Sandy Knauer, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Blogs by Sandy Knauer
The Sorrow Runs Much Deeper 11/6/2004 8:41:28 AM
Although I worked hard and hoped big for them, my despair has nothing to do with John Kerry or John Edwards. I’m not sure any of the tears I’ve shed the last few days were truly for either of them. The sorrow runs much deeper.
I grieve the loss of my party, my state, my country, and my world. I shudder to think the intelligent, ethical Americans didn’t outnumber the ignorant, coldhearted cult members, who caved into rhetoric and peer pressure and voted their fear instead of their conscience. It sickens me to think we weren’t greater than them, despite the trashed registrations, voters erased from the rosters, strategically located polls that ran out of ballots, computer glitches that lost votes, and votes that weren’t counted. I cry for those whose voices went unheard again.
My throat closes when I think of the men fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with too little equipment and too many questions. My heart aches for the citizens of those countries who will suffer the consequences of our actions as long as they live, and their land will suffer still after they are gone.
I’m sad for the American children. Budget cuts and conditional funding hampers their education, while Halliburton receives the money promised to them. I’m sorry I can’t protect them from parents, preachers, and politicians who feed them rhetoric and bigotry instead of truth and love.
My stomach knots for my neighbors who don’t have jobs, homes, food, or medical care. Instead of the compassion he promised, George W. Bush sent them cutbacks in benefits and more rhetoric. Schools and churches teach adults and children to taunt these people and believe they chose their circumstances. I imagine how it must feel to be one of the gays, lesbians, or trial lawyers crucified in this campaign, all in the name of God, only without the glory the last crucifixion earned.
At the end of the day, old wounds reopened. I thought about the acceptance speeches Bill Clinton and Al Gore delivered in 1992, and realize they delivered most of what they promised. They optimistically fought hard for the rest, despite the ugly war waged against them. They strove to promote policies that best served everyone concerned. They listened. They cared. I went to bed at night knowing my world was safe in their hands. I never feared anything they had control over.
Things changed in four short years, from that to lying awake at night wondering which of my civil liberties this administration would strip away before I woke, and how many people would die while my new leaders smirked and profited from their deaths, and if the world would survive the monster we set loose on it.
After digging through the layers, I find Al Gore and the disenfranchised voters, in the pit of my sorrow with more knives in their backs. I can’t leave them this way.
