politics

Since Obama was elected, stupid racist people are getting a little more…active.  Read more.  Schoolchildren shout “Assassinate Obama!”  Okay, so kids are being taught by someone to be so full of ignorant hate as to call for the murder of a President-elect.  If they still yell that after he’s in, should that be, something you get arrested for? I mean, you can’t go to jail and stay there for something you say.  I would never want that.  But is it to be construed as a threat worth of at least a look?

Maybe I sound like an advocate of the Patriot Act or something.  But come on.  Will we really tolerate kids yelling that? I may just be speaking out of an unspoken fear that one of these racist assholes will actually act on their hate.

If black kids in New Orleans in 2005 yelled “Assassinate Bush,” that would not have been tolerated, even if it wasn’t necessarily and entirely racially motivated.

If the kids are not being taught to be so hateful by someone else and are in fact that bad on their own, this is doubly true — we can’t tolerate this.  We can’t control someone’s heart and their hate, but we can discourage the expression of it.  Can’t we?  Should we?

Now that we have a President that a lot of folks who are activism-oriented seem to like (at least from what I’ve read), what will activism mean?

I was at Red Emma’s Monday having lunch with a co-worker, and I wondered what things might start to look like among activists.  Will folks continue to rail and rally against The State because certainly beaurocracy will block a lot of Obama’s plans, or even because some folks really just want The State to go away on principle?  I found anarchism attractive while Bush was in office, especially the first time.  Most of the people in the country didn’t want him for a President, but there he was.  Obama has so many people inspired and seems so inspired himself that I have to wonder what we can get done in the next four or eight years without the help of The State?  I don’t really know enough about anarchism to be able to answer that.

Will activism mean working with the Obama administration, against other parts of The Machine in order to change things?  Will activism mean working with The Man?  Or is it a misunderstanding of activism to suggest that working with the government is unusual or somehow makes something not activism anymore?

Community organizing, national service and working with government groups to get things done are all activism, no?

In my [first?] year of national service, I find the election of Obama inspiring, in that maybe some of the hurdles that hinder the kind of work we do may shrink or disappear with the new administration, that we will have more help  in fighting the good fight, in addition to less resistance.

Maybe what we think of as activism can instead become known merely as participation?  But that requires more than a new man in the White House.  If we can continue the act of getting off our collective asses the way some of us have started to, with the huge voter turn-out this year, might we just begin to participate in our own democracy again to such a common extent that the concept of activism becomes obsolete?

What?  You know how we keep hearing about these crazies who repeat what other crazies say and maybe actually believe this bullshit?  I mean, I keep thinking to myself, “Good thing I don’t live near these backward inbreeders.”  I never thought I’d ever meet someone like that.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know and care a great deal about several people who are Republicans, conservatives, libertarians (small L), etc.  It’s not like anyone could say I only surround myself with people who think like I think.  Not that anyone actually accuses me of that very often.

I was talking to a non-liberal today who says he disagrees with Obama’s policies.  Okay.  I mean, if you’re not going to vote for a man, that’s pretty much the best reason not to vote for him and to vote for someone else.  That’s something where, if you’re in the mood and have the time, you can talk, discuss, maybe both come away a little better off.

But I was talking to another guy tonight who commented that we’d have the most “Islamic” country in the world if Obama gets elected.  Okay, more “Islamic” than actual Islamic countries I guess?  I calmly informed him that Obama is not, in fact, Muslim, ignoring the fact that it wouldn’t matter to me either way.  Then he went on to inform me that Obama is not a US citizen, that he made it to the United States Senate without ever having to prove this to anyone, all the way up to top Presidential candidate.  I mean, I guess there’s some pro-Muslim conspiracy at work here, to get this to happen.

I let him keep ranting.  He was getting upset.

Then he said that Obama was “only” leading by two points in the poll this morning.  I corrected him that it was in the double digits last time I checked, that, in fact, Obama was really winning.  “But see who bothers to vote,” I offered, in the way of consolation.

He got even more upset.  Started saying that you can’t trust Obama, that the answers are all out there.  On the internet, where, you know, all the reliable information is.  “You should look this up on the internet, boy.”

Ouch.  Yes.  I’m 29, married, bearded and all.  I don’t like to throw my education around, but I’m almost a frikkin doctor.

“Boy.”  Ouch again.

Well, he got himself so upset that he didn’t do something he said he’d do before he left, and I wasn’t shy about telling why.

He also asked me, two weeks ago, if a cop in a certain undesirable situation was black.  “No, actually he was white.  They all were,” was what I was only too glad to tell him.

You can’t argue with people like that.  Yes, I’m told, he’s from a different generation.  So what?  There weren’t any non-racist white people in Southern states until the last few decades?  That can explain a lot of things pretty well to me.  But not repeating the bullshit this guy repeated.  And, for the record, my uncle who passed away last month was completely different that he saw through bullshit and didn’t propound racist attitudes.  And he was the same age and fought in the same war.

I’m tired of all the reasons other people like to offer for why people that they like say fucked up things.  “He’s not like that.”  “She’s a Christian.”  “It’s her background.”  “He doesn’t have the education you have.”  Cuz, you know, education: that’s the way to erase racism and bullshit spreading.

And why, FUCK ME, why would you, knowing that my wife is black, say these kinds of fucking things to me?  I’m serious.  Why?

I am honestly trying to not so negative about McCain.  Really.  There is so much that Obama has going for him that it’s not as “necessary” as when we had Lurch running against Stupid Monkey Face last time.  At least, that’s how I feel now.  (Remind I said that in the fall.)

But McCain does a lot of crazy stuff that people ignore because he’s a war hero, because he has “experience,” because he’s a Republican, because he’s old/from another era. While I don’t think too much bashing will accomplish anything, it’s important to realize what the hell this guy really stands for and to understand some of the other-worldly things he’s said and done. Mobtown Shank does a cool comic series on some of these wacky McCain-isms which you should check out.

Grist reported [via General Carlessness] how Johnny M.C. wants to kill the train in America.  Never mind that flying is becoming and bigger and bigger pain in the ass.  Nevermind how expensive taking your own car is.  Never mind how big our frikkin country is.  (And we should definitely not consider the environment!)  Let’s cripple the train, rather than developing it.  Good idea.

Another reason to vote for Obama.

Damn.  It’s true.  Trust me.  I’m not making light of suicide.  A few people in my family, closely related and otherwise, have chosen that path.  But, well, so much for guns making us safe. (For the record, no; none of them used a gun.)