption, of inaction and of outright deceit that have run like background music to this administration, I find it amazing that fifty-one percent of American voters signed up for four more years. It's like the guy who goes into the military, complains about his treatment and racism and such, and then when his discharge date nears, he turns around and signs up for another go-round. It's mind-boggling, to say the very least, that people march so readily to the tune of the fear-mongering that Bush-Cheney has made an official campaign tactic. Did only forty-nine percent of the American voting public see, hear or read when Cheney stated, so matter-of-factly that the only way to prevent more attacks is to put he and Bush back in term? The man sat and stated that if anyone OTHER than he and Bush were to win the Presidency, that we would surely suffer another catastrophic attack at the hands of "the enemy". Perhaps that tactic worked better than any forward-thinking individual could have imagined. In the backs of the minds of some number of that fifty-one percent that gave the popular vote to Bush and company, maybe, just maybe they were voting on Cheney's signal without even realizing that he had directed them to do so. The power of suggestion is a wicked thing in the hands of those who would misuse it.

Maybe only forty-nine percent of the American voting public saw Bush, stumble and stagger his way through those debates. Maybe only forty-nine percent of us paid any attention to that conspicuous square hump on his back in the first debate. Maybe, just maybe, only forty-nine percent of us see that growing quagmire that is Iraq becoming worse every single day. Perhaps only forty-nine percent of us never believed the lies this administration told us as they patted us on our collective heads and told us not to worry. My question is, how could that be? How could only forty-nine percent of the people in this country of legal voting age demand change? Ohio, the state which likely has lost the most jobs under the current administration, voted to lose MORE JOBS over four more years? How could that be? How could an entire state of working class people be asleep at the wheel; turn blind eyes to the hope of their own immediate futures?

America is sorely divided, the haters and the hatas stand on opposing sides of an enormous chasm and that gap will only widen in the coming years. I cannot understand it. Even though I stated that it would happen when Charlie asked me and other playahatas to make some predictions for the year 2004, it still disturbs me to see this thing come to pass. You see, when I predicted that the stupid and uninformed would march to the voting stalls in droves to put Bush back in office, I had no idea that all the evidence of this administration's dishonesty would be plastered all over the televisions and newspapers for every American to see. But it happened. It was plastered all over for everyone with functioning eyes and ears to see and hear, yet an astounding (yes, astounding) fifty-one percent didn't see anything wrong with Bush and company's tactics. They saw nothing wrong with the Enron, and the MCI Worldcom, and the TYCO scandals that robbed hardworking citizens of their investments in these companies. Scandals that inflated their books so that their bigwig CEOs and COOs and CFOs could line their super-millionaire pockets while plundering the pockets of investors who were unfortunate enough to be outside of their little loop of friends. People like Kenneth "Kenny-Boy" Lay. You know, most people call them the elite, but ol' Bushy, he calls them his base. What does this say to me? It says to me that fear is a powerful drug. It says to me that today's voting American public would have given an indifferent pass to a scandal the magnitude of Watergate. It says to me that a woman's right to choose is in grave danger. It says to me that with Bush able to appoint up to three seats on the Supreme Court in the next four years that Roe v. Wade could fall under the jackboot of the marching Christian right. It says to me that with an action-hero actor in the Governor's seat in California, that America loves make believe so much that that whole, aircraft carrier, flight-suit, "mission accomplished" thing was the best move any President could ever make. I mean, never mind the fact that the aircraft carrier was only about two hundred miles off the coast of San Diego.

Networks like CNN love to show clips of people from around the world in places of conflict begging those fair-minded, mighty, good-doer Americans to help them. What they fail to understand though, is that we are in a supremely divided state of turmoil in this nation. We can barely help ourselves. This much was evidenced on Election night, Tuesday, November 2nd 2004. Fear is a powerful drug, and America is high as a damned kite.

GD!