The outcome of the US presidential elections has been weighing as heavy on our minds and shoulders as the dark and dreary afternoon clouds of Merida high up here in the Venezuelan Andes this time of a year.

Unlike the unfolding of meteorological phenomena, however, the clouds on the world's political horizon won't give way to any sun ... and no glorious morning will await us after the tormentuous night.

* What probably weighs most on our minds is the gnawing question, how this worst case scenario ... the reelection of George W. Bush ... could actually have come to happen.

Was it the 247,672 uncounted votes, in combination with intimidation techniques employed in Ohio, plus the spoilage of Democratic votes in New Mexico, that would have made the difference in favor of Kerry, as Greg Palast suggests, or was it the Republican marketed Diebold touch screen voting machines that leave no paper-trail?

Was it the premature concession of defeat by the Democrats, did Bush win on "morality," or was it the successful mobilization of reactionary elements by invoking the religious factor?

Was it a matter of stupidity or effective strategy that "59,017,382 dumb people" (Daily Mirror) cast their vote for Bush?

Whatever the details ... and with or without the factors mentioned ... the unpleasant fact is, that a sound number of several tens of millions of American voters DID cast their vote for the unthinkable, unspeakable and unvotable.

In spite of having been led to war based on blatant lies, starting with the very September 11 myth ... in spite of America's disastrous financial and economic situation ... in spite of dire American social reality ... in spite of the biggest corporate frauds in its history ... the most barefaced "marriage of interests" of the Bush administration with the energy and military sector ... its criminal meddling in foreign countries´ sovereign affairs (Venezuela!) ... the terror game and the crackdown of civil rights at home ... tens of millions of Americans chose to vote for Bush.

Just like that.

And so we ask ourselves in Venezuela, in Argentina, in Brazil, in Uruguay, in all of Latin America: how can a people cast its vote for barbarism?

When will American voters wake up to a reality they helped create, which is best described as the Orwellian boot stamping onto a human face, forever?

If they wake up ... ever ... it will be too late for a truly different choice, because there will be no truth, no difference and no choice anymore.

Own Choice

In fair and free elections they voted
for the continuity of the freedom
to have their minds enslaved

In fair and free elections they voted
for the persistence of the truth
to be lied to and find no offense

In fair and free elections they voted
for the abolition of their right
to fairly and freely elect
their own destiny.

Jutta Schmitt
jut...@aktionspotenzial.de

JUTTA SCHMITT, M.A., Political Science, Philosophy & Sociology is an Assistant Lecturer (ad honorem) in Political Science at the University de Los Andes (ULA) in Merida.
You may email Jutta Schmitt at jut...@aktionspotenzial.de
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