and decadent ‘liberals’ believe. And there is nothing we can do about it. It’s American democracy, take it or leave it. As an artist I feel the profound vertigo of the immediate future, one in which my voice means little or nothing, and my art has no place other than performing the role of raw controversy and strident opposition. I suddenly feel I live in a country I do not know, a country inhabited by rabid funda- mentalist Christians waiting for ‘the rapture’ and intolerant patriotic warriors who perceive intelligence as snobbish, art as decadent, international diplomacy as weak and any form of dissent as ‘un-American’. When I look at the electoral map I get even more depressed. I see a huge ‘red country’ I would be scared to visit, Jesuslandia, like a humongous India dividing two tiny ‘blue countries’ (the two Pakistans). I know real maps are much more complex, and fears are largely mythical. But they are also ‘real’. My colleagues and I are angry, exhausted, scared and confused. Should we leave? Where to? Mexico? Canada? Any country where they don’t give the death penalty to doctors who perform abortions? Where homophobia is not a legitimate national policy? Where foreigners are not perceived as potential terrorists? Should we become part of a culture of resistance, sort of American Kurds? Or should we face utter marginalization and disen- franchisement as ‘dissident’ artists? We are obsessing over these questions in cafes, bars, galleries and rehearsal spaces across Blue America. Meanwhile, the rest of the world out there is baffled, to say the least. Let’s not forget that according to international polls, 80% of the world was against Bush. I keep receiving daily email condolences from Europe, Latin Amer- ica and Australia as if what we just went through was a major natural disaster, an earthquake or an epidemic. ‘Gomez-Pen ˜a, I’m so. . . sorry. I hope you and your loved ones are all right. Whatever we can do for you, just ask. . . Any plans to move to ______?’ It breaks my heart even more. For the moment I badly need to detox. Starting today, no more TV or newspapers. . . at least for a month. Perhaps then I could live pretending that politics don’t matter. I will pretend I’m living in an open, multi- faceted social democracy. I will pretend the Patriot Act and the Bush doctrine were never approved. I will pretend Carnivore is not scanning this email. I will write about love, friendship, the importance of art and community-build- ing across borders, races, nations and generations. I will recapture my humor and spunk. I will put on a different costume each day and pretend it’s okay to be different, agnostic, pagan, bohemian, brown, tat- tooed, outrageous, contradictory. At least I’ll give it a try . . . Unfortunately I may wake up one day soon to find out ‘they’ are already invading Iran, Korea, or Venezuela . . . or knocking at my door. Am I exaggerating? Should I loosen up a bit? Are my thoughts and fears just what they want me to feel? Will the tone of my writing be different next week? San Francisco 8 November 2004 Billionaires For Bush: A Postmortemist Accounting L.M. Bogad Frisbees and grass. In the lead-in to the Republican National Convention (RNC) in New York City this summer, the Republicans made it clear that both of these things were more important than the First Amendment to the Constitution. The United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) coalition wanted to have a massive rally on the Great Lawn in Central Park, a space big enough to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of demonstrators expected to gather to protest the Bush agenda. However, the Republican Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, backed up and pressured 164