That was until Representative Charles Rangle was interviewed on "Meet the Press" recently. Mr. Rangle stunned Tim Russert, when he exclaimed, "We'll never forget Florida!" Black voters were turned away from the voting polls by the dozens of thousands, as a result of a massive purge of voter lists, supposedly undertaken to remove the names of felons from the lists. In effect, it was a major disfranchisement of black voters.

Rangle believes that minority voters will come roaring back this year to undo the wrong done to them in the 2000 election. He refers to George W. Bush as our nation's first appointed president. In these rants I have very carefully and consistently referred to him as "the acting President." Neither Rangle nor I regard the one now in office as legitimate. The Bush campaign should take note of the fact that there are a large number of us who have no intention of getting over it at all. We intend to get past it, which does need doing, by correction the wrong done. We will never forget it, or get over it, or trust the cheaters in the future.

We have been impressed recently with how often the media have allowed Democratic voters to say to the camera and the world, "I'm trying to figure out who would be best to defeat George Bush!" "I'd vote for the devil himself, if I thought he'd beat George Bush." "My motto is, 'Anyone but Bush!'"

"Get over it," the others say. I don't think it will happen. It's like saying, "Get over being cheated. Get over being robbed. Get over the relentless visits to your place by burglars. Get over the loss of bicycle, car, TV, VCR, microwave oven, lawn mower, rakes, hoes, shovels." Get over it? No way. I've been trying to warn the police to have them in turn warn the burglars that this is a place to avoid, because the householder has become a homicidal maniac.

Now if we can get the non-voters and the voters who felt cheated in 2000 as riled up as that, we could yet turn things around in this country. The reasons why it needs doing are legion. Here's the start of a list:

the doctrine of pre-emptive war

the addiction to fossil fuel

the eagerness to export jobs

the obsession with secrecy

the plan to get rid of Medicare and Social Security

the scorning of science

the teaching of evolution in the schools

ignoring the threat of global warming

ignoring the threat of radioactive poisoning

the readiness to lie about anything and everything

the attack on women

the attack on homosexuals

the violent attack on the wall of separation between church and state

the assumption that the stock market is the entire economy

and so forth, on and on, ad nauseam...

"Get over it." The 1967 Six-Day War, in which Israel conquered from Jordan what is now called the West Bank in Palestine, has been discussed in similar terms. An American Jewish woman expressed to us her genuine puzzlement over the attitude of the Palestinians. "What do they want? They lost the war, didn't they?" She meant that they should get over it.

But they won't be getting over it. Her puzzlement, which seems to be reflected in the minds of many in high places in the Israeli and U.S. governments, remains all-pervasive. To call the armed resistance to the occupation "terrorism" does no good at all. It only takes a little imagination to get past the puzzlement. If you kill my sons, my father, my grandmother, if you bulldoze my house, if you cut down my olive orchard, I will not get over it, nor will my descendants for many generations.