Kos wrote a great post-mortem on the big loss; on the huge, collosal , earth-threatening loss. Read this, look at the whole post from DailyKos, and then I have a couple of things after the quote:
Daily Kos :: Political Analysis and other daily rants on the state of the nation.
Why were we in this fight in the first place? Because terrible leaders are doing terrible things to our country and calling this wonderful. Because radical reactionaries are trying to impose their imperialist schemes on whoever they wish and calling this just. Because amoral oligarchs are determined to enhance their slice of the economic pie and calling this the natural order. Because flag-wrapped ideologues want to chop up civil liberties and call this security. Because myopians are in charge of America’s future.
We lost on 11/2. Came in second place in a crucial battle whose damage may still be felt decades from now. The despicable record of our foes makes our defeat good reason for disappointment and fear. Even without a mandate over the past four years, they have behaved ruthlessly at home and abroad, failing to listen to objections even from members of their own party. With the mandate of a 3.6-million vote margin, one can only imagine how far their arrogance will take them in their efforts to dismantle 70 years of social legislation and 50 years of diplomacy.
Still, Tuesday was only one round in the struggle.
…After a decent interval of licking our wounds and pondering what might have been and where we went wrong, we need to spit out our despair and return – united – to battling those who have for the moment outmaneuvered us. Otherwise, we might just as well lie down in the street and let them flatten us with their schemes.
I also am deep in refelction on what this means to Christians whoare deeply disturbed and disappointed, and worried. I was thinking of the Psalmist laments: “By the waters of Babylon, we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. How can we sing the Lord’s song in a strange and foreign land?”
This is the experience of this dark moment in history. Christians in this country (I find it much harder today to call them Christian and not shudder and ask “Why?” The best that can be said about this collossal failure of the Church to be the Church in this country, is that they are sadly and tragically uninformed. The worse of it, though, is the process which has stripped the gospel of its practical effects on the world, and its message of peace and proclamation of a liberty such as that which George W. Bush has no clue.
I now simply MUST find the Bonhoeffer documentary and watch it and seek the solidarity with Christians of history who saw the seriousness of the Call to Faithfulness of a CONFESSING Church. I don’t know now what I’m goinf to do about the Church we’ve been going to, with its obvious preference of most of its memebers for the music, and in most cases, the bankrupt theology of Christian radio. I know the pastor stands with me on many of the political implications of the Bush administration, but right now I need a place to explore WHAT TO DO, and how to manage this. I feel that it SHOULD MEAN massive protest, and calls for peace and resolution to the Iraq conflict and the international wounds inflicted upon the Muslim world.