Tuesday, December 2, 2008

On Being a Zealot...

I sometimes don't know what I am. Don't know my own capabilities....But sometimes I do. Obama has won the election, the first step in what is sure to be a long process of recovery for our nation. How do we wipe away the backward thinking, the anti-progress of the last 40 years? We have had moments, bright spots in a sea of despair, a war of attrition against the American dream itself, the dream of equality, opportunity for all. And as I say these words, I reflect on myself; my instincts, my inclinations and impulses. I have been asking anyone who will respond if I am a zealot. A Fanatic. An Extremist. So what am I? What am I capable of?

I seek vengeance. I taste blood in the water and I want more. I want to punish those who have punished us for the last eight years. Punished us for hoping. For being creative, dreamers, believers in a fundamental human goodness. Where is the modern Nuremberg? Where will these crimes against humanity trials take place? "Would trials even be enough?" I ask myself knowing full well what an unlikelihood a trial or series of trials would be. Will there be any justice worthy of these crimes? Any punishment? I seek vengeance for those killed, and for us, our hands bloodied, our humanity maimed. These are my instincts, my impulses. I do have a pragmatic side. I understand the need for reconciliation. I even understand the desire for it in some. But my instinct keeps popping up. Slapping me in the face. I am aware of the cross I bear, my own hatred. It rains down on me in dreams. I descend to earth and as I do, my blackened, battered leathery wings open up and slow my fall. I am an angel of death, leaving heaven early, to pass judgment and sentence upon whom I see fit, ignoring the will of God. My sights fix in, not on personal enemies, the people who have injured me, but on the true evil doers. The killers of hopes and dreams. The wasters of life and limb. The ones who have engineered hell on earth and the ones who follow them out of fear or stupidity. These recurring dreams are visceral, nearly sensual. There is no fear. Only the near erotic satisfaction of vengeance. And as the smoke clears and the ashes of the dead float away on the gentle wind, I realize I cannot share in the earth's new found peace and freedom because I have transformed. That I have disfigured my soul beyond recognition. That I am a danger, a bringer of death. These are my sleeping dreams. This is what I sense, in my soul, I'm capable of.......perhaps.

In "The Candidate", after winning the election, Robert Redford's character asks his campaign manager, "What do we do now?" What do we do now? The pragmatist in me thinks that a modicum of reconciliation could go a long way in repairing this country. But I am also deeply concerned about this reconciliation process. So we reach across the aisle? We get input? We try to get the Right Wing on board, moderate our agenda for the sake of bipartisanship? Part of me understands that this is what a man like Barack Obama would do. Try to heal the nation. And yet I can't help but think that now is the time to fix America's policies, our problems, not to soothe the hurt feelings of these small minded, sleazy lunatics, at the risk of putting these course corrections in place at a glacial pace. How do you make a place for people so wrong about so many things? Let us set aside the question of what we do now for a moment. Instead, let us think of what has led us here, these policies, these issues.

Health care. Does anyone believe that there should not be universal health care? Seriously? Who in good conscience could be against everyone having health care? Can we not look at health care as a fundamental human right? I am going to be blunt. If Jesus himself came today to judge the living and the dead, would those who invented and support the for profit health care system not be among the first on the list to spend an eternity in hell? How could you explain to your Jesus, that a dying child should die because she hasn't got the money for a transplant or a surgery? And for what? So that a stock holder in an insurance company can have a larger dividend? A CEO can have a bigger bonus? That is what we are talking about, right? Profit margins made on the very lives of human beings. There would be a special place in hell set aside for these people, if I believed in such a place. If I believed in hell, I imagine their place would be to relive the pain and anguish of the mother of that child turned away, and of that child's death, over and over again for an eternity.

