The other day my friend Lei Li responded to my email forwarding the fake Time Magazine cover of Bush that's been floating around the internet. (In case you haven't seen it, it's the one with a big close-up of Bush on the cover and the words "We Are Fucked" on its blank canvas.) Her response to me was so on-the-money about America right now that I asked permission to publish it. She consented, so here it is:

I've been rather deeply disdraught over Bush's re-election. Least of concern is where we are going, more of my concern is what Americans are made of--how could 51% of Americans have voted for Bush despite the present administration's domestic policies and patronizations (e.g., The Patriot's Act; the abusive use of State Secrecy from case law); and despite the danger that our government's horrifying foreign policy has put this entire country in. The world is a much more dangerous place today after Afghanistan and Iraq, after the Iraq prison mess, after the nonstop kidnappings and killings of Americans and foreigners in Iraq. Bush stuck our hands in a snake hole and yet he's being voted for his willingness to fight terrorism...

Americans are by and large lowly educated, who in an age of unrest and chaos, more or less naturally reached for what is easier to reach for--blind "faith" and phobia-filled "values" over educated and informed decisions.

It's utterly depressing. I feel such disdain over speech of how now we got to stand behind our president, because after all, we have only one at a time. I DO NOT stand behind ANYBODY if that person represents bigotry, intolerance, ignorance, incuriosity, jocky/imbecile zeal, pigheadedness, and dangerously unyielding arrogance.

Yet 51% of us believed that he stood for "values" that we cannot live without. I think 51% of us have become the reactionary majority that is deathly fearful of the multi-faceted, gray (v. black/white), and ever nebulous and complex entity called "truth." We can't handle the truth, b/c learning the truth requires patience, effort (lots of it), open-minded intelligence, tolerance, and willingness to self-critqiue.

So while this majority said that it stood for "moral values," it has failed its moral duty. It elected a president who's by far the most politically irresponsible in recent history. It gets more and more depressing as the days go on... it's going to be a long four years, very long indeed.