The Day After

Not unlike the plot of the post-nuclear war movie, yesterday saw an attack on Republicanism of mammoth proportions that swept over the country from coast to coast and laid waste to an electoral map that was all but set in stone in the two previous Presidential elections. It came out of the cool Autumn sky and thundered down around those who had for eight years thought themselves immune to the vagaries of American politics, upsetting apple carts and devastating bastions of conservatism. By the wee hours of the next morning, all that remained was rubble, shattered dreams, dashed hopes, and a leader capitulating from his desert stronghold.

So, what now?

The leader of the attack, the man who promised change, and brought it last night, said it best:

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

It is not enough that Barack Obama was elected President of the United States, for that does not automatically absolve us of the sins of slavery, bigotry, and Jim Crow. It is not enough that he cut across party lines and forced states long thought to be Republican fortresses to yield to the force of his convictions. It is not enough that he is strong, forbearing, patient, and magnanimous. For what was done yesterday was not the start of something new, but the unleashing of something inevitable, the release of the titanic forces of pent up frustration and desire that had been written into the Declaration of Independence with the following statement:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

That simple statement, which launched this great nation, reverberated and echoed in every vote cast on November 4th, 2008. The governed, having determined that it was time for a change, brought about that change, and in this case, the ballot was mightier than the sword, for no shots needed to be fired to bring about this new revolution.

And still, it is not enough.

For having secured this victory, this statement that we can and will fix things, we must now accomplish change. And we cannot do it as fragments, pools of Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, black, white, Hispanic, Jew, agnostic, et. al. -- we must do it as one. As President-Elect Obama so eloquently put it:

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

And so now, the true task of change begins. Our support for Obama must spread forth, to encompass all those around us, of every race, every station, every persuasion. We must lean down, look those who lost in the eye, reach out a hand, and ask them to come with us and help us. If they refuse, so be it, but we must extend the olive branch. We must mend fences. We must stand shoulder to shoulder, if change is what we truly seek. There is no reason why all of us cannot benefit from what is to come, from the Wall Street investor able to make all the money they want, to the victim of foreclosure being put back on their feet and given an opportunity to start over. From the illegal immigrant given an opportunity to make a living here as a legal resident, to the abortion foe who can be secure in the knowledge that fewer unwanted babies are being born. No matter what part of life in America we come from, there is no reason that we cannot all have the peace, prosperity, and happiness that our Constitution provides us.

It will require hard work. It will require vigilance. It will require lowering our mutual suspicion and hostility. It will mean admitting we are wrong, that we have made mistakes, that we have misjudged each other. It will mean being a bigger person than some, and tolerating outright hostility.

It will not be easy.

From this moment forward, we pay for this election with a commitment to ensuring that we participate fully in the great experiment that is Democracy, whether it is voting in every election, writing our Congressmen, asking hard questions of our President, or simply giving what we can to others who are in need. The cost of this victory is high, but the reward is higher, as long as we do not stop, do not take a rest, do not stand on our laurels. Celebrate now, and embrace this truly historic moment... then realize that tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and every day thereafter will require even more work, time, and sacrifice. Do not stop paying. Do not stop participating. Do not let the winds of change fall still.

The Longest Day

This is the day before the most historic election of our time. Tomorrow, those who have not already voted, will pour into polling places and cast ballots, in what will no doubt turn into a knock-down, drag-out race that we will not know the winner of until Wednesday morning. With that in mind, it reminds me of the night before Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe in June 1944. On the one hand, you had the German forces, vigilant, awaiting an invasion that was inevitable, but not knowing where it would be or when. And the Allies, men by the tens of thousands crammed onto ships of every type and in airplanes overhead, keyed up, nervous, trained to a fine edge, ready to hit the beach and begin the end of Hitler's reign of terror over Europe.

No one knew what the morrow would bring. Could thousands upon thousands of men and their tons of supplies be brought safely onto a French beachhead, and could that wave of men and material make it off the beach and in-land? Could the Germans hold the Allies on the beach long enough to bring up armor support and destroy the invaders piecemeal? What would the casualties be like? Who would live and who would die?