Iraq. A war started by lies. The stated reasoning for this deadly folly was that the United States was in danger, that Iraq was an imminent threat. Think about that for a second. Iraq was an imminent threat. What madman dreamed up such an unbelievable lie? The idea brings laughter. Iraq, flanked on each border by an enemy, monitored by US forces and UN forces and no fly zones. The claim was that they had weapons of mass destruction. There were UN inspectors on the ground, led by Hans Blix, who knew, and told us that this was not the case. And what about the intelligence info? The two mouthed George Tenet who said it was a slam dunk out of one side of his mouth and prayed to his God that what he made up would come true out of the other. And the second source of info? The second opinion? A newly created wing of the Office of the Vice President, specifically an intelligence gathering wing. This is the office that tried, again laughably, to float the idea that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Namely, that lead 9/11 perpetrator Mohammad Atta had met with Iraqi Intelligence officers in Prague, and that they had trained in Iraq, intelligence gotten from prisoners that they knew full well had no access to this type of information. And on the weapons of mass destruction fabrication: the evidence of yellow cake uranium purchases in Niger, proven to be fabricated, aluminum tubes, the wrong size and type for the Bush administration's claimed uses....The list goes on and on. The only evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction was fifteen years old. The weapons that proved what a bad man Saddam really was. The ones used on the Kurds. So sad really, especially when you consider that Iraq at the time was our ally. Think about the pictures of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam from that period. Think about the fact that the chemical weapons used on the Kurds were most likely bought and paid for by US dollars. The only WMD that we knew Iraq had were the ones we basically gave them to use on their own people.

We are nearing the 6th year anniversary of when this war began. And no one can explain why we were there in the first place. The so called "Left Wing Media" seemed to be in collusion with the Bush administration, overlooking these blatant fabrications and errors. Few voices mentioned the 1996 policy paper entitled “A CLEAN BREAK: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, in which Richard Perle, and other NeoCons outlined a strategy of sabotaging Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, eliminating Yassar Arafat, crushing the Palestinian independence movement, as well as an ambitious plan to invade Iraq, remove Saddam Hussein, and replace him with a US friendly puppet government. No one mentioned a meeting in 1998 when these NeoCons flew to Texas to "educate" one George Walker Bush. No one said a God damned thing before the invasion. Nothing. Not a peep. Not a peep was heard about Saddam Hussein's ties to the Reagan Administration, or the CIA, heavily involved in the Bathe party's rise to power as well as its longevity. Few said anything after the disgraceful "Mission Accomplished" speech, and those that did were ridiculed and called Anti-American. Those that dissented were swiftly marginalized. And no one said a word about the most horrific thing of all. We were allied with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, while secretly selling weapons to Iran. Imagine selling weapons to the Nazis and the British during WWII at the same time. Is there anything else more insidious to do during a war then sell weapons to your ally's enemy? To profit by selling weapons to the two opposing sides of a war? As with the health care profiteers, what does the hell I don't believe in have in store for these people?

With war comes incredible tragedy, heroism, and loss. We have brave soldiers fighting in Iraq for a lie. Every day when we wake up and look at ourselves in the mirror, we know this. I am not talking about what we do now. I am talking about what has been done in our name. As I am writing this, the US military death toll is over 4200. Not wounded. Dead. This is an American tragedy that will never be healed, lives that will never be recouped and for what purpose? The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3000 Americans. We are approaching one and a half 9/11s worth of US military deaths in this horrible, unlawful, immoral war, and this is only half of the coin. The US government does not officially keep statistics on Iraqi deaths, a sickening thought in itself. The lowest number I could find on Iraqi deaths was 86,663 and those were violent, non-combatant civilian deaths. The highest number was 1,446,063, and was a toll of all of the deaths due to or related to the war including civilians and military combatants, caused by coalition military directly and infrastructure failure caused by the war. Even if you turn a blind eye to the large number (I suggest sitting somewhere in the center of the bell, most estimates are around 600,000), how many 9/11s is that? Divide 3000 into 86,000 or 600,000 or 1.4 million. How many people have to die before we call it a genocide? What number? And why are these people dead? Because of a misguided theory about spreading democracy through the world. Unlikely. Because Iraq was an imminent threat to us? Laughable. Because these people had something to do with 9/11? Fabricated. What are we left with? Who benefits from a perpetual war in an oil rich nation? Oil men like Bush? Military contractors? And guess who was the head of Halliburton, a military contractor, before the disputed 2000 election. That's right, the very same Vice President whose office fabricated intelligence to get us into Iraq. What does the hell I don't believe in have in store for the war profiteers responsible for more than half a million deaths?

