This editorial by The New Yorker says it all. It is all there. I don't have to write about this anymore after reading this well written piece. What may come up here will be the election after-effects; the vote counting, the voting problems, intimidation and thinly veiled dishonesty. I was living in West Palm Beach in 2000. There were so many problems in so many counties for so many different reasons. Had all the people who had intended to vote for Gore had their votes counted, then it would not have gone to the Supreme Court. Gore would have won and history would have been different. But this is the line of probability we ride, not that other.

The neocons still think they are in power. It has shifted. I can feel it and the Bush campaign can feel it too. Yes I am originally from Massachusetts and yes I am astounded, relieved and awed by the Red Sox victory the other night. What does the Red Sox have to do with this? The neocons have been clawing their way to power and knocking anyone out of their way for years now. This zero sum mentality started with the secrecy surrounding the nuclear bomb and this fear and secrecy is now palpable in the Patriot Act. The communists were the Other then and now it is the terrorists. The way in which you view the world will to a certain degree dictate your options. The bleak fear mongering of Dick Cheney, for example, has colored our world as a sort of alternate version of what it could be. Yes there are dangers out there in the form of the hunted terrorists, but past their immediate and future dangers what have we let ourselves become? This is identity. Are we going to live in this alternate universe which, dark around the edges, forces us to think in zero sum, black and white, good and evil terms? Or will we work out another way for ourselves that involves much more light?

The Red Sox won, and better than any celestial sign it sort of elbowed me in the ribs to remind me that anything is possible. If you are not from New England then you'll have to believe me when I say that if the Red Sox can win a World Series then anything can happen. We needn't keep in this direction. Vote the bums out. Refute the neocon bullies and their dark, simple mentality of fear and empire. I don't want to live in that world anymore. If like them you are fixated on the other, then look at it this way: Will you allow them to dictate what kind of world you make? They don't make your world, you do. We all make our common world and I don't want any more of what has passed as the status quo. This is no way to live. Bring some light to your corner of the world. Share it with friends and send it further out. Y'all have a great weekend. Aum Peace Peace Peace.