more election related (withdrawal symptoms and surprise)
Posted by Chris Stein at 11/11/2008 01:51:00 PM

back to work yesterday, we ARE in fact beginning work on a new recording, more later...

so yesterday i was perusing the stuff out there (here) in cyber land, i just wrote 'Obama' into google to see what popped up and lo i was confronted by just insane racist rants given credibility i suppose by appearing as they do in 'forbes' and to the 'mail on line'... see i didnt realize at first that i was dealing with the 'daily mail' and that these two strange reports; one entitled "Obama the divider" and the other "say goodbye to the United States" (really) were the product of British not American crazy racists... ah! the light dawns, i guess the overt racism of various British peers of the realm is less understated and just plain out there than their counterparts over here... i guess you in the UK are used to this stuff, that is the more direct comments made by lunatics in the media, here its usually been unstated the way the opposition in the campaign used the word 'terrorist' as racial code... the 'say goodbye' piece was penned by one Peter Hitchens... he reports that the United States is now on its way to becoming the 'third world' nation that the UK already is, though he doesnt spell it out we must presume that his vision of the UK as third world is the result of the 'fuzzie wuzzies' and 'coloreds' who have come to his shores... he does go on to report anecdotally about his being in Washington DC on election day and that while he noted a few whites celebrating "among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy." of course again we are to presume that this is a terrible thing... you get the idea... so i was real fucking pissed off for a day or so then wow! i am feeling defensive about the US government! whats gonna happen next? a really interesting week


aftermath
Posted by Chris Stein at 11/09/2008 10:06:00 AM

the final weeks that lead up to the election were steeped in a weird tension that was new for me in relation to the world of politics... i dont recall previously being so deeply involved with the outcome of any political event... i have mentioned watching the last election night four years ago from a hotel room in Lima Peru and feeling disgusted with the results but this time along with many others i was really caught up in the whole thing; daily looking at the polls on 'realclearpolitics.com' while engaging in endless discussions etc etc so i was very relieved by what went down... many things that i hadnt thought of came to the surface not the least of which was that should 'our side' not prevail there might be a lot more therapy needed than for those on the 'other side' happily this wasn't the case

we dont have a TV mostly cause of the kids and i absorbed all my election media from the internet... lots of time looking at clips on YouTube... after a while it hit me that every time someone posted some awful comment, raving about niggers and terrorists that this was being viewed by the whole world... this is part of the image of the US in the eyes of the world... all the stupid racism and negativity; and then the very people who are putting this stuff out there are the ones who are saying "why do they hate us!??"

in relation to the election there were more emotional moments for me than i can count... i will always remember watching the Chicago speech while sitting on the floor with Barbara in front of the computer... the kids were both aware of what was going on to varying degrees; Vali is just three so she only got a bit of it but Akira really understood at least that we were hoping that this Obama guy was going to be the next president... and a great deal of my seeing things though the kids eyes made for even more heavy emotions; while discussing all of the ramifications of the win Akira asked "what are slaves?" after hearing us use the word, how then does one explain this to a little kid who barely knows what a 'war' is?

really for the first time in years i feel like its not fifty fifty in the balance of the dark and light sides any more... for so long now so many of us have been living in this anti-government mode that its become second nature... those of us that were teenagers in the sixties had a taste of what was possible, what could be; all that togetherness, it was such a brief thing... i always wonder where it went, what happened to make that huge positive outpouring turn negative... now overnight there's a return, this is a lot what it felt like back then... this is the first that is a real counter to 9-11, an exorcism of that event maybe

so thanks to all of you who helped make this happen...i know that i am going to keep up my interest in what happens with Obama and the new government, maybe things are gonna lighten up now, it would be really nice for all of us...

dont forget terrorism doesnt work on people who aren't afraid