Jeremiah Wright accused the US of being shocked that "Our chickens had come home to roost." And oh...The uproar. How could he say that? How could Obama have listened to things like that in his Church? How could anyone think that way? Oh, wait. The Mujahideen funded by the US under Reagan gave rise to the Taliban. Close family friends of the Bushes? The Bin Laden family. Pictures, Pre-9/11 of President Bush shaking hands with Taliban representatives. A long history of covert and not so covert actions in the region. The Bush family, an oil family, with deep ties to Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from, funded by petrodollars made amply available by decidedly anti-green policies. To say that 9/11 was a conspiracy from within the US may be plausible, but is still a huge stretch. To say that any nation deserves to have a 9/11 happen to them is certainly an odious, disgusting, and unfathomable suggestion. To say, however, that our chickens have come home to roost, to take stock of the history, of which the United States is heavily involved, that led up to the attacks is perfectly sensible. It would be irresponsible not to look at what led up to the attacks. Yet where is the study on the US foreign policies that led to 9/11? Are we that sensitive that we can't take into account our own hand in it? Even if it is a repugnant idea. Are we to squelch any and all dissent? Are these Pre-9/11 truths so painful that anyone who brings them up is demonized? And after the passage of laws allowing people to be spied upon, allowing others to be tortured, how was anyone shocked at a backlash against American policies? Are Post-9/11 policies so frailly conceived that they cannot stand up to the wind created by a million or a thousand or a hundred or one eyebrow raised? In this post 9/11 world we have tossed Habeas Corpus out the window. We have allowed our government to spy on us. We have allowed our government to set up secret prisons, with secret juries and secret sentences where torture is not only tolerated, it is applauded. What place is there for those who would use fear as a tool to wipe away any opposition, any dissent, any questioning at all, in the hell I don't believe in?

Economic Equity. Who doesn't want lower taxes? I defy you to find someone who wants to pay more. However, as anyone can tell you, a government needs money to run. In this election cycle, Obama faced criticism for wanting to raise taxes on the highest bracket. His proposal, to raise the highest rate from 36% to 39.6%, was tacitly called Socialism. Mind you that the top tax rate under Nixon was 70%. This type of idiotic, hypocritical accusation actually took off. It was somewhat effective in garnering votes for the ethically challenged McCain/Palin duo. Though slight, the use of the Socialism label did give McCain/Palin a bump. Mind you again, that Sarah Palin as governor of Alaska created a wealth sharing program where each person in the state got over $3200 culled from taxes on oil companies. Yet the official McCain tax proposal had more tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans and corporations. This comes down to an economic theory the was put into place by Reagan. Supply side economics, also known as "trickle down" economics. During the 1980 primary run, George Herbert Walker Bush, an opponent of Reagan, referred to supply side economics as "Voodoo Economics." Though arguments on the validity of supply side versus demand side rage on, there has never been an official study on the efficacies of what is still a theory in practice in a very early stage. At the same time that the wealthy get tax breaks directly from the government, the other Republican mantra of privatization lies in ruin. Privatized health care allows 18,000 people to slip through the cracks in the for profit health care system to their deaths. The 1st Amendment is blurred as federal dollars are funneled to faith based organizations with no accountability. The Republicans preach that we need school vouchers without explaining that this money will be pulled from an already underfunded public school system, and sent to private for profit schools as well as religious schools. Both, again, with no accountability, and in the case of religious schools, again, sending federal dollars to religious organizations. In the end we must ask ourselves, what is more important? The weakest among us or the strongest? Do we give tax cuts to the rich, the poor, the middle class or everyone? How can any well off, economically comfortable person in good conscience accept a tax cut while children still go hungry, people still die because they have no health insurance, education fails our children, families have no homes, and the list of the impoverished becomes longer and longer?

Issues of "morality" and personal freedom. Pro-choice? Pro-life? Those on the Pro-life side of this equation have two main problems with their arguments. They all too often side with the Pro-death arguments in Extra-Abortion issues, IE: Pro-death penalty, Pro-war, Anti-universal health coverage, and the list goes on. For people so interested in protecting unborn life, they sure seem to be indifferent to life once it is born. Secondly, if we are to grant these people the freedom to practice their religion (most Pro-lifers are religious fanatics after all), and it is from their religion, not science, that their conception of when life begins arises, shouldn't people who don't practice their religion have the right to choose that definition based on science? In other words, it is the very freedom of religion that allows us the option to not have to practice one person's religion or another's. No one is Pro-Abortion. We all feel that human life is sacred. We disagree on when human life begins. We all agree that the problem is unwanted pregnancy, and we all understand that the fewer unwanted pregnancies, the fewer abortions. Yet, by and large the Pro-Life community is Anti-sex education and Anti-contraception distribution, both proven to reduce unwanted pregnancy. So what we have is a community that wants to illegalize abortion and birth control at the same time. They want more unwanted pregnancies and they want them carried to full term. The minute these unwanted children are born, of course, they wash their hands of them.

