Inauguration Day

Today, CNN.com and Facebook partnered to provide live streaming video of the inauguration to Facebook users who could log in and monitor their friends comments during the coverage. It was interesting, but overall just another social marketing gimmick. That doesn't mean I didn't participate, it just means that I'm a judgmental cynic.

While I was watching the coverage and feverishly trying to keep pace with friends and their status updates, some of the comments really caught my eye, for good and bad reasons. Some of these were (and it's up to you to put value judgments on them...also, names are withheld because I'm at least a little discrete):

"...thinks it is interesting that in 05 Democrats were aghast that GW spent 40 mil on his innaugeration in a time of war. Obama is on track for 150 mil. hmmm."
"...is not unlike Lee Greenwood in the fact that today, she is proud to be an American."
"...is FEELING VERY PATRIOTIC, AND HOPING FOR THE BEST!"
"...is mushy about America."
"...is just happy to be alive today to see this."
"...didn't realize there was going to be a new president. Wasn't George elected King for life?"
"...still can't believe "we" elected a foreign-born Muslim!"
"...wonders if the country will wake up in three months with a hangover and a case of "coyote ugly"

Half of the comments are generically patriotic, the other half are partisan claptrap either anti-liberal or anti-conservative, or specifically anti-Obama vs. anti-Bush. I won't pretend that this is a representative sampling of the public at large. It's just a random sampling of people I know somehow in some way. And it's all either blind hope or senseless venom. Personally, I come down on the side of blind hope, and yet, I take no great comfort in it.

I think, the only thing I'm taking away from this random and scientifically insusbstantial sampling of comments by my facebook friends is that my faith in the ability of Americans to rally together as Americans is dying or dead. Conservatives will be conservatives to the bitter end, as liberals will be liberals, and partisan pants-pissing will forever distract us from governing the nation and ourselves.

Sweet Jesus, prove me wrong. I'm not asking Obama, or Biden, or Bush or Cheney or McCain. I'm asking America, if America is listening.

Hope and Change

One of my coworkers made a comment yesterday that stuck with me. It actually brought something up that became so pervasive in (nearly) eight years’ time that it rarely occurred to me; something that changed so thoroughly since 2001 that it’s transparent anymore (or at least was transparent until Tuesday). What he said was this: “Yes, there are a lot of conservative Americans. Possibly a majority. But the bigger factor was fear. People have been afraid of the government, and they had an opportunity reverse that,” and though it’s a simple point, it is very true. As a society, we shifted from apathy—especially our generation (X or Y, depending)—directly into fear. At first, we feared the terrorists. The Bush administration used that fear to great effect, manipulating it to consolidate power and justify imperialism. They’ve used fear virtually every day for the past 2700 or so days (since September 12, 2001), to “protect” our freedoms by systematically taking them away. Fear has been used to distract the people in this country from the macabre realities of the administration’s aims and actions.

For example, a point of pride in the history of the United States—that this is the land of opportunity, anyone can come here to make a better life—has been perverted by fear mongering against the defenseless target of immigrants. “Illegal” and “Immigrant” are now synonymous, and the people who have come here with hopes and dreams and ambitions, people who with their work not only improve themselves but improve the United States through their contributions, are attacked in words and in actions. Yes, we have to acknowledge that illegal immigration exists and is a problem, but we need not fear it. We have been browbeaten to fear everything that is not “American,” and to fear is to loathe. Furthermore, “American” has been defined as conservative jingoism and evangelical capitalism—make no mistake, not evangelical democracy.

Perhaps I’m being mawkish, but the beauty I see in the election of Barack Obama is that he did not run on a platform of anger or resentment, or revolution. He ran on two words—“Hope” and “Change.” People voted, in record numbers, for hope and change. The overwhelming, transparent fear that gripped Americans was broken by such simple, peaceful concepts. It seems precious and even trite, almost a fairy tale ending.

Will Barack Obama catalyze change in the way the American majority has demanded it? In one way, he already has. Something huge and completely unprecedented happened on Tuesday; someone of color, of the minority, was elected by the majority. This has not happened anywhere else in the modern western world, and is a testament that the United States is as dynamic as it can be static, as progressive as it can be conservative, as compassionate as it is individualistic. The real fairy tale is if he continues, and if unity prevails as a result. He has the potential to be the impetus; it is the people who will become the change. God willing, to borrow from Obama’s campaign, yes we can.

Idols and Disappointment

It’s easy to get sucked in when one of your idols is standing on a stage fifteen feet away from you spouting the same rhetoric that runs through your mind every time you read a newspaper or watch the news. When your thoughts are coming from his mouth, there’s nothing left but to sit in awe, clap your hands, whistle and shout and cheer.