We face that uncertainty now. For all the preparation, all the phone calls, all the voters registered, all the signs, placards, and rallies, what will happen tomorrow? Will voting machines break? Be tampered with? Will people vote who should not? Will people not be allowed to vote who should? Will the floods of people seeking to vote lead to hours-long lines? How long will the counting take? Which states will be the true battlegrounds?

No amount of preparation and rehearsal could prepare the men who hit the beach of D-Day for what happened. Some things went right, some went horribly wrong. In places the Germans were well prepared; in others, they fired hardly a shot. Masses of men were felled, dying without so much as bring their rifle off their shoulder. Landing craft were blown apart. Tanks sank in the English Channel or were torn apart on the beach. Organization melted away, and men had to dig in and take control in ones and twos, often with no one to lead them. By the end of that day, the Allies had their foothold, one they would not relinquish.

And so it will go tomorrow. There will be skirmishes. There will be fights. There will be broken machines and choked polling places, and paper ballots. And then, slowly, the crowds will clear, the polls will close, and the votes will be tallied.

Tomorrow, our country will be different, no matter the outcome, for this campaign has cast that difference in stark relief. A great portion of our nation is prepared to move forward, step away from the nation we have been the last 225 years and take us forward into a new age. Many are unsure. Some are scornful. A few, closet anarchists, unhappy with any outcome which forces them to confront their true "beliefs." There will be joy. There will be sorrow. There will be anger. But there will be change.

And so, like those men 64 years ago, we wait. We wait, secure in the knowledge that we have done everything we could as individuals and as a nation to prepare. That when the ramp drops, we will surge into the teeth of the maelstrom, brandishing our votes as we cross the beach and struggle toward the high ground. And when the day is done, and the shock of the day has worn off, we will be able to lean back and know that we accomplished something, a great something, something that will forever change our destiny.

Trick or Treat?

Ah yes, Halloween. A time to dress up as something you are not, and if below the age of 13, ring people's doorbells and ask for candy. If you are 13 to say 18, roam around your neighborhood hurling eggs, toilet paper, and shaving cream. If above 18, get dressed up in some sort of costume, go to a party or some parties, and get drunk and have odd pictures taken.

I've never been into it really.

Perhaps it was growing up in the middle of nowhere in Vermont, where the nearest neighbor was about a mile-and-a-half away, and the next one three miles past that. Maybe it was never having close friends. Maybe it was plenty of things, but the spooks and hobgoblins and scary stories have never done anything for me.

I'm not easily scared.

My semi-paranoid nature causes me to make constant assessments of my environment, trying to anticipate what may come next. Halloween is like telegraphing the punch to my brain; you know people are going to try and scare you or walk up to you half-soused and barf on you, so you anticipate and avoid.

Even the supposed "scary" movies they play this time of year do nothing for me. The only movie that ever actually generated nightmares for me was The Exorcist, and that's because I saw it when I was younger. Now I find it hilarious. Freddy Kruger? Bah! Jason? Please! Chucky? OK, now you're reaching. Even Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man have had their teeth taken out by bad modern remakes -- you can never go wrong with the classics!

So you'll forgive me if I feel blasé about Halloween.

For the things in life that are truly scary, knock traditional Halloween frights into a cocked hat:

• The idea that a tortured, 72-year-old Vietnam vet with an entitlement complex could theoretically become President


• That if the above became true, a moose-shooting hockey mom from Alaska with a healthy case of cognitive dissonance and the ability to lie to the public without batting an eye would be one heart attack away from being President of the United States


• That for both of the above to become true, the citizens of America would have to be moronic enough, or possibly bigoted enough, to not vote for a black man


• That if they did not vote for the black man, it would be because deep in our hearts, we have not thrown off the mentality of the slave holder


• That the plunging economy and rapidly accumulating debt built up by the past 8 years of mismanagement would continue for another 4 to 8 years


• That people cannot tolerate the idea of change for the better

Now that's scary!