On the most joyous election night of a lifetime, there was one major blemish. The passage of Proposition 8 in California. This despicable law....an amendment taking rights away from fellow human beings is an unprecedented and immoral exercise in hate. And for what? In the name of sanctity of marriage? Whose marriage does it sanctify to take marriage away from some people? What reasoning goes behind this? Is this the work of sensible "Christians," people who believe in love? People who believe in the Golden Rule? What does it matter to them if gays marry? How could it? No one has asked Prop 8 supporters to be gay. No one has asked them to change anything they do. It only matters to those who would want to insure that gays remain second class citizens; that gays do not have access to the same rights as straights. That's what we are talking about here. Bigotry. Hate. These are the same arbitrary prejudices that are used by people who believe that blacks should be second class citizens, or Muslims, , or Catholics, or Jews, or that interracial marriage should be illegal (it was illegal in 16 states as recently as 1967). These are the ideas that breed slavery and genocide. These are the ideas that dehumanize one "stock" of humans, that lead to theories of racial or sexual superiority. To turn a group of people into outcasts, untouchables, is to strip humans of their very humanity. What place in the hell I don't believe in is set aside for these people? What punishment is deserving for the Mormon church that dumped $20 million dollars into the Yes on Proposition 8 Campaign? Are there chains on a slave ship in hell long enough to enslave these people for the eternal torment they deserve?

The United States of America. A nation with high hopes. Those hopes were best expressed in Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, most poignantly in the first two lines and the last:

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

"It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

This hope, this dream of a nation has endured. A government of the people, by the people, for the people has not yet perished. Yet it cannot endure if the people lose their ability to think, to question, to see fact from fiction. We as a nation, over the last half century have promoted a culture of stupidity, of anti-intellectualism where no one questions anything and consumerism runs rampant. This trend culminated in, among other things, the election of a man with no intellectual inquisitiveness as President of the United States. Those who adored him wanted to have a beer with him. These are the same people who love their country, but refuse to educate themselves about what their country does. Like people in Kansas who are poor and who align themselves with the Republican party for no conceivable reason. Are they for supply side economics? For the for profit health care system? For the occupation of Iraq? Why? Why do they allow themselves to be mislead? Is it all the American flags? Do they really believe in these ideologies or have they shut their brains off? A government of the people, by the people, for the people cannot exist if the people do not participate. The knee jerk flag waivers, the "never forget 9/11" crowd that refuse to ask uncomfortable questions about why 9/11 happened, or how it has been used by the Republican party since, have chosen to no longer participate. They have refused to use the modicum of intellectual rigor it takes to ask simple questions, to read a newspaper or a magazine. They have instead fallen in dogmatically with whatever the Republican party says. Ask them why they believe that 18,000 people should die, by being denied health care, for the sake of corporate profits. Ask them why they believe that gays should be treated as second class citizens. Ask them why Iraq needed to be invaded when they presented no threat. Ask them why the rich should pay less taxes while children still starve. You will not get an answer. You will be called a socialist or a communist or a Nazi. You will get hazy Republican talking points. You will be called anti-American or unpatriotic. You will be told that they believe what they believe. There will be no reason, no rational thought behind it.

So what do we have? A list of sins. The constant hunt for personal profit over the needs of the people. Over our very lives. Corporate profits over the lives of those who so desperately need health insurance to live. Personal profits for military contractors, oil executives, middle managers at companies that build bombs and make tanks over the lives of the troops, put in harms way for these profits. Outright hate like Proposition 8, framed with no subtlety at all. These sins cannot be wiped away. These are the sins of the Republican party. And they are the sins of any that would pick up the mantle of that label. What does it mean to take this name? To take up this belief system? If you are a Republican, you believe that gays shouldn't have the right to get married. You believe in supply side economics, and that tax cuts should be given to the wealthy. You believe in an end to public education, an end to the separation of church and state. You believe in the death penalty. You believe that the war in Iraq is justified. You believe that women should not be allowed to have an abortion. You believe in a for profit health care system. You believe that dissent is not to be tolerated. You believe in the unforgivable. There is no pardon, no special dispensation, no indulgences granted by the local bishop. If you choose to align yourself with evil, with sinners, you cast your lot with theirs. These men are sinners of the worst kind. The soulless calculations that have allowed them to do the things they have done prove that they are incapable of the guilt associated with these crimes against humanity that they should feel in their hearts. Their ascendancy, their power and affluence makes the likelihood that they will receive some sort of earthly justice, infinitesimal. We know there will be no Nuremberg trials for them. No Gitmo lockup, no water boarding, no electrocution. They will never know the audacity or evil of their crimes. Oh how I wish there were a hell, for these creators of hell on earth.

