Deep Blue New York blues.

There wasn't any election terrorist attack despite all the hype.

New York, the state that suffered the worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States of America, voted strongly for John Kerry.

New York President Reporting: 99.4%

• John F. Kerry, Dem 3,967,047 (57.8%)


• George W. Bush, Rep (i) 2,780,749 (40.5%)


• Ralph Nader, Inp 103,310 (1.5%)


• Michael Badnarik, Lib 12,830 (0.2%)


• Roger Calero, SWP 4,010 (0.1%)

New York City, the city that suffered he worst terrorist attack in the history of the United States of America, voted strongly for John Kerry. In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received a meager 16.7 percent of the vote:

Some New Yorkers, like Meredith Hackett, a 25-year-old barmaid in Brooklyn, said they didn't even know any people who had voted for President Bush. (In both Manhattan and the Bronx, Mr. Bush received 16.7 percent of the vote.) Others spoke of a feeling of isolation from their fellow Americans, a sense that perhaps Middle America doesn't care as much about New York and its animating concerns as it seemed to in the weeks immediately after the attack on the World Trade Center.

"Everybody seems to hate us these days," said Zito Joseph, a 63-year-old retired psychiatrist. "None of the people who are likely to be hit by a terrorist attack voted for Bush. But the heartland people seemed to be saying, 'We're not affected by it if there would be another terrorist attack.' " (link)

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Downtown San Francisco.

End the occupation of Iraq!

End the Occupation of Iraq protest, Nov 3rd, 2004



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10,000 more years.

"THE PROSPECTS OF HUMAN LIFE EXTENSION" is the subject of the
next Seminar About Long-term Thinking, Friday, Nov. 12, 7 pm,
at the Fort Mason Conference Center in San Francisco.
The speaker is MICHAEL WEST, founder of Geron, founder
and CEO of Advanced Cell Technology, leading researcher in
age-related degenerative disease and embryonic stem cells.
Admission is free.

We’re all Israelis Now

We’re all Israelis Now By Mark LeVine, History, University of California, Irvine

Three years ago, as the pungent odor of what was left of the World Trade Center slowly pervaded my neighborhood, I wrote a piece called “We’re all Israelis Now.” I didn’t invent the idea; in the hours since the attacks I had heard several commentators say essentially the same thing, although our meanings were in fact diametrically opposed. For them, the September 11 attacks had constituted a tragic wake up call to America about the mortal threat posed by Muslim terrorism, which Israel had been living through for decades and whose methods the US would now have to copy if it wanted to “win the war on terror.”

For me, however, the attacks suggested a more troubling scenario: That like Israelis, Americans would never face the causes of the extreme violence perpetrated against us by those whose oppression we have supported and even enforced, and engage in the honest introspection of what our role has been in generating the kind of hatred that turns commuter jets into cruise missiles. Instead, my gut told me that we’d acquiesce to President Bush’s use of the war to realize the long-held imperial, even apocalyptic visions of the neoliberal Right, ones that find great sympathy with its Israeli counterpart.

As I watch George W. Bush celebrate his reelection I realize I never could have imagined just how much like Israelis we would become. Think about it: in Israel, the majority of Jewish citizens support the policies of Ariel Sharon despite the large-scale, systematic (and according to international law, criminal) violence his government deploys against Palestinian society, despite the worsening economic situation for the lower middle class religious voters who constitute his main base of support, despite rising international opprobrium and isolation. Sound familiar?

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