The Real America

A lot has been made during this Presidential election about the "real" America, as if the adjective could somehow be applied to an artificial construct. For that's what any country is -- a collection of points on the surface of the Earth which encompass an artificially determined area. Countries have been created to be de facto containers of "our people," divided along whatever lines people have seen fit to draw, both topologically and socially.

While you find a great deal of homogeneity in many countries, there are pockets of every nation where ethnic and cultural variations abound. Italy and Germany are crazy-quilts of ethnic types, borne of hundreds of years of conquest and commerce. The Basque people in Spain maintain a fierce independence from the Spanish. The African continent is littered with countries built up of tribes which share only lines on the map, but not language or custom.

On the surface anyway, the United States tries to portray itself as the great "melting pot," where all of the rest of humanity comes to better itself. We pride ourselves on the great diversity of ethnicity that permeates each and every nook and cranny of our land.

The flip side of this American diversity, however, is fractionation, as various groups form collectives within the grand scheme of the "United" States of America. Given the diversity of race, it is interesting to note that not all of this fractionation is racial; much of it is social or religious. Clusters of the like-minded spring up in all sorts of places and exert what influence they have locally. It is only in an election year, and especially true in a Presidential one, that these groups, normally separated by geography, merge to form blocks that candidates are forced to pander to. Fiscal conservatives, Evangelicals, gun owners, immigrants, abortion rights advocates, pro-Life advocates, businessmen -- suddenly the individual voter is subservient to the block, a cog in a large political machine that expects the candidates to pay them some respect and listen to their points of view.

It is sometimes interesting to note that this phenomenon is nothing new, nor is it unknown. Social psychology tells us that people will tend to cluster with others who share their primary social attributes. It also tells us that in groups, peer forces will often overwhelm normal individual judgment, creating that phenomenon known as "the mob mentality." And in groups, when there is a decision to be made, only the strongest can break the spell of inaction and indecision.

So if you look out at America, the "real" America, you see 300 million individuals, clustering together for mutual comfort and trying to go about lives that give them the most gain and the most satisfaction. An within that giant pool, there are the eddies and currents of social, economic, and racial conformity which occasionally cause powerful waves to form. Sometimes those waves disperse their energy to good effect, such as the outpouring of support for New York after 9/11 and for New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Often though, these waves stir up the surface, and come into contact with other waves, and there becomes a titanic struggle as each tries to swamp the other.

The current election is a lot like that. On the one hand, you have John McCain, candidate of the establishment, the "old guard," trying to take his rightful place at the head of a country that needs strong leadership and a firm hand. On the other, Barack Obama, candidate of change, looking to brush past the establishment, seize the reins of power, and chart a new course. And feeding them are the various groups attuned to their individual messages, rank swelling rank, building up their candidate and propelling him though the swells.

The roiling, churning sea that is this election is being driven by a "perfect storm" of economic collapse, social upheaval, war, and jingoism. It is a clash of culture more than an election, for each side seems to represent a different aspect of the American landscape: McCain, the representative of the tail end of the generations that fought the great world wars, Obama representing the slow birth of a pluralistic planetary culture which rides technology into the future.

And so, the heart and soul of the "real" America is on the line. When one side wins, there will be a collective groan from the other, for it will mark disappointment and perhaps desperation and depression. A McCain victory would mean that all the promise of the future, the chance to set right the Ship of State, will have been squandered and will lead inevitably to anxiety as the policies of the last 8 years find new life. An Obama victory will frighten the older, conservative crowd, as suddenly they will see their caricature of "real America" slowly dissolve away in the rain, to be replaced by a freer and fairer world, a world without limits and without boundaries. A world filled with ideas that will shock them and test their faith.

And in the end, no matter who wins, life will go on. For neither man winning will cause the sudden and inexorable collapse of American society, only begin a new cycle of political bargaining and punditry. The true test will be down the road, when we look back and ask ourselves if we did the right thing.

No "Average" Joe

Dear Senator McCain,

Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Not Joe Average.

