archy

It's over; it's just started
The people have spoken -- the bastards!

Kerry has conceded. No need to apply a link to this; where isn't it posted?

There are too many questions to ask and not enough time to ask them.

We can't waste time debating minor tactical niggles or spilling our own blood. Kerry ran a good campaign with no more mistakes than are to be expected in an operation that large. He was a very good candidate who deserves our respect and thanks. He's going to be one of our primary senate warriors in the coming battles.

We can't waste time despairing over the size of the enemy or obsessing on the wrong enemy. The Bush campaign wasn't that good. Karl Rove isn't that smart. But the larger conservative information machine apparently is that good.

We can't waste time demonizing the American people. It won't help; you don't win elections by telling the voters that they are stupid and evil. Something is very clearly wrong with the American people, but it is not yet a terminal illness. We must must work, with a proper sense of urgency to diagnose that illness and heal the country we love.

We can't run away. As tempting as it is to view the most important question of the moment as "Vancouver or Dublin?" face it, if America continues to go bad, there will be no safe places on the planet. We have no choice but to fight to restore what was best about the America we once knew. We have to fight to keep that America from fading away.

I'm too angry to think right now. I need to get past the blinding white flame of fury and into the cold revealing light of dispassionate analysis. I don't think I'll get there today, but I'll be there soon and I'll share what I find.

Meanwhile, go read Meteor Blade's good advice at Kos:

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.

[...]

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.