Jaded Optimist Coloring Book

As the election drew closer I became more and more prone to excessive outbursts.  The thought of the right wing nincompoop from Alaska being one heartbeat from becoming my leader drove me to distraction.  I don’t think that I truly believed Obama and the Democrats would pull off a victory.  I also realized that from 1968 until today I have felt almost completely disenfranchised politically.  I had come to the unfortunate conclusion that I lived in a country in which the majority of citizens held views totally incompatible to my own.  On election night I sat glued to CNN (I hated that red/blue line nonsense) with my body clenched from furrowed forehead to curled toes.  Then the results began to roll in.  When PA went for Obama, I sobbed and emailed my gratitude to my many PA friends.  Slowly the realization that Obama was going to be the next President of the US of A began to overwhelm me.  When CNN showed the rainbow of people massed in Grant Park to hear Obama’s victory speech I was overwhelmed with joy and wept uncontrollably.  I was born and raised in Chicago, the most segregated, racially divided major city in the US.  The Chicago of my youth was a place where black was south side , white north side.  The two met occasionally on the El somewhere around Washington.  My Grant Park was the Grant Park of Mayor Daley’s police riot where I was gassed, chased and beaten for daring to be against the Viet Nam war and other LBJ/HHH policies.  I stood at those barricades and saw former high school friends in uniform preparing to aim weapons at me for daring to be an American.  I lost so much heart at that time.   I came clean for Gene.  I watched as Bobby and Dr. King lost their lives.  I saw a country cleaved in ways that put a pall on my spirit.   Then came November 2008, 40 years later, and my spirit was made whole again.   This can be a great country.  A country full of promise for all.  A place where effort can be rewarded regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual preference.  It has not been this place for many years.  It has become a country of unbridled greed and insider double dealing with a continually diminishing regard for civil liberties and freedom for all.  The pinnacle of this change was the last 8 years.  A time during which: religion became king, torture became no big deal, spying on civilians became business as usual, invasion and occupaton of a sovereign nation that posed no credible threat to the US became acceptable foreign policy, and so on.  THAT NIGHTMARE IS NOW OVER!  A wildly intelligent and highly educated person of mixed racial origin is our new leader.  I have never been prouder of being an American.

I honestly intended to write lots and lots and lots during this outstandingly annoying exercise in national banality known as the election campaign season.  I really did.  But to be blunt, this season has annoyed and depressed me more than any I can remember (and being 59, I can remember quite a few).  Obama takes positions with which I disagree, and that idiot from Alaska and the old man she lugs around make me want to puke.  So, why am I writing?   The answer is simple:  lately, the award winning team of Palin and Bachman have been running their mouths off about what constitutes a real American, and where real America really is.  This offends and even scares the hell out of me.  I seem to recall that back in the good old days of Nazi Germany, the philosophical underpinning of Nazism was that there were certain Germans who were real Germans and others (Jews, gays, gypsies) who were not.  For the Nazis, the best way to have a happy homeland was to do away with all those who were not real Germans.  This was the Nazi final solution.   From what I can tell, the vile garbage that flows so freely from Palin/Bachman et al sounds horrifically like the crap that spewed from Hitler and the boys.  Those places that aren’t real America are urban areas where jews, gays, college educated people and other terrorist sympathisers live and do their vile deeds.  Am I the only one who finds this eerily Nazi-like?  Joe McCarthy was a witch hunter who ruined countless lives, but these cretins make old Joe look like a kindly old man by comparison.  Am I exaggerating?  I don’t think so.  You see, I live in a nice, white little town that these assholes would see as real America full of real Americans.  In fact, I live in Michelle Bachmans electoral district-Stillwater, Minnesota.  I know Michelle.  I have looked in her crazy eyes.  Heard her spew invective towards and about the “other”.  I also saw how, when my daughter was growing up in real America, some parents would not let their children play with her because her dad is a Jew.  I’ve heard diatribes from friend and foe alike about “you people”.    I hate to the marrow in my bones what these people stand for.  There is nothing funny about Sara Palin-she is an evil woman who belongs as far away from the White House as possible.  As for Michelle Bachman, the only thing I can say is the more she opens her ignorant mouth and spews venom the more money winds up in Tinklenberg’s war chest.  I really really really hope Michelle gets rejected, finally, by the good white Chirstians of Stillwater and the rest of her district.  Unfortunately, I fear that ignorance and intolerance will prevail.  Anyone who reads this (or anything else that appears on this blog) and wants to disagree (or even agree) with me in person, I can be found at the Daily Grind coffee shop in Stillwater every Saturday and most Sundays of the year.  Beware:  I am not Minnesota nice.  In fact, some would say I’m really not any kind of nice at all.  I am very opinionated.  I say what I think.  I guess I’m a real American.

Here’s a good look at what she said:  http://thepoliticalcarnival.blogspot.com/2008/10/video-chris-matthews-v-michelle-bachman.html

I caught some of Obama’s public forum from somewhere in Virgina this AM.  I was not pleased.  He spouted slogan-like platitudes with few specifics and little more.  Worse, he sounded discombobulated.  He stumbled and stuttered along in a way that reminded me of my own miserable performance discussed in an earlier post.  Sure he’s tired, but come on, the guy’s running for President.  What’s worse, McCain’s been looking like a people’s “maverick” again lately.  Obama’s numbers are reputed to be falling.  I can see why.

Over the last couple of days a number of people have asked me my views on the upcoming presidential election in these good old United States.  So, over 5 scoops of ice cream at Pump House Creamery in Minneapolis (the BEST ice cream in the entire world), I actually took a few minutes to ponder and here’s what I’ve decided (at least for today):  John McCain is a tired old right wing conservative who has done little to distinguish himself except spending time in the Hanoi Hilton.  He is not a “maverick” or any type of “independent thinker”.  He is a by the book right wing Republican who married a rich woman (with whom, by the way, he started playing hide the salami while married to another woman-where’s the media outrage?) and doesn’t really give a damn about much except being President.  He is not pro-veteran, he is not pro-environment, he is most definitely anti-abortion rights, he favors free thought and free enterprise but only when it suits his needs, he is anti-equality for non-heterosexual people, he is mean spirited, he is stupid (finishing somewhere near the absolute bottom of the military college he attended), etc.  In short, he would, most likely make an absolutely horrible President.  Obama:  is pro gun to all Americans, pro-FISA, pro faith based blah blah blah, unwilling to speak out forcibly on issues like abortion, equality for all Americans, Israel, intelligent design, or, as far as I can tell, almost anything.  The man seems like a nice enough fellow, but what else is there to him.  Those positions he has taken are positions with which I disagree, so as I told a nice attorney the other day in  the kitchen of the  NYC office of a prosperous national labor and employment law firm, I intend to vote for Obama, but he makes me NERVOUS.  The nice attorney agreed.  Just once in my life I would like to see a candidate for high office, especially a Democratic candidate, be bold, say what they really think and tell the world that if they agree with these positions then vote for him/her, if not, vote for the other person.  More later.