And I am falling....The air passing over me. Chilling my skin as I descend. There is no fear. I arch my back and my wings unfurl. Beaten, black, leathery. They reinforce what I am, an angel of death, and my mission, the reason for my presence. I am the destroyer. The destroyer of worlds, of life itself, a tool of the God I once believed in. He left us long ago, to fend for ourselves and we angels have been asleep. The soulless wolves have been given the power over life and death itself. And they've chosen death. They have proven over and over again their unfitness as leaders, their unfitness as humans. They have lost the right to eat at the table of humanity, to drink at the water hole. And this doesn't stop with the architects of these sins. The enablers, fools too involved in themselves to open their eyes, the supporters even in name only have cast their fates as well. To all that have stepped in the way of decency and humanity for personal greed or worse, my cup of wrath has overflowed. I spill my seed of annihilation. I am now the arbiter, judger of those who escape justice, with guile or stupidity. I rain down upon them. I breathe in and the putrid smoke of burning bodies fills my lungs. And it stings less than it should. The exhilaration of the kill in all of its bloody exultation. The destruction of the tyranny of the wealthy, the sycophants and lackeys, the meek thoughtless obedient sheep who follow hate as blindly as they would follow their favorite television show. The victory of freedom and life over fear and death. The ecstasy of killing for a just cause, of laying to waste those ruiners of life, those wasters of what we hold so dear. The orgasm is overwhelming and terrifying. And then it is over. I look over what I have done and I no longer know if it is good. The emptiness surrounds me. I stand on the blood soaked battlefield. It is accomplished. I have saved all but myself from their reign. I have stripped away whatever remnants of my humanity were left. I have become the danger, the tyranny I've fought so hard against. I have wiped away the tears from their eyes. The tyrants that have held them down are gone. But, I cannot wipe away my own tears. I cannot celebrate with my compatriots in humanity, for I have lost mine.....And I know what I must do. And as I remove my armaments, I reach down with all of my being to try to hear that child who believed in hope. I cannot. And I take my leave of this world....And then I awake....

These last few months have been strange. These last eight years have been stranger. We have been beaten and abused for so long, weighed down by the intricacies of this chapter of American history, as well as our universal history....the history of man. We have been subjected to realities, too grim, too dire, to know how to react anymore. We spy on each other and call it a "Patriot Act." We invade a nation for no reason, killing hundreds of thousands and call it part of a "War on Terror." We bail out the richest among us while people go without food or shelter and we say it's a necessity. We turn our backs on our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters. We fail them all. The weak. The poor. The young and the old. The helpless and the hopeless. Until we are helpless and hopeless, prisoners of this regrettable human history. And we had let ourselves become hopeless until this election. And I am a zealot. And I am not a good man. And I have this hatred welled up within me, ready to explode upon the first person who does not believe in human rights, human dignity, justice. And this is all too real, and I wonder to myself if hope is enough. Because I have seen things. Incredible things. This election. This man. This voice telling me to believe in hope. To forgive. And that has inspired hope. But I have also seen horrible things, inhumane injustices, indignities of the spirit, the body, and the soul. And I wonder how I can reconcile them, how to let go of my pain, our pain. And I have cried tears of joy and tears of anguish. And I don't know how much of that eight year old that believes in hope is still there. And I worry..........


And I fall..........


And as I do my wings unfurl..........


But I want to hope...........

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Salad Dressing For Andrew

3 Tablespoons Tahini-Hummus

1/4 Cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil

3 Tablespoons Soy Sauce

1/8 Cup of Rice Wine Vinegar

1/2 Teaspoon Sesame Oil

1 Teaspoon Sugar

Fresh Ground Pepper, Dash of Hot Sauce to taste


For you Andrew, my dear partner.

This was a concoction I had created before with varying degrees of success when dishes called for flavors with an Asian influence. It was perfected one late afternoon at a business meeting in my kitchen. Andrew, one of my business partners at the studio is a vegan. I admire him for it. It takes a strong sense of will to take a stand on principle, especially with the pressures of a society that asks him to give in, not to mention two maniac, carnivorous business partners. Anyway, on with the show!

