Hate is an extremely strong word. In fact, I believe that out of all the words created to show dislike, hate is the most powerful. Think about it. Abhor, detest, spurn, disdain, loathe. None of them portrays an aversion to something like “hate” does.

When I was little, my mother heard me use the word when I was angry with my sister. “I hate her!” I said, probably in reaction to her stealing one of my Barbies or something equally trivial. My mother somberly explained how hurtful and powerful the word was. I automatically felt ashamed for uttering such a thing – and about someone who loved me unconditionally! I never said it again after that … OK, I did, but never in front of my mother, and I swear I felt guilty about it every time.

I still have residual feelings of guilt after using the H word. In fact, whenever I say it, I pause and ask myself if I really mean it or if I can substitute it for a different word. I’m sure many of you feel the same. Or at least I hope you do. Otherwise, you’re reading this column right now wondering what the heck I’m talking about.

Before you turn to the Sudoku (you know you can’t finish a Very Hard one anyway), let me assure you that this background was necessary. It’s important you know how seriously I take this word and how rarely I utter it. Now, let me tell you: I HATE that Proposition 8 passed.

I know you’re probably thinking what a cop out it is to hate the proposition and not the people directly responsible for this tragedy. But I think that some of these people who supported 8 honestly deluded themselves into thinking that they weren’t being hideous, brainless, intolerant, immoral, hateful, ignorant, cruel bigots. And I can’t feel anything but sorry for them if they think they were actually doing the ethical thing by denying rights and happiness to decent human beings.

It’s like the Nazis: I’m sure they convinced themselves that their intentions were good. They were brainwashed into believing a horrendous lie that resulted in the tragic deaths of millions of people. I bet Hitler told them that if they didn’t participate in the genocide that Judaism would be taught in schools, and that their children would magically turn Jewish. I wouldn’t be surprised, since it’s now obvious that that ridiculous rationalization works.

Now, for those unlucky few that have class on Friday, let me assure you that I don’t have a personality disorder (that I know of). Yes, I know that last week I was ready to hold hands with everyone and sing Kumbaya. However, that was before I knew that more than half of those hands filled in a bubble to support a discriminatory piece of legislation that I’m willing to bet didn’t have anything to do with a single one of them. If someone who wanted to marry a person of the same sex voted yes, then they have bigger problems to deal with.

I know that it won’t always be like this. I know that someday I’ll look back on this experience, maybe when my grandchildren are studying discrimination in school, and I’ll be able to tell them stories about how I lived in a time when hatred was commonplace and bigotry was prevalent. I know that California is no Deep South of the 1950s, but having lived in Los Angeles for most of my life, I never realized that there were so many prejudiced people in this once-great state.

I still have hope, though. Lots and lots of anger, but hope, too. We just elected an extremely intelligent, caring and good man to be the next president of the United States – someone who has dedicated his life to fighting hate and helping those less fortunate then him. Barack Obama is a person who can inspire and bring about the kind of change we need in this country: less discrimination and iniquity and a greater concern for those who were not given the same advantages in life. This is my hope. This is what stops me from running around Davis, gathering all the “Yes on 8” signs and having myself a bonfire – the belief that it will get better and although our state took a step backward, our nation took a giant leap forward.

DANIELLE RAMIREZ understands the irony of hating hate. If you still have the burning desire to explain it to her, e-mail her at dramirez@ucdavis.edu.

Congratulations you unpatriotic, terrorist-palling, fake American, Islamic Marxists, you did it. You just elected Louis the Sixteenth.

For those unfamiliar with the analogy, some history: King Louis XVI was the guy who got his head chopped off during the French Revolution. He didn’t sow the seeds of that revolution, or even really incite it. No, that honor belongs to his predecessor, Louis XV, who left the nation with atrocious poverty, soaring food prices, appalling inequality and an incestuous elite composed of the idle rich and fanatical religious conservatives. Add to that a foreign policy which exceeded the military’s ability to maintain the empire and, most importantly, a massive national debt which led to an unprecedented financial crisis, and it’s no wonder that in the last years of his rule, Louis XV said, “Aprés Moi le déluge,” which roughly translates to, “You’re all fucked now.“

Louis XVI just happened to be on the losing end of a game of hot potato; the music stopped, and everyone got mad. Really mad. Barack Obama is a bit like Louis XVI.

