Understanding

There's a lot about life and this world in general that I do not understand.

I don't understand how someone could vote based on one issue alone, especially when they do not fully understand that issue or are completely ignoring every other issue.

I don't understand how any American student today who has found themself strapped for cash in the last four years could vote for Bush.

I don't understand how any minority (gender, racial, religious...) who cares an inch about history and the fact that their representative group has been denied the right to decide on laws and officials or who cares about their current personal freedoms could sit idly by without voting.

I don't understand how any woman could vote for Bush, a man who thinks he knows what is best for us. A man who advocates against my right and my ability to make a decision for myself. Am I talking about *gasp* abortion here? Yeah, that and other things. That man is never going to meet me, let alone see my vagina. Who is he to tell me what to do with it? Maybe I'll introduce him to every woman's friend - the coat hanger. Or maybe I won't have to because a nation full of women who will go uncared for and over "protected" through health care, education and drug testing - more than just abortion - will do it for me. Did you know that there was a southern state recently trying to pass legislation against female genital piercings? They said it was genital mutilation! If I should decide to have my genitals pierced, that is my decision - not the decision of another rich, white guy who will also never see my vagina. I propose that we pass legislation against male piercings, masturbation and circumcision just to make it all fair!

I don't understand how any black person could vote for Bush, a man who has completely ignored that entire group of Americans, if I may lump and generalize for a brief moment. Not to mention the fact that status quo government (the definition of the man's party) was all for maintaining the status quo even just forty years ago - within my parents' lifetimes. Status quo government saw no problem in segregating schools, spraying people with fire hoses or imprisoning those who enacted change. I suspect that they even turned their back on the crosses burning on lawns and the limp bodies swinging by their necks in the tree neighboring those crosses. Coming back to the present, Bush himself has desecrated MLK Day and shunned the NAACP.

I don't understand how any parent with a child in the school system could vote for Bush. He has made it so difficult for teachers to effectively teach students what they will find most useful. He has made it so difficult for students with learning disabilities. He has made it so difficult for children who are limited in English proficiency. He is limiting students and teachers across the board.

I don't understand what I am doing. I wanted to attend a liberal school, to be surrounded with a forward-moving atmosphere that would be encouraging to me. Here, I am the crazy liberal. I wanted to do something that would enable me to work with youth, to empower them and help them think, grow and change. As a school counselor, I'm learning that most of what I will do will be scheduling changes and that I'll rarely meet with a student for more than a ten-minute session. I wanted to do something empowering for myself, that would help me grow all the time and would constantly introduce me to new people and new ideas. In my field I could actually be introduced to the new idea of bus or cafeteria duty because the roll of the school counselor is widely undefined except in the arena that it is the band-aid position for the rest of the school. I wanted to be able to be politically motivated with the ability to contribute something, if only just a new idea. I feel out of touch with that here.

I don't understand what I want right now, I guess, and I don't understand what I'm saying. I'm afraid of a lot right now and this is just some of it. I thought this was what I wanted, but I don't know if it still is. If anyone out there has a crystal ball or at least a good deck of tarot cards, I'd be much obliged if you could be of some assistance...