You'll need two small bowls. In one bowl, mix the sugar, vinegar and soy sauce until the sugar is dissolved. Please use good soy sauce and good rice wine vinegar. With the proliferation of the Whole Foods' and Fairway's of the world, it shouldn't be too hard to find. Real brewed soy sauce is so far superior to the salt water with caramel color that some brands try to pass off as soy sauce. A note on hummus. People have different tastes as far as hummus goes but for this recipe, I like to use a hummus with a high tahini concentration. Most hummuses on the market have a little or a lot of tahini in them but for best results I tend to stick with the Sabra brand Hummus & Tahini.

In the second bowl, whisk a thin trickle of the olive oil into the hummus, slowly at first, making sure that the oil integrates into the hummus. Then, with the same process whisk in the sesame oil. Once incorporated, again with the same process, trickle in the contents of the other bowl, constantly whisking. Add the fresh ground pepper. Add hot sauce to taste. You are finished.

This will go great on just about any salad. I often serve it on a thinly sliced carrot and cucumber salad, but any leafy greens would be excellent. It's even good on, sorry Andrew, meats and fish. This goes very well with seared sea scallops, or a nice seared rare tuna, or even on some thinly sliced rare flank steak. As with any recipe, fool around with the numbers. Add a little more of this or a little less of that. As long as you use the technique of slowly whisking in the oils, then the water based ingredients you will have success! Enjoy!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

The Linear Nature of Time

The hours seem like seconds

I cannot catch up to the busy hands
of time itself.

She pushes forward, ever faster
She eats our pasts, leaving only the shell
of the essences of what once was.

These empty fragments, echoes of reality
stored in soft tissues, so fleeting
Informing every action, reaction
And we cannot escape them
no matter how we try
We are every moment that led up to this moment

We are made up of these
Cracks in our spirits, 
and yet she softens them with time
except for the unfortunate
with a recall too vivid
she attacks these soft tissues
Her march unyielding
until we are left with nothing

Thursday, November 6, 2008

24 Hours Later

As I start writing this, it has been more than 24 hours since the Barack Obama acceptance speech. I don't want this feeling to go away. I haven't been able to put into words, exactly what I am feeling, what I felt last night. I am filled with sincere humility and tearjerking joy at what has happened.

At about 10:57 Chris Matthews on MSNBC began talking about what it might mean if the west coast came in for Obama, if he was the next president. And then 11:00 hit, and they all came in for him, and he was. The enormous exhale, the relief that what we knew would happen, a west coast sweep, had. 

It is an amazing feeling that I have right now, and maybe that is better left un-dissected, only appreciated in an experiential way, but that is not my way, so.....there we all were, in my basement apartment in Brooklyn New York and we were cheering and hugging. And I started to tear up because the struggle has seemed so hard and so long and there it is. We won. But then the TV switches its feed. Chicago. A quarter of a million people cheering and crying. And it was amazing. And the feed changes again, this time to Harlem and a young black girl is crying and another has fallen on the floor in tears, curled up in the fetal position, and I began to cry and then times square, and then....the crowd by the White House. On my block people were in front of their houses cheering. We all ran outside to watch the spectacle. People were screaming from blocks away and in the distance there were fireworks. We heard the strains of John McCain's concession speech through the window and hurried back to watch. 

McCain was conciliatory, his speech, heartfelt, I believe, and was only marred by one or two of his lunatic fringe supporters shouting out slurs and booing when he mentioned Obama by name. It felt good, but the sense of vindication I thought I would have had was muted. I really couldn't believe what I was seeing and the more I thought about it the less sure I was about what I was witnessing. The celebrations outside continued and we went in and out of the apartment, taking turns celebrating with others and watching states come in for Obama. My neighbor, a Tibetan artist came over and said he was so happy. He told me that the rest of the world looks to America. He told me that what we did was amazing. As the time for Obama's speech grew closer, whatever minute thoughts I had for the political ramifications I had thought about so much and followed so closely, melted away. I couldn't understand why I didn't feel what I thought I would feel. And then, his speech began:



"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all 
things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in 
our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your 
answer.

"It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in 
numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and 
four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that 
this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and 
Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, 
disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that 
we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states 
and blue states.

"We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

"It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be 
cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands 
on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

"It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this
date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America."



