I awoke today, paint in hair, and noticed the tattoo on my wrist. The one where I’m pledging my love to Michelle Obama. It’s temporary, but then again, what isn’t these days? I’ve done some phonebanking and office support in Berkeley the past few nights, and I’ll probably do the same this afternoon in S.F. after a repair gig in the city. It’s a task both deadly serious and gratefully fun, getting involved in politics. I guess we’ve seen the outcome of just doing nothing in the past, and seeing the results of getting off one’s ass in 2006, and a whole lot of it this year.
To watch these people here, to hear about them elsewhere, is what I think we should be doing 24/7/365. We are citizens of this country, and those glory days of refusing to fill out the Voter Registrations because of a fear of getting called for Jury Duty is way over, And as for Jury Duty, think about it? Wouldn’t you want to be judged by a jury of your real peers, not by a group of people who couldn’t figure out how to get out of it in the first place? Jury Duty, Voting, Volunteerism, Community Service, these are the prices we have to pay to be a member of this society, and better yet, a way to take over this Society to our betterment. Come on, is ‘Lost’ more important that this election? Does ‘Dancing With the Stars’ outweigh Public Power? Marriage Equality? Civil Rights? National Health Care..?
I’m guessing that one of the reasons that McCain is flailing is he’s lost the support of the Christian Snakehandlers phonebanking, flyer-bombing and door knocking this time around, even with Palin at his side momentarily. Knife out, in a Godly, Jesus-inspired way. Momentarily, that is. She’s already, as the tired expression goes, thrown him under the bus as of late, already gunning for 2012, a year that’s holding a lot of import as of late concerning the Mayan Calender. 2012 shows the end of the world as we know it. Either a global shift of consciousness, a grand raising of mind, a global catastrophe that’ll kill us all and wipe the slate clean, or as the joke goes, the guy just ran out of room on that rock.
I’ve been bringing in the news, the blogs, the sites, the Podcasts, and I’m seeing worlds colliding. I’m seeing Racism and Ignorance on a massive scale concerning this Election, how some people just won’t vote for a black man, how they feel that he’ll just hand the country over to Jessie Jackson and Reverend Al Sharpton, I’m guessing the same way die-hard baseball fans felt that having Jesse Owens take the field would demean the game.
They were proven wrong. They had to be dragged into the 20th Century kicking and screaming, albeit there are those tiny few who probably still mutter something under their breath, but still...
I’m seeing the old Republican ginned up bugaboos like Terrorism and Gun Control falling by the wayside over the years, I’m seeing a shift in the general sense of import concerning the Economy. Remember, Bush wanted to put Social Security into Private Accounts to be played on the Market? Hard 8 goes Deep 6, that, just maybe, Big Businesses may not be the friends that they’re advertized to be, such as Wal-Mart insulting the Employees with spooky videos ‘asking’ them to vote Republican so’s they won’t have the chance to vote in a Union with the Employee Free Choice Act, and these same employees are going home angry and telling their families, friends, and blogging about the gall of these companies.
And the profits the Gas Companies have reaped this time around? Or how this Administration has run the War with the rampant costs ad lack of oversight such as 6 Billion to Private Security Firms, cost overruns on uncompleted projects or payng for shoddy and deadly work (How many of 'Our Troops' have been electrocuted in the showers over there? 18 or so at last count, not to mention that firetrap of an Embassy, by the way, is ANYONE working in there yet?), health care, prices.
How they’ve driven our nation’s collective soul into a deep sickness of fear and fury at... whomever. Fearful citizens are easier to control. Trouble is, whatever they’re telling us to be fearful of isn’t cooperating, the bugaboos of dark-skinned Jihadists screaming over the border or ACLU Lawyers demanding that their children have gay sex, or Lawmen going door to door demanding they give up their guns haven’t really panned out, hence I think Middle America is seeing the light. Seeing that they’ve been played. Again and again and again. Seeing that there are two kinds of Republicans: Millionaires and Suckers.
Then again there are the exo-conservative diehards, the Republican dead-enders, the piners for some visionary Fata Morgana of Conservatism and white privilege that feel that they’re going to lose out to, again, to a Black President and minorities in general. There are those nutcases that feel that we’re headed for a civil war if Obama is elected and I’m feeling that it may come to that, that the mutterings of those nitwits will turn to gunfire, to terrorism, to any number of hijinks. And maybe, just maybe, the left will hold their ground, fight back with laws and education. Tell them that we’re all in this oar-boat, it’s just the ones who are wielding the whips that are spooked at the changes coming, at the building of awareness, of coalitions, of connections, netroots, information sharing and streaming mini-documentaries. Of an upsurge of reality. These Proto-Antebellum dead-enders will finally grow up or get left behind. Jobs would help in the long run. Another WPA would still the mutterings, or at least make those who might listen less willing to take notice.
So, 2012. Maybe, just maybe, it’ll be the end of all of this infighting rurally and internationally. Maybe some kind of Utopia, or at least a Health Care System, public Transportation, and Nationally Free WiFi. A guy can dream.
As for this Election? I have hope. More than that. Obama’s past the magic 270 Electorial Collage number, the early voting shows that it’s going four to one, that Republicans are running scared at even being associated with the name Republican...
Anyway, gig today, phones tonight, maybe Vegas Monday. Who knows?
Oh, the Simpsons have a ‘Mad-Men’ opening credit parody for the Treehouse of Terror this year. Priceless.
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