Election Aftermath: Post #3 - Fighting back.

Originally posted November 3, 2004:

Right. Okay.  This is Post #3.

My roommate made me go to McDonalds and Wal-Mart in between post #2 and this one.  Which was good in the sense that, um, this is the only post I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to say yet, still, so I had a chance to think about it more.  And bad in the sense that I was going to Wal-Mart and McDonalds and thinking, this is America.  Man. America sucks. 

Even though they had really cute afghans on sale for five bucks at Wal-Mart and I just couldn't help myself it matched my bedsheets wah.

Um. human nature, I guess, tells us that we are prone as humans to react.  My mom wrote me today, and I thought, but... weren't all you people over 40 who are sick of the democratic party now the ones who were protesting at Kent State and getting it on at Woodstock?  Will I be a staunch conservative when I'm 40?

And the answer of course is no fucking way. 

You wanted to hear me give you encouragement, and you asked me, what the fuck do we do now?  My encouragement is this, and it's simply that when I look at who I am now and who I was four years ago, I can see very clearly that I have grown and matured under Bush and his abysmal presidency.  One year ago I never thought that anybody would care what I had to say about politics.  2 years ago I never thought that I would be educated enough on the issues to be able to speak out about gay rights the way I wanted to.  And 3 years ago, I never thought that I would be a volunteer for the Democratic party on election day 2004. 

My encouragement is that if I have grown this much, I will grow that much more in the years to come. We will grow together.  Adversity makes us stronger--and this will be adversity.  But it will make us citizens of the land of the free; it will ask us to forge our citizenship and our patriotism through fire.  We will do it.  We will not leave the country, because that would be running from the challenges that democracy asks and expects of us.  Democracy asks us to dissent. Democracy asks us to stay informed and to speak out and use our voice whenever we can.  We have been vocal but we will be more vocal.  We will earn our citizenship in the next four years, the way that once in a generation Americans are asked to.  The GLBT community during the AIDS epidemic.  The civil rights movement.  The Vietnam protesters.  The World War Two veterans.  The suffragists.  The abolitionists.  We have not endured all that these people stood up for in order to run away now just because some shrub with an attitude and an inability to speak in proper sentences has been elected to office.  We are not dishonoring them by leaving the country when they stayed and fought for freedom against circumstances we can't even imagine. 

I want to start this post by linking to this.  Because I don't know if you know it but reenka is a first-generation Russian immigrant, and to hear her say, sincerely, "this land is my land," throws this entire issue into perspective in a way that has been making me cry even harder all day.  Because in the end, America is freedom.  America is the vast horizon of possibility and discovery.  America is about the dream and not the waking.  America is beautiful that way.  Even as trumped up and full of herself as she is.

Visualize the Underground Railroad.  Just close your eyes and really try to grasp what that flight to freedom must have been like.  And ask yourselves if you are willing to honor that flight by doing whatever you have to do to secure your liberty and the liberties of those around you--or if you are ready to turn tail and run, to give up now because the country has moved backwards a little since 1865.

Now visualize the effects of change, of being here to see change happening in our lifetime. 

Visualize the supreme court protecting Roe v. Wade.  Visualize the time when men can say with pride--with true, non-appropriated cross-orientation pride--that Abraham Lincoln was the first gay president of the United States.  Visualize the inauguration of our first female president.  Visualize the time when, because of the debates and the discussion that have taken place during this election, our next president does something extraordinary--and offers peace instead of war.  Visualize giving the world proof that we can unite behind progressive principles, like having a minority as our leader, having a president actively support unilateral peacemaking instead of war, and having socio-economic reforms that put the needs of the poorest and weakest at the top of our lists.  Visualize universal healthcare, for fuck's sake.

Visualize Barack Obama for president in 2008.  Visualize having yet another reason to throw you