Well folks… after many months leading up to the election, and a few weeks when the election was my entire life - following the pulls, making clever icons of Bush flipping people off, finding hypocrisies within the administration and things which they administration did that were so outrageous that it seemed that they certainly would be able to swing any undecided voter, followed by a few days when Kerry was up in nearly every poll, to the morning of the election - exit polls looking like it would be Kerry in a landslide, just like I predicted… feeling the joy that we had reached the end of the Bush administration, and that the following day would be referred to as _ednesday - without the W. And then, as the day wore on, watching the NBC coverage. Watching state after state show up as either ‘red’ or ‘too close to call.’ Watching the Daily Show live coverage, feeling the depression fill the room as I watched Jon Stewart towards the end, counting off all of the states that passed anti-gay marriage amendments. Lying awake that night for almost two hours, unable to fall asleep, afraid of what I would wake up to in the morning.
And then the next morning, turning the TV on as soon as I got up, just in time to hear the news that John Kerry had just called George Bush to concede the election to him - even before all of the votes had arrived, let alone be counted. I couldn’t believe what I saw - I thought surely there had to be a way that Bush could still be defeated. But the news disagreed - Bush won the popular election by 2 million votes. He took all three of the states that were left ‘too close to call’ on election night. Even with all the provisional ballots left to be counted in Ohio, there was no chance for a Kerry presidency.
I walked to campus in a daze… the normally bustling campus felt like a funeral home - everyone walking silently, their heads hanging. People were crying, people were hugging. No words had to be said - just looking in people’s tired, weary red eyes was enough to see that we all felt the same thing. Classes that morning went by painfully slow, and nobody was in the mood for note taking. What I had looked forward to being _ednesday turned into Endsday - what seemed to be the end of hope for our country for the next four years.
After spending a few hours in this depressed state, I went to my musical theater class. There we went through class as usual, until about 1:45, when a note began circulating among students. It said “campus wide walk out, 2:00. Meet outside PAC. Pass it on.” Apparently Jim, the teacher, caught a glance at the note as it went around, because when it was almost 2, he asked how many of us would like to participate. About half of us raised our hands. He looked at his watch, and told us to go. He encouraged us to participate. So those of us that chose to march picked up our bags, and headed out to the area of the PAC that looks out over the water, and there were a couple hundred people standing with signs, and drums. For a half hour, people spoke about what they were feeling, how me had to keep our strength, and not give up. There were messages of anger, despair, and hope. Then, we all marched through the streets of Bellingham, the drummers drumming, the rest of us chanting, shouting, singing - and as we walked through the streets, people in windows waved. They gave us thumbs up and peace signs. We passed a police officer on bike, and he waved. Some in the crowd tried to get him to join in our group - and he said he wished he could, but he’d get fired.
However, many others did join in. As we walked through the streets, people left shops and buildings to join our group. Local newspaper estimates said the crowd grew to as big as 300 people.
We marched from the campus to the federal building downtown, and when we got there, all three hundred of us lied down on the ground, in the middle of the street, and were silent - in memorial to all those who have died by the hand of the Bush administration.
Then there were more songs, more speeches, more shouting, and even one old drunk guy who kept making speeches to remind us that “we are all still Americans,” and he was right. We are all still Americans. And no matter how appealing it may sound to up and move to Canada, America needs us right now. America needs us to stay and fight to keep America… America. And so no matter how hard it seems - despite the fact that we are sure to hear quite a bit in the next four years how America has spoken, and America has said that the kind of future George W. Bush offers is the kind of future America wants, we must stay strong and say, “no.” Even though we don’t have John Kerry in the white house, we can’t give up on the idea that America Can Do Better. Help is still on the way, even if we have to enact the needed change from the streets rather than from the oval office. America Can Do Better, and it’s up to you, and it’s up to me, to see that it does.
Watch a 30 second video clip of the march