Now, I’m not suggesting that Obama’s going to get his head chopped off. What I am suggesting is that Obama, and by extension progressivism itself, will be blamed for the shit that’s about to go down.

Why? Well, Americans have a terrible attention span. Democratic presidents since 1948 have grown real GNP per capita by an average 11.2 percent, whereas Republicans post a meager 6.4 percent. However, as economist Larry Bartels has shown, the electorate only responds to election year economic trends; income growth in election years is over 2.6 times more important in determining vote margins than cumulative growth. Since Democrats typically grow average real income just 1.0 percent in election years while Republicans manage 2.5 percent (as compared to 3.0 and .66 percent, respectively, in others), we get tricked and turn our states red. But this time the GOP royally screwed the pooch.

The only income growth in this election year were the stimulus checks issued by the government to the people who deposited them into banks which subsequently went bankrupt and were nationalized by the government which is now in proud possession of its own stimulus. (Fail)

So Obama’s the man. But look what it took! Two botched wars, a doubled federal debt, ten straight months of job losses, media darling status, a two-to-one spending advantage, and even with all that, McCain was in it to the bitter end. And the popular vote? The most catastrophic financial crisis since 1929 got just 3 percent to swing left. Landslide my ass.

Speaking of asses, Obama owes his victory entirely to Henry Paulson. When Paulson let Lehman Brothers die and the markets collectively shat themselves, Americans were suddenly reminded of the fact that, as the Daily Show put it, “the stock market is just a consensual mass delusion based on fictitious valuings of abstract assets,” and the only safe investment is bullets. That got everyone all freaked out, so much so that the typical fearmongering, which was working until Sept. 15, lost traction. Thus, Americans voted against the incumbent party, not for Obama.

And according to economist Nouriel Roubini, who predicted all this in 2005, the recession is going to last another 18 to 24 months with severe, protracted ramifications to follow. This should be sufficient time for the Democrats to get swooped on and all this “new political era” garbage thrown, well, in the garbage.

I honestly wish McCain had won; in four years we’d be readying the guillotine, Cindy’d be saying shit like, “Let them drink Bud Select,” and we might finally stop getting tricked.

But at this point, Obama must hammer aggressively that he’s out to undo the damage of the past 40 years of Republican driven neo-liberal economics. If he doesn’t, progressivism will retreat even further than it has since Nixon in the face of the coming conservative onslaught and our own economic amnesia.

Which assumes that Obama will even take on America’s Ancien Régime. Which he won’t. Which is why, as the good king said, aprés moi le déluge.

K.C. CODY thinks Hillary Clinton would be Madam Defarge. Compare and contrast Dickens, history and K.C.‘s deluded world at kccody@ucdavis.edu.

We stand here after the elections in a new era of change. Those privileged to vote elected the U.S.‘s first black President, which is certainly something to celebrate. But in the midst of this elation, we are left with a deep devastation: the passage of Proposition 8, which bans same sex marriage in California. In light of this blatant demonstration of discrimination and hate, many members of the LGBTQ (lesbian gay bisexual transgender queer) community and their allies are left with the question, where do we go from here? How do we continue to fight systematic oppression that is so deeply engrained in our society?

While there needs to be a space for folks to process their pain and disappointment in the passage of this heinous proposition, it is my hope that members of the LGBTQ community and their allies take this as an opportunity to reinvigorate the fight against oppression and to refocus efforts and activisms to other often over-looked issues in the LGBTQ community. We should be asking ourselves, is marriage the issue that we should be spending all our organizing efforts on, when the rights allocated to married individuals should be universal anyway?

The passage of Prop 8 is a tragedy, but in mourning let us revitalize our resistance of modes of oppression. Lets take this monumental time in history to broaden the conversation about LGBTQ issues and take a more inclusive and coalitional stance in our activism. Let’s talk about how queer people of color are consistently left out of white queer organizing efforts, and face the added burden of violence against their communities everyday. Let‘s talk about trans people who face blatant and tireless discrimination in our medical systems and in our society as a whole. But more than talk about, let us talk and collaborate with these communities. Now is the time to feel our pain and to find comfort in our loved ones, but it’s also time to step up the fight (in an inclusive, coalitional way, of course). To quote the TAZ, “this is a bootstrap operation,” so let’s pull ourselves up and take this moment to refocus and continue the struggle for equality and justice.

by Sarah Raridon