I Refuse to Be Invisible; I Will Not Be Silenced.

On election night I followed the returns on The Confluence. I simply couldn’t stand to watch television or even listen to Fox News on my XM radio receiver. Watching the electoral votes pile up for Barack Obama, I just felt numb. I went to sleep knowing that I cannot do what I did after Reagan was elected or after the debacle in 2000.

Back in the ’80s, I simply shut off the media and ignored politics completely. I went into my shell, read books, went to movies and just tried to stay sane as my country was dismantled before my eyes. Even though I tried not to pay attention to what was happening in Washington D.C., I saw the results of Reagan’s policies as homeless people appeared in the streets of Boston and surrounding towns. Early in the morning, even in the dead of winter, I saw people sleeping in their cars in a Star Market parking lot in Porter Square and a big open space next to Memorial Drive near Harvard Square.

After the debacle in Florida in 2000 and George W. Bush’s appointment by the Supreme Court, I again shut of the TV and refused to read newspapers for awhile. But this time I couldn’t shut it all out. What was happening was just too scary. Especially fter 9/11, I had to pay attention. What I saw was a bloodless coup by large, multinational corporations. I realized that my country was really an oligarchy now. Elections are only a pretense, a sop to the masses to make us feel as if we actually have something to say about what happens in our country.