This means you

I've been trying to figure out how to say this without sounding like it's just another post complaining about my mom. I feel like it's something that needs to be said, and, unfortunately, she is being made into an example. Well, that's her problem. Here goes:

Last night as I watched the numbers rise, as the networks, one by one, announced the winner, I had one thought repeating in my head:

"It's over."

Not just the election (though I'm glad to be rid of that as well) but the eight long years of the ignorance and arrogance of the Bush regime. The dark times were over. It's over.

I watched McCain's concession speech with my jaw agape and tears in my eyes. My mom, a staunch Republican, stood in the kitchen, eating her dinner. Of all the places in the kitchen where she could have stood, she made sure to stand where I could see her. Her back was to me. After McCain's speech I was walking through the kitchen, and she moved as I moved - she made sure her back stayed toward me.

When Obama told his daughters that they had earned a puppy, she scoffed, "Oh, geez." All night long she was making sarcastic comments, following each one with, "Oh, I didn't mean that. I'm just in mourning."

Look, this has to stop. Republicans, don't turn your back on this country. Don't turn your back on this president. Don't wallow in your party's loss when you can be celebrating your country's future. I know you don't see it. You see every bad quality, every evil - real or imagined - all packed into one skinny black senator from Hyde Park. You see in him likely what the rest of us saw in McCain. But look beyond that. We need you.

Democrats have a majority in the Senate, in the House, in the voting booths. But we need you, now more than ever, to make sure that another voice is heard. We need to know that when we are out there making a change, you are out there changing with us. Not because we want you to give up your life's philosophies and turn blue, but because we are all Americans and we are all depending on each other to get this country through these tough times.

Don't turn your back on us, Republicans. We are still one nation, we still share one hope. We still have a common dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The nation can't heal and won't thrive without you. It won't get done on any one party's terms, and it won't get done if we can't work together and face the problems of this nation as a nation united against ignorance and hate.

Don't give America the cold shoulder. It's your America, too. Help us make it something to be proud of again.

And to all of you who went out yesterday and make history in the voting booths, you aren't done. You and I everyone else all have a lot of work to do. Your commitment to this country cannot end after the acceptance speech. Get out. Make a better life for us. Democracy is not a spectator sport. It's time to get in the game.

Hate is hate

'Hanging Palin' causes Halloween display uproar

Freedom of speech is pretty awesome. I'm all for it. But I know ignorance when I see it and those of you who are championing this guy, saying "it's just art" and that it should be left up there because you hate Palin, too, should consider this:

What if it were an Obama doll?

What if someone prominently displayed a mannequin resembling the man who might be the first black President of the United States hanging from a rope? Oh, the outrage! Oh, the condemnation!

Two years ago, at Louisiana's Jenna High School, the discovery of nooses attracted the attention of the FBI. Yes, that FBI. Just for the presence of nooses with nothing in them.

But because Palin is a white woman, nobody is batting an eye. Is implied violence only offensive when it's against racial minorities or gays? Those of you rallying around this display, would you be able to hold your tongue and call it "freedom of speech" if, across town, someone had Obama "surrounded by flames" as McCain is in this same display? I doubt it. Hating white people is no better than hating black people.

Are you free to believe and say what you want? Why yes, of course. But I have to ask: when your hateful statements are basically the same as their hateful statements, who have you become?

Re-COUNT

I live in Illinois. We're a blue state, have been for ages. Our state is going to go to Obama, no matter what I do. Recently I overheard some co-workers talking about how it's not even worth it to go to the polls because our votes wouldn't matter (we're going to Obama), and even if we were a swing state, our votes wouldn't matter because of the electoral college. And I know it's true, but it still pisses me off.

What can I do at a polling place that matters? I don't trust either one of those rich fuckers. According to opensecrets.org, McCain has raised $230 million and Obama has raised $454 million. They're both elitists. They are both richer than I will ever even hope to dream of being.

Neither one of those rich fuckers will ever know what it's like to sell possessions to put gas in their cars. (I had to do that three weeks ago). Neither one will ever have to take a jar of coins down to the CoinStar and lose 8.9¢/dollar just to get money to turn into quarters to do laundry. (That was two weeks ago). And you can bet your sweet ass that neither one of them has ever had to use to a windbreaker as a winter coat (in Chicago, no less) and sat around on the el trying not to cry because everybody else looked so warm and cozy. (That was ten years ago.)

