Consolation and motivation

Bob Harris (http://www.bobharris.com) has this to say about the outcome of the election:

"Even if Kerry had won, America's body politic would still be gravely ill with its all-for-sale, winner-take-all culture, which dispatches the good of the people -- the very purpose of democracy -- as irrelevant.

"And this illness is merely a symptom of a broader American cancer, the broader cultural narrative in which We Are Good and They Are Bad, one which shears away the very ability even to conceive of grey areas, comprehension of which are essential to resolving even the mildest cultural or societal questions in a democratic way. We Are Good and They Are Bad shows up in our sports (staged victory-conflicts, where we revile the opposing team), in our films (which almost always resolve in single-conflict, hero-crushes-evildoer sequences), in our religions (um... Satan?), and damn near any other thing we do. It rationalizes the most horrific behavior. It is the killer of thought and growth. And it is hard-wired into our culture in more ways than I can list.

"Arriving finally at the We Are Good and They Are Bad presidency can hardly be a surprise. Even if Kerry had been elected, we'd still have much bigger problems to address. So...

"We are where we are.

"Let's get started."