We went to bed with Obama declared the winner of the National vote..but...in Montana it was still too close. When I woke up the first thing I did was flip on the news and to my dismay our State was red!! With 851 of 861 precincts reporting (99%) McCain is winning 219000 to 236000. We had no problem voting for a Democrat Senator...or Governor, or re-electing Rehberg..our lone republican congressman. So what was it, I think it was fear and racism. Lemme tell you why...this past august i was driving to Missoula from Wisconsin and I stopped for gas in eastern Montana and another customer was commenting on Wyoming's state motto "the tolerance state" that was posted on their boarder sign. I said that it was probably from the murder of the gay guy Mathew Shepard...(someone has since told me it is a women's issue) anyhow back to my point---A worker at the Conoco there says "too bad they stopped with just one they need to kill all those Fags".
I got in my truck and continued my trip, I still had a long way to go. I had been excited to get into Montana...kinda like getting home, but ...now that feeling was gone. I had a lot of time to reflect on this comment and I did...was this one comment representative of more than one person in Montana...unfortunately yes. I have heard things like this many times...Hate towards anyone "not like me" is the theme.
It is not surprising that under educated, and under socialized people in rural isolated ares can be manipulated by right wing authoritarian figures. Using fear as the primary tool...
Just maybe when people see that Obama doest convert the USA to a Muslim nation, or lead the blacks to take over, or invite Bin Laden to be on his cabinet......ah forget it...they wont change....they will find a reason to hate ...and we will just have to learn to work together!!
Last thing I would Say is that watching Obama speak last night, was very inspiring....I saw a man who cares about America and all Americans. I believe ...he gets it!....I hope he is effective.....we all can have Hope now!
No comments:
Post a Comment