So I'm doing something different. I am going to count this year. I am not voting for either one of those over-funded, over-polished, under-hearted jackasses. I'm putting my vote in for a third party. "No! Not another one!" you're thinking. "That's how we lost in 2000, you ninny!" you might be screaming at your monitor. No, no. You don't understand. My vote won't elect Obama or McCain. My vote will, however, get us one tiny step further on the road to eliminating the two party system. It will not be lost in the millions of other moot votes, it will not be just a drop in the ocean running towards the pockets of American politicians and the corporations that pull their strings. My ancestors didn't fight for my right to sit idly by and be another brick in the wall. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and Susan B Anthony, and all those forgotten others, did not fight so that my vote could be cast in vain.

To the disillusioned millions out there who think their votes do not count, I say you're doing it wrong. You're voting for the leaders of Corporate America, not the leaders of our America. You're voting for bailouts for the rich and the legislation of motherhood, death, and love. What does John McCain know about women that gives him the right to say if we can have an abortion? What right has Barak Obama to tell the millions of terminally ill Americans that they can't die a dignified, peaceful death at the mercy of a needle? What right does anybody have to tell us who to love, and how, and whether we can be married? None. Absolutely none.

You have got to stop voting for the candidate who had the best stories on Letterman or the guy who did the funniest skit on SNL. You have got to stop that NOW. You have to stop voting for what's cool and start voting for what is right. The two party system isn't right. The electoral college isn't right. But the absence of your voice is your permission for this mess to continue. You cannot sit on your ass, stuffing your face and watching "America's Next Top Model" and expect anything at all to change. YOU are the change. YOU have the right, the power, and the responsibility to vote for someone who doesn't speak for Corporate America. The problems of our nation, of our world, rest on your shoulders.

Stop doing what the TV tells you to do. Be somebody you can be proud of. Turn off your fucking iPod and stand up to count for something. Start a revolution.

Lipstick? Pigs?

That's what you fuckers want to talk about? Lipstick on pigs?

Shut the fuck up and fix the economy. Stop fighting with each other and get a damn thing done. I mean jesus h christ on a pony, why do you act like you matter when nothing you've ever one is worth a damn?

I mean, seriously: fuck you.

Still just a rat in a cage (or, "Why does my comptuer freeze when I Google the candidates?")

I had my computer playing music while I cleaned tonight, playing through all my songs at random. I sat down for my scheduled break of Diet Coke, a single cigarette, and all the Tri Peaks I could fit into that cigarette. (Don't hassle me, I'll quit again when math class is over.)

The line that caught my ear was, "And what do want? I want to change." To me, it sounds like he's singing "I want change." Which suddenly turned this fantastic song from my misspent youth into a political track.

We do want change. But it makes me cringe when I hear people talk about whether they're going to vote for the black guy or the white lady. Even fewer people talk about voting for the white guy, but that's beside the point.

I just got done reading "Assassination Vacation" by Sarah Vowell, which was recommend to me by a good friend whose opinions I respect (though I can't say the same of his puns). The author had gone on a few trips to see places and pieces associated with the three assassinated Presidents who were linked (however loosely) to Lincoln's son, Robert Todd Lincoln. I've had the Presidents - past, present and future - on my mind all week while tearing through this book. So sitting here at two in the morning with a kitchen and a bathroom yet to be scrubbed, I decided to sit down with you a minute and talk about the election.

Yes, we can make history this year. We can elect a woman for president. It's been stirring for years, this idea of a woman running the country. The speculations about what a woman in the White House would mean have run to each end of the spectrum, from "Finally! Someone in charge who can show some compassion and bring a little ladylike dignity to the White House," to "That's all we need! Women are crazy! Especially post-menopausal women!"

We could also make history with the election of a black man. We are two hours past the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and this weighs heavily on the minds of voters as well. The speculation here is also far-flung from one end ("A man who knows what it's like to be a working man!") to the other ("He's gonna ruin it! I don't want a damn [n-bomb] in the White House! He'll be up there listening to his damn rap, poppin' a cap in a ho and then where will we be?"). I won't even discuss the whole "He's going to turn us into Muslims!" theory, which is beyond absurd for many, many reasons.

Nobody talks about the issues. Nobody talks about what kind of change Obama would bring. Nobody talks about what Hillary's experience can do for this country. Nobody I know even talks about McCain, but that's groupthink at its finest.

Have the politics in America become so redundant and insipid that they no longer factor into the politics of America? Have we become so jaded, so ready and willing to accept failure as our leader, that we can't be bothered with issues?

Well, yes, they have. We have.

All I hear about the candidates lately is that they're trying to woo Super Delegates. They don't care about us, they don't know you or I. None of them. And the way things are going, they never will. I'm furious about my useless vote, irate that nothing I do will matter and these rich, privileged, snot-nosed jerks are going to be in charge of my life - my money, my privacy, my body - for the rest of my irate years. I'm irritated that people only want to vote for a gender or a race, and not a qualified leader.

I guess that's why this old song hits home so hard for me. There's nothing I can do. I want change. But, despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage.