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November 03, 2004
Gays are the New Jews
The results of the election are very scary.
For one thing, the rest of the world will see this as the American people affirming a sharp imperial stance towards the rest of the world as well as approving the illegitimate occupation of Iraq. The implications of this perception are truly scary: this is regardless of what we know about Kerry and his pro-war campaign. Bush has just been elected with a majority of the popular vote. It will now be much easier for the likes of Osama Bin Ladin to recruit, pointing to the election of this administration composed of thoroughly exposed liars, our continuing disregard for Iraqi lives, the apparent ease with which we shrugged off the Abu Ghraib torture scandal...
For another thing, this election should never have happened --and accepted as legitimate-- with unverifiable voting machines manufactured by Bush supporters, under rules harking back to Jim Crow designed to make voting as hard and as frustrating as possible for people in minority neighborhoods, where the machines were sparser and lines much longer, and people with jobs who can't take the day off to wait in line for five hours. Yet, it happened this way and it's being reported as if it all were relatively glitch-free. The fact that such an inherently racist, anti-poor arrangement is being portrayed as legitimate and acceptable without much contestation does not bode well for the future.
Also, it's very clear from exit polls and other data that many of Bush's supporter were energized and mobilized by the "Ban Gay Marriage" amendments. The initiatives in all eleven states passed with wide margins. One exit poll shows that the issue with the highest "Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted today" rating was "Moral Values," with 21 percent of respondents choosing that option over the economy, terrorism, Iraq, health-care, taxes and education. And an overwhelming majority of people who professed to care about "moral values" voted for Bush -- 78 percent.
And you know the "moral values" is a code word for opposition to gay marriage and, to a lesser degree this time around, abortion. And some of the gay marriage amendments that passed do a lot more than define marriage as a heterosexual union: many also strip gay couples of the most basic, simple rights. Parental rights, visitation rights, medical decision-making, joint benefits are all under attack. This clearly is nothing more than a frenzy of bigotry since people could have penned these laws to ban only non-heterosexual marriage without such sweeping restrictions of the rights of gay people.
I have written about this in the past: many progressives understandably concentrate on issues like the fact that we are occupying Iraq rather than go out and work on things like marriage rights and health benefits for gay couples. And frankly, Americans of most stripes are very privileged compared to the rest of the world -- the AIDS holocaust in Africa is obviously a much more important issue than whether or not a gay couple can take the same mortgage tax deduction as straight couples.
But that's not the real issue here. Here's what's happening in a nutshell: a proto-fascist administration is whipping up support and clouding the political picture by aggressively targeting an already despised, small minority that is, for the most part, expressing no other wish than to assimilate as who they are. Many members of that minority are already relatively integrated into the existing power structure. Most are not poor or marginal but wish for not much more than being accepted into the existing institutional structures: the very structures that many progressives spend their lives fighting to change (for example, the military). Yes, the obvious anology is the Jews in pre-WWII Germany.
The anti-gay amendments that have just passed are comparable to the 1935 Nuremberg Laws in their function, if not their scope and final intent. These laws were passed in 1935, stripping Jews of many of their basic civic rights and erecting impassable barriers to the increasing assimilation of the Jewish minority into Germany.
I'm obviously not expecting an attempt to exterminate the gays. Anyway, as the Cheneys found out, homosexuality is not confined to any one group of easily identifiable people. Rather, what I'm saying is that the political uses of these amendments are similar to the Nuremberg Laws because they are the ideological stick with which the proto-fascist leadership can line up its own troops, while also creating and maintaining a political hegemony and monopoly over the majority of people, many of whom will also end up victimized by its very policies.
Posted by zeynep at November 3, 2004 12:35 PM
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See also Under the Same Sun. Zeynep includes this disturbing analysis...voters for Bush seemed to be untroubled by casting a vote for the candidate with high moral values despite knowing that Arab/Muslim prisoners were tortured... [Read More]
Tracked on November 4, 2004 04:55 PM
» מרצפות קרמיקה from מרצפות קרמיקה Posted by: jdhallinan at November 3, 2004 02:03 PM
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It's very hard for me to find anything worth living for anymore, after this election.
All my life I've struggled to find acceptance. Acceptance from my family who went through divorce and remarriage and can't decide who they want me to be and what path I wanted to follow. Acceptance from my peers at school, who think me alien because I can't seem to click with their social norms, maybe because of my Asperger Syndrome, don't know. Acceptance from my professors and other school teachers who just wouldn't deal with my quirks and foibles.
When I became aware of the horrible things the American Empire does to the rest of the world, I knew that because of my being a white male American citizen, my chances of finding acceptance were nil. And when I found out that I was responsible for supporting it just for such very simple actions as shopping at Wal-Mart, paying my taxes, using oil-based energy to power my television, video games and other such things to try to escape my arduous, everyday life, I couldn't accept myself. I tried to search for the strength within to stop my consumption, to dedicate my whole heart and soul to resistance by changing my lifestyle, but I couldn't do it. My sick, depraved mind just couldn't shirk these attachments.
I was so hoping today would finally be the day that I can find some acceptance in the world, finally have some hope that I can live my life the way I want to, be who I want to be, and not have to face the derision of not only those in my immediate surroundings, but by everyone in the world. I hoped I could have some hope that life was worth living, and that I wouldn't have to always think that I will always be hated.
Those hopes are gone now.
Is there anything at all worth living for anymore?
Posted by: Phil at November 3, 2004 02:22 PM
Phil
Please don't give up! Read twistedchick's entry about making a difference instead.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/twistedchick/1227962.html?nc=10
This wont last forever. And it's what YOU do that counts.
Otherwise you can always move here to Sweden. I was at a very beautiful lesbian wedding last christmas.
And remember, a lot of people voted against those amendments. There are millions of straight people that stood up for gay rights.
Posted by: Beatrice at November 3, 2004 03:47 PM
gays are second in line; first are arabs - semites, if you recall
Posted by: claudio at November 3, 2004 06:00 PM
If Gays are the new Jews, are Muslims are the new niggers? It almost seems as if all non-white non-rich non-evangelicals are considered less than human.
Posted by: Michael Miller at November 3, 2004 07:38 PM
It seems that one of the main things which inspired such large numbers of christian fundamentalists to vote in mid America was 11 anti-gay marriage initiatives in 11 red states, all of which initiatives passed easily. The Republicans catered to these bigots and racists in the middle American states to promote their own political gains. That is certainly a huge part of why Bush garnered so much support, but also there is a little matter of computer fraud which Greg Palast has so thoroughly documented. Both Ohio and Florida were stolen outright by Bush it appears to me. And that is almost 50 electoral votes right there, more than enough to swing the vote in Bush's favor even w/o all the theocratic pandering to religious zealots and bigots.
Not that Kerry would have been a panacea by any means, but still this is a very sad day for the entire planet and not just for America.
Sincerely,
Old & In The Way
Posted by: Phil Cicchi at November 4, 2004 02:50 AM
I don't know about it being worth living, all I can say on the topic is that you may not have explored all the options for being happier yet...and don't call yourself "depraved", save that for the loathesome enemies of mankind with whom we must contend, the Putins, the bin Ladins, the Bushes, the Roves. Note that I consider bin Ladin to be one hundred times as evil as Bush, but unfortunately Bush is one million times as powerful.
But I would urge you as well not to take false refuge in thoughts of massive fraud. I really doubt there's 3 Mvotes' worth, there might _possibly_ have been enough vote suppression in Ohio to make a difference, but I don't really think so. Saying it was stolen is a way of momentarily ignoring that these people are terrifically popular, and we should never ignore that---I think the Kerry campaign suffered from something that afflicted Bush I's: "How could ordinary, sane, decent, people _possibly_ vote for this rank bastard?" But a lot of them did, because they _like_ things this way or worse.
Ignore them at your peril---and don't die, that's what they want. Live on, if only for spite's sake. Move to Sweden or Canada, work anti-Bush themes subliminally into the pornography those Red-Staters consume in droves, be part of the European innovation machine, make tonnes of euros, and plow them into resistance movements here. Or just live...you might _not_ have something to live "for", but you definitely have a whole bunch of things to live _against_.
When we take care of them all, and if there are no new ones (right), then you can kill yourself and we'll give you a good funeral---but something makes me think that by then you won't want to. (Say "won't", say "when", say "will"---"When we win...."---it's self-brainwashing, but it's a tactic.)I don't know about it being worth living, all I can say on the topic is that you may not have explored all the options for being happier yet...and don't call yourself "depraved", save that for the loathesome enemies of mankind with whom we must contend, the Putins, the bin Ladins, the Bushes, the Roves. Note that I consider bin Ladin to be one hundred times as evil as Bush, but unfortunately Bush is one million times as powerful.
But I would urge you as well not to take false refuge in thoughts of massive fraud. I really doubt there's 3 Mvotes' worth, there might _possibly_ have been enough vote suppression in Ohio to make a difference, but I don't really think so. Saying it was stolen is a way of momentarily ignoring that these people are terrifically popular, and we should never ignore that---I think the Kerry campaign suffered from something that afflicted Bush I's: "How could ordinary, sane, decent, people _possibly_ vote for this rank bastard?" But a lot of them did, because they _like_ things this way or worse.
Ignore them at your peril---and don't die, that's what they want. Live on, if only for spite's sake. Move to Sweden or Canada, work anti-Bush themes subliminally into the pornography those Red-Staters consume by the bucket, be part of the European innovation machine, make tonnes of euros, and plow them into resistance movements here. Or just live...you might _not_ have something to live "for", but you definitely have a whole bunch of things to live _against_.
When we take care of them all, and if there are no new ones (right), then you can kill yourself and we'll give you a good funeral---but something makes me think that by then you won't want to. (Say "won't", say "when", say "will"---"When we win...."---it's self-brainwashing, but it's a tactic.)
Posted by: Dabney Braggart at December 9, 2004 07:47 AM