Election Day

This is it. The day that all of the advertisements have ended. The endless sound and video clips on the news that have assailed the senses have been completed.

It's also the day that we will likewise be assaulted with endless predictions, prognostications, and projections on the final outcome. Will it be truly known today who our next president will be? Or will it drag on like the 2000 election?

Four years ago at this time I was in Japan on a three week intergovernmental science exchange and tour, leaving just a couple of days before the election. We were in areas where news programs were unavailable in English for the large part. Since most of us also did not have ready access to the internet at that time, we relied on the occasional fax of CNN web pages that some of us received and would pass it around. It was a bit surreal. At the time we were all sure the outcome would be decided prio to our return in late November. Of course we all know how even that turned out to be a false hope.

Today, the direction of our country over the next four years, or even the over the next decade, will be decided. I truly fear that another win by the Bush administration will further degrade our economy (the deficit) and result in more terrorism not less. I fear that the current adminstration's policies will further degrade our environment through loosening of many of the barricades to exploitation that were in place prior to 2001. I fear that our deficit will continue to grow as more tax cuts are given to wealthy individuals and corporations, further burdening generations to come. I fear that corporations will continue their policies of outsourcing manufacturing, forcing many Americans to fill only service jobs at lower wages (although I guess companies like WalMart will benefit from this). I fear that there will be a continuation of the erosion of science through policies that have more basis in religious ferver than scientifically validated facts.

Simply put, this President has been a disaster but the Right doesn't want to admit it. He's too good for the big pockets that support him. But come on, he's not smart enough to be the President of the United States. He's a puppet. He can only put an intelligent sentence together if it's written down for him (OK, he's a good reader). I don't see how anyone who has seen Fahrenheit 9/11 can doubt this. It's time for GWB to go back to running oil companies into the ground. Of course, if he loses, how many "friends" will he have left? By then the family and all their supporters (the ones with both hands out) will focus on Jeb, the next annointed one.

Michael Moore's "Final Words" is a good read, particularly his plea to "To Decent Conservatives and Recovering Republicans." Of course, most of these folks won't read this, but maybe it will only take a small percentage to really tip the balance.

Will the next President be able to lessen the polarization in the population we have today? It will be very difficult to bring this country together by either candidate, but I feel the best chance lies with Kerry. He is intelligent, well spoken, thoughful, and empathetic. He doesn't smirk when discussing the deaths of our brave servicemen and women in Iraq. He has real plans and not the repeated "we will win the war on terror" without a clue as to how. He will not pander to our greatest fears. He will not lead by invoking fear.

Now we sit back and wait.