If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer? The chill up my spine was soul altering. The answers rushed to my mind, into my heart, and out of my eyes as tears in a vicious cycle that left me euphoric, then hysterical with laughter, then sobbing like a baby in tight, twisting succession, and nearly completely internalized, as I was still able to concentrate my conscious mind on the words this man was saying. 



"It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their 
generation's apathy ... who left their homes and their families for jobs that 
offered little pay and less sleep. It drew strength from the not-so-young 
people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of 
perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and 
organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the 
people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth."



"Their generation's apathy." it reminded me of RFK's line: "The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society." And yet there was still this swelling, up and down and around inside of me. He continued:



"The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in 
one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful 
than I am tonight that we will get there.I promise you, we as a people will get 
there."

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for 
generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast 
her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line 
to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon 
Cooper is 106 years old.

"She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars 
on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for 
two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her 
skin.

"And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in 
America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the 
times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that 
American creed: Yes we can.

"At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she 
lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we 
can.

"When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she 
saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of 
common purpose. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the 
world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a 
democracy was saved. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in 
Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people 
that We Shall Overcome. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.
"A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a 
world was connected by our own science and imagination.

"And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast 
her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and 
the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes we can.

AUDIENCE: Yes we can.

"America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much
more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to 
see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as 
Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have 
made?

"This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of 
opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of 
peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, 
that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we 
are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will 
respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we 
can.

"Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America."



And it was over. But my emotions had not stopped. I was Spinning around this spot I could not focus on, his words in my head, that little black girl crying, My days and nights on the streets of North Philly, knocking on doors and talking to black folks and little black girls just like the one on the TV and there he was, this black man, our next President, embroidering these words, musical, yet sober. And I can't figure out why I feel so strange. And I rely on what tools I have, my reason, my theories, my Ideals and I can find nothing to aid me. And I begin to try and piece it together and....

Do you remember when you were in elementary school and you were taught that in America, anyone can be what they want to be, and that we are free and that America is the greatest country in the world? And you believed it? You believed it with all of the wild eyed innocence of a child, because you were a child. You believed it because you were fresh and clean and new, unstained.

It may have been Junior High or High School, or even College, when anyone with any shred of intelligence realizes that these thing aren't true. Not everyone can be anything they want. We are not a free country. We are not the greatest country on earth. Our undeniable history, a dark, dark history of violence, genocide, slavery and oppression, creeps into the reality of how we see our nation; An adult, mature vision tarnished by the ugly realities of how we came to be, and what we have done; what has been done in our name. We lose our faith. We fall from grace, and like all the apples from trees of knowledge, we cannot get it back. We cannot regain that innocence, cannot believe in the unbelievable. We hope for a small change in the glacial battle of evil against less evil. We discuss our political choices as lesser of two evils scenarios. The reality of America and the American dream do not jibe. The reality of America is a far cry from the American dream. But I am still spinning, and I don't know why and there are his words and that little black girl and there's a black man on The Television and he's our next president.

And I know that's impossible because this is America, and in the real America a black man with a funny name can't be president. And I think about that little girl, and how for her, there is going to be a black person in the White House, and he won't be a servant or a slave. A person that looks like her. And it comes over me in waves. that the reality has shattered. And the jokes made, that after the worst presidency ever, only the Democrats could fuck it up for everyone and lose the election by putting a black man or a woman up as president, because it was a fact. Because that can't happen. Not a woman president. Not a Black president. Not in America. But there he is on TV and the people out on the street are cheering. 

I had tried to help. I started to believe the numbers. I began to believe that Obama would win. I thought about how cool it would be. But when it became official, that spinning, those tears, were not tears of victory for my candidate, or for my ideals. I was in shock because I was realizing what had really happened, as an American as a human being, as a citizen of earth, the hurdle that was being overcome. And I thought of Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. I see the tears streaming down Jessie Jackson's face on the TV as they stream down mine and then John Lewis is on TV, a Representative from Georgia who was beaten during Civil rights marches with King and still has scars is puffy faced from crying and so am I, and I think about all of the blood, shed for this to happen, the sacrifices and the pain of lives erased or ruined so this night could be a reality.

And Obama's words are ringing in my head, "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer." And as my throat closed and I cried again I realized that I believed in America again, like I did when I was eight, in elementary school and the books said we were free and the teachers said we were the greatest nation on earth and anyone could become anything they wanted to be and a half black kid with a wacky name could be president and there he was on TV telling me to believe and I believed. Telling me it was real and it was real and I was eight again.