On Monday, July 3, 2006, Jello Biafra made something of a surprise appearance at the Lakeshore Theater in Chicago . At 7:15 p.m., Biafra walked out on stage in black judicial robes and shiny aviator glasses and performed a piece in which he declared the country to be under martial law. It was an interesting bit, and made very clearly a point of how close we’ve come to exactly that situation under Bush.

He then made a few remarks about the hypocrisy and malevolence behind the Bush administration, and read his Gulf War piece, “Die For Oil, Sucker.” At about twenty-five minutes into the show, still going strong, I was enthralled; sucked in and breathing the fumes coming from Biafra ’s lips, as was everyone else. We were his audience. He never even had to try. After the show was over, I realized, he didn’t.

Three hours passed. Three hours of railing against Bush, thrashing the Corporate Media, exposing Congress as the do-nothing slaves to commerce they may indeed be. An entire Major League Baseball game began and ended while I sat and was pandered to by one of the great leaders of the left.

After three hours of a ceaseless serenade to an audience full of people sharing the exact same views, for many of whom those views were placed by the same chanteur standing on the stage in front of them, we were treated to an intermission, after which there was the promise of more of the same. I think I’d have been less irritated and much less disappointed if there had been a message beyond “Bush is Bad” during that first three hours. But there wasn’t. There was no Breaking News. There was no shifting gestalt. It was a rehash of knowledge and opinions shared by everyone in the room, and we cheered away because an idol stood there and told us we were right.

Intermission ended, and Biafra strode back out on stage to declare that it was time for him to tell us what to do about it. I got excited; the payoff was about to arrive. But for forty more minutes, instead of giving us guidance for our rage, or recommending some kind of action to take or group to join or people to help, we got more anti-Bush sentiment. Then, when the time for the Grand Revelation had finally arrived, the moment for Wisdom to be disbursed amongst us, our directive was “Don’t forget who you are and where you came from.”

This is where my irritation, disappointment, and even anger became a palpable part of the evening. That was the moment I experienced a Grand Revelation all my own, and I suppose I should thank Jello for that.

I had just sat through a microcosm of the liberal/progressive/leftist/what-have-you movement in this country. It’s all buildup and no payoff. Our unifying message is “Hate Bush,” and our unified action is to do nothing. Do nothing but feel strongly that what’s going on is wrong. Do nothing but talk to each other about our shared politics and polemics. We focus on our hate for Bush and his administration, so much so that we lose sight of the fact that the man is done in two years, and it’s the future immediately after those two years which is in the direst of situations. Our triumphal activity is to sit around and complain, stroking our own egos, unwilling to really make our presence known. Unwilling and unable to do anything that might make a change, but willing to say “I told you so” when things really begin to go wrong.

The conservatives are at least capable of deciding what they want and pursuing it. Maybe in that, they deserve the control they have. They may be taking this country farther and farther away from the ideals which I and hopefully many others believe it was founded upon, but the only reason is because they’ve been given free reign to do so, part and parcel, by the inability of the left to stand by their convictions and take action towards achieving anything at all.

I suppose “Don’t forget who you are and where you came from” is a decent place to start, except that it doesn’t mean anything. I’m twenty seven years old, the son of upper-middle class baby boomers who moved to the suburbs in the early nineties. I come from a life of comfort and convenience. This is what I’m supposed to use to shape my world view?

My recommendation would be almost the exact opposite. Read a newspaper. Then read eight more, at least three of which are foreign. Spend some time figuring out who you are and what you stand for, because chances are you haven’t done that yet. Take a look at your idols and who they are and what they do, and reevaluate everything you know about anything. Ask questions, because after taking in all this new information, you should have a few.

Expect more. Don’t just vote; make sure that your representatives are doing what you voted them into office to do. If they’re not, vote them out. Get involved come election time and stay involved afterwards, especially on a local level. Write letters. Get to know your local newspaper people. Volunteer for campaigns you believe in. If you don’t believe in any candidates, run yourself. It’s not about win or lose, it’s about taking some damned initiative, because if you don’t stand up for what you personally believe in, you sure as hell better not expect anyone else to either. No one is going to do anything for you. You will be disappointed in life, it happens, but when you expect less, you get less. Expect more until you get satisfaction, and then keep expecting more.

Expect better. Stop swallowing the same pabulum because you don’t want a different meal. You believe the Bush administration is wrong? You believe things have changed disastrously in this country since 2001? If so, do you really want to sit in a room for four hours to hear someone tell you those things four thousand different ways with no further substance? If your answer to that is yes, my suggestion to you is far graver: stop thinking about anything at all, ever, because there’s just no point. On the other hand, if hearing your own opinion spewed back at you is no longer enough, get angry. Not just angry at Bush, not just angry at the war or the oil companies or Halliburton. Angry that the great leaders of the left aren’t leading anyone to do anything other than Hate Bush. Angry that there’s no plan for the future. Once you’re there, the only thing left to do is lead. Lead your friends, your family, anyone. Stop being static. Change starts with one person.