oh, you fucking massholes
you know, i guess i’ve been pretty lucky so far – for as long as i’ve been a massachusetts voter, i’ve had the luxury of knowing that my two congressional senators were champions of most the things i hold dear as a self-avowed bleeding-heart liberal. i’ve known that my two senators were in favour of women’s rights and choice, social services and benefits for the poor, environmental causes, full civil rights for all races/sexualities/gender identities, and protection of individual’s rights to privacy and speech. i knew, without even checking, that ted kennedy and john kerry were always on my side of the vote.
and now, i’ve been lumped with a representative whose politics i not only disagree vehemently with, but who will be actively voting against my interests as a woman, as a progressive, as a humanist. that sets me on edge just thinking about it.
worse than that, though, is that this vote was a proxy vote for the rest of the country. and that fills me with despair. it has taken nearly seven years living outside the u.s. to realise just how conservative and insular so many americans are. they don’t care about healthcare for all, they care about taxes. they don’t care about gay rights, they care about protecting their own hetero-normative mythologies. they don’t care about women’s rights, they care about their own patriarchal religious beliefs. they don’t care about global warming, they care about not spoiling the view from their condo with wind turbines. they don’t care about the american dream, they just want to make sure someone’s not stealing their dishwashing jobs.
ted kennedy must be turning over in his grave.
i was there for the obama election. i dared allow myself to hope that people wanted a kinder, gentler society. i’ve often felt alienated from my countrymen over the past seven years, and i’ve often thought that because of that, i could never go back. turns out, one-in-five obama voters supported brown.
today, what i know is this: there is one less vote for the kind of america i want to live in, and my hope was too fragile to sustain this kind of blow.
so fuck you, massachusetts. if you don’t care about me, why should i care about you? a friend recently posted this on their facebook profile, and it’s so apt that i’m quoting it here:
“elections belong to the people. it is their decision. if they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will have to just sit on their blisters.” ~ Abraham Lincoln
Comment by Your Sister
21.01.2010 @ 00:09 am
will it really burn you to know that when we went to vote yesterday there were signs from brown supporters with different lincoln quotes on them?
remember that your family who loves you lives in massachusetts (although i have always felt like the cape was another country full of crazies).
Comment by lisa
21.01.2010 @ 02:17 am
Loved your post even tho I am not from MASS I was upset by the results. But what upset me more is that the DNP were so cocky and thought they had this election without even trying. I am sure the candidate had great qualities but I think that she was hung out to dry by her campaign managers and also DNP. The Dems better pay attention to the elections, no one is ever a sure thing.
Comment by tara
21.01.2010 @ 14:46 pm
this is exactly what i needed to read this morning. not from mass but was really pissed at that election. while you can blame dems, the people ultimately are the ones who are responsible because they had both politicians’ sets of beliefs in front of them and, instead of voting on that, they voted to “prove a point” (whatever that means). there is always a tomorrow though so i remain hopeful.
Comment by Jen
21.01.2010 @ 15:02 pm
@sis – sigh, i know there are good people living in ma. just don’t understand why more of them didn’t vote. it’s like, because almost everyone in mass. has affordable healthcare now, they’ve forgotten that other people still need it.
@lisa – yeah, there was total complacency, and she got screwed.
@tara – you’re absolutely right, of course.
Comment by mum
22.01.2010 @ 02:36 am
Yeah, i had the depressing feeling this would be the result.(hey,i’v only voted for 2 winning presidents)it kills me to hear people say the neg ads turned them againgt coakley–the ads were right!he has boasted he will be the 41st vote agnst health care,try to over turn roe vs wade,& sponsored legislation to allow providers to refuse emerg. contraception! he reminds me of Mitt.
Comment by A Free Man
26.01.2010 @ 23:05 pm
Your last thought has pretty much been mine for the last year or so, but it isn’t just Mass., it is the whole damn festering country. I’m thinking of becoming an Australian citizen when I’m here long enough – then I can really leave the whole shithole behind.