No black mother or father will ever have to tell their son or daughter that they will never be president because they're black. No black mother or father will ever have to think they are lying to their child when say that they can be president, because it won't be a lie. Because America is the greatest country in the world, where anyone can grow up to be anything.

And the world is watching too. And maybe my neighbor is right. Maybe this is amazing. And maybe this changes everything everywhere, because America is the greatest country in the world because anyone can grow up to be anything. Maybe the world does look to us. Maybe This feeling, this spinning, these tears mean more than I could possibly fathom.

And I know that in a few days or a few weeks this will pass and we'll have to come down to earth and deal with the huge issues we have, pay for the horrible sins we have committed but right now I don't have to think about that because I'm an eight year old inside and I believe in the American dream. And I'm not a child, but I feel like a child and it is even sweeter to have overcome, to overcome our history, to recapture that child like love. He is only a man. Nothing has fundamentally changed about the place we find ourselves in but everything has changed because we have a black president and that is impossible in America but it's true because there is a black man who is the next president of the United States telling me it is true. And I believe it because I feel innocent, fresh, clean, and new again. And if, what I know to be impossible has happened, then anything is possible.

And I know I don't want this feeling to end.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

A New Day in America

Today we woke up in a new America, one where anything is possible, if you believe enough and work hard enough. I wept like a baby, last night watching the first African-American President make one of the best speeches I've ever heard. I'm still in shock. The best of what we have to offer as a nation was on display last night. I am proud to be an American. And though my pride now is more profound now than It has ever been in my country, I know there is still work to be done. In 1968, two great men were cut down by assassin's bullets, putting into motion some of the darkest parts of our history as a nation. I never thought that the absence and loss, left by the violent deaths of these two men would ever be overcome, and though it would be over reaching to say it has, I can say that the gauntlet these men laid down to us, blood stained and damaged has been picked up. Imagine If Martin hadn't been taken from us, his reaction to last nights event. And then there is Robert. These men spoke of social justice, economic justice and an end to an unnecessary, unjust war, and I believe thay were executed for these dreams and Ideals. As Obama spoke I was Reminded of Ted Kennedy's eulogy for Robert Kennedy. It has taken us 40 years to return to the work, the dream of these two men, and I wanted to share that eulogy with you.



And the Text:


"What he leaves to us is what he said, what he did, and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 sums it up the best, and I would like to read it now:


'There is discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and starvation. Governments repress their people; millions are trapped in poverty while the nation grows rich and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere. These are differing evils, but they are the common works of man. They reflect the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our lack of sensibility towards the suffering of our fellows. But we can perhaps remember -- even if only for a time -- that those who live with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek -- as we do -- nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.


"Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again. The answer is to rely on youth -- not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to the obsolete dogmas and outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger that come with even the most peaceful progress.


"It is a revolutionary world we live in, and this generation at home and around the world has had thrust upon it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived. Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills. Yet many of the world's great movements, of thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk began the Protestant reformation; a young general extended an empire from Macedonia to the borders of the earth; a young woman reclaimed the territory of France; and it was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World, and the 32 year-old Thomas Jefferson who [pro]claimed that "all men are created equal."


"These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation. *It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.* Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.


"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.


"For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty. But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. All of us will ultimately be judged, and as the years pass we will surely judge ourselves on the effort we have contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that event.


"The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and great enterprises of American Society.* Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to reason and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only way we can live."


"That is the way he lived. That is what he leaves us.


"My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life; to be remembered simply as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.


"Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass for all the world.


"As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and who sought to touch him:


'Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not.'"


Barack Obama Is the Next President of the United states, and though I volunteered for him on the scarred streets of north Philadelphia, and I hoped, I didn't realize my inadequacies. As he Spoke last night, my disbelief was unnerving. I only now realize that my incredulity, stemmed from my own lack of vision. That I am still in shock, that I never thought I'd see a black man elected to the Presidency of the United States in my lifetime speaks to how long it has been since those dreams of Martin and Robert, those dreams that they hoped would "come to pass for all the world," have languished. So as we pick up the challenges set forth two generations ago by men taken from us too early, I hope; I hope to transform how I see things, how I percieve the world; how I dream. I was the former, a man who saw things and said why, but perhaps now, we all can try to see things, "Dream things that never were and say why not."


Yes We Can.