I am a guy who has spent his whole life working very hard at every job he has had. I have tried to live a frugal life. I have not spent my time squandering money on things, but on the necessities of life like cars, a home, food, and clothes. And even then I do everything I can to save money. And yet...

Other than a house and a car, I have nothing substantive. I have no retirement savings. Every dime I have earned has had to go to paying someone for something I needed or was honor-bound to pay for (property taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, etc.). I have no money set aside for college for my children. There's no rainy day fund -- my savings account is empty, sucked dry every time a new unforeseen expense comes up. And there are a lot of those...

You see, I work in IT, and well, those pesky companies I end up working for inevitably figure out that it's cheaper for someone in India to do my job at one-third the price, so they end up laying me off. So, inevitably I am trying to live on unemployment insurance, while the money I would have put into Social Security and Medicare and health insurance is going overseas, where it does no one in this country any good.

So when you say you'd like to help Joe "The Plumber" get his plumbing business, I can't help but wonder: when are you going to help me? I figure Joe, being a plumber, is making good money. If he is making good money, and he's smart about his credit, he should be able to go to a bank for a loan to help him buy that business.

Oh wait.

Silly me.

The banks don't want to lend anyone any money! Seems they've fallen on hard times, something about a housing bubble. I seem to have read it in the papers.

So I guess Joe is out of luck. Unless you would care to write him a check?

Didn't think so.

Because after him would come me, and then after me would come someone else, and after them another person, and so on. Pretty soon, you'd be... well... poor.

Then again, you might lend Joe the money, but not the rest of us. We're not living the American Dream, right? Because we're not running out and trying to buy businesses or large-screen plasma TVs, or because we think it's possible that a woman should get paid equal to men for the same work, or we think that not getting pregnant is a far better idea than having abortions or giving kids up for adoption, or possibly because we know that drilling for more oil is a fool's bargain that will have little impact on our dependence on foreign oil.

Perhaps we're not real Americans.

So what is it, Senator? What are we to you? Demographic groups to pander to? To frighten? To lie to in the vain hope that we won't notice? What?

I'll tell you what we are.

We are Americans tired of promises that lead to the same-old Washington messes. We are tired of watching the Federal government squander our money on wars and weapons while it leaves its own citizens to live in squalor and poverty in ever-increasing numbers. We are tired of a political machine which greases the wheels of the "big shots" on Wall Street to the point of handing them a big check written out of our checkbooks, while doing precious little to fix what caused the problem in the first place. We are tired of hearing how wonderful everything will be when you cut taxes on the rich and all that money will trickle down into our pockets. We are tired of people trying to foist their morality on us and expecting us to like it. We're tired of pandering and glad-handing.

And we're angry.

Oh yes we are, Senator, but not in the way you think. We are angry at you, you and your friends in the political establishment who have spent years peddling influence and paying lip service to the true problems in this country. Our anger is incandescent at the thought of losing our homes and our savings and our retirement funds because the people on Wall Street could not contain their greed. Our anger is a subtle, seething rage at how you stand there in all your glory, making your opponent seem as if he is untrustworthy, when it is you and your allies who have fabricated, prevaricated, and obfuscated to score points with a citizenry that, below the surface, is frightened at the thought of a black man becoming their President.

You make us angry. You represent some of the worst facets of our society. You stand for unreason, for faith before logic, for the rich getting richer on the backs of those who have already given all they have and all they can. You act as if you are owed something for all you have given this country. If that is so, then what are we owed? When do we get what's coming to us? When does out torture stop? Torture in the form of not knowing from one day to the next whether we will have a job, a home, or even our personal freedoms. When does that end?

I'll tell you when. Mark it down on your calendar: November 4th.

That is the day we, Americans all, cast our ballots, and when the vast majority of us, reasoning, honest, hard-working citizens, cast our votes against you and for someone who is actually interested in us and our welfare. The day that we sweep away the old, the stale, and let in a breath of fresh air, redolent with new ideas and hope. A day long overdue.