Brasil V.

Brasília, DF

It´s 10 a.m. in Basília, noon in Lisbon and early morning all over the US. It is now practically certain that Bush will be reelected. America is now clearly divided in two republics: the old industrial northeast and the ´post-modern´Pacific Coast, on the one hand; and cowboy land in between, on the other. The rest of the world (including - one hopes - American Black and poor White kids sent out to war), where Bush lost dramatically in all the polls, look at the US in astonishment: did most Americans not understand that Bush lied? Do most Americans not understand that terrorism and Bush´s policies are two sides of a coin?

But there´s more than electing Bush: all 11 gay marriage ban proposals passed, some actually including bans on civil unions and partnerships (!). Soon the US will become a parochial, fundamentalist, and isolated backwater place (unless some Northeast secession occurs...) - and such places cannot be superpowers in anything other than guns and violence and war. We, in the rest of the world, are watching the painful dissolution of the US of A that some of us used to look up to: a place of freedom and progress, words that used to be inseparable from justice and peace and, yes, equal rights. We´re shocked. We don´t get you. Please explain: what did go wrong?

Somewhere in his hiding place, Bin Laden must be smiling.