this fucking election

LOL, a reminder of this long long long presidential campaign: http://thisfuckingelection.com/

Blogged, Just for Fun, humor, Politics, election2008, Comments (4)
Tagged as: humor,politics,elections2008,links November 04, 2008 @ 12:00 pm

i voted… i cried

the following comes from a blog on the houston chronicle.  i thought it was quite touching and i was astounded at the hateful comments left in response to it, though i suppose nothing should shock me any more.

i thought it was appropriate for ~election day~, so i’m quoting it here…

Early voting began in Houston, Texas last week, and over the past few days I have received text messages from an assortment of friends and acquaintances who have my cell phone number (about 2,400 folks have that number) with messages celebrating their vote like “I Voted” and many more versions. The one message that struck me the most was the one that came to me via a text message a few days ago saying “I voted…I Cried.” I thought for a moment that I have never in my entire life connected the act of voting with the response of tears. But these are not normal times. I reflected on what must have triggered such an emotional response, I imagined the voting booth and what must have gone through my friend’s mind the moment the ballot was cast but I still thought to my self “what an extreme emotional response for such a routine act.”  It was time for my own experience on Sunday afternoon so I stopped at an early voting place in my neighborhood, got in a line of voters about a quarter mile long, inched along for about an hour, walked through the certification process, step up to the new fangled voting booth and scrolled through the long list of candidates and pressed the big red button marked “cast”. I voted… then I cried.

I cried as I reflected on the sacrifices made by countless men and women of all races for the right to vote in America. A right that came to pass in spite of barking dogs, water hoses, nightsticks and armed militias. 

I cried as I recalled the murder of voting-rights activists in Philadelphia, Mississippi, and the unprovoked attack on March 7, 1965, by state troopers on peaceful marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that ultimately led to the Voting Rights Act.

I cried as I remembered my Auntie Mae Mae’s commitment to the right to vote as she and her friends stood on street corners campaigning for their candidate of choice ultimately managing elections at “colored only” polling places under the close scrutiny of poll watchers.

I cried as I thought about the power my mother most have experienced in the old days when the thick heavy curtain of vintage voting booths closed around her, protecting her privacy as she picked me up allowing me to turn the levers for her candidates of choice giving me my first glimpse of what freedom really meant in America.

I cried some more as I reflected on a recent phone call from my two daughters who shared their youthful enthusiasm regarding participating in this years election

And finally, I cried because my dad loved the political process but died four years ago on the 4th of July before having an opportunity see, discuss, experience, debate, curse, complain, and vote in this years monumental election. 

I had an experience with inequality when I was nine years old that left a large scar on my spirit until now. On last Sunday I voted and that scar began to heal.

go vote.

Blogged, Current Events, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,news,elections2008 November 04, 2008 @ 08:00 am

h-town all stars rep obama

The H-Town All Stars don’t only want you to vote Tuesday—they want you to cast a ballot for the right man. So goes Obama ‘08, a new tune featuring local rappers Bun B, Chamillionaire, Paul Wall, Cory Mo and Trae.

listen here:

go vote.

Blogged, Just for Fun, music, Current Events, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: music,politics,elections2008,obama,mp3s November 04, 2008 @ 06:23 am

this election

22 Things About the Election that I am both Excited and Scared About

1. I am excited that the American people may be more mature, wise, and reflective than I would have guessed them ever capable of being. I am scared that they may not be.

2. I am excited that Obama’s victory could be a cathartic moment for our country as America moves one step closer to confronting, and maybe if we are really lucky, of conquering the demons that plague its racial subconscious. I am afraid those demons may be semi-permanent fixtures in our politics and culture.

3. I am excited about Obama winning. I am scared that if he loses, what that defeat says about America, our future, and the prospects for a truly shared and democratic political culture.

4. I am excited that Barack could be what America hopes and dreams him to be. I am scared that if Obama is just a man, if he is not superhuman, if he is merely just a good president, that this won’t be good enough.

5. I am excited that these last few months have been witness to conversations about race, class, and gender (even if they were often “coded”) that hint at a need and want for a real conversation about this country’s future and what is/was an often ugly and shared history. I am scared that these first steps will be final steps and that our much needed national conversation won’t continue.

read the rest of the 22 Things About the Election that I am both Excited and Scared About

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008 November 04, 2008 @ 06:13 am

yes, we can

though i don’t often agree with andrew sullivan, he has gotten this right:

If I were to give one reason why I believe electing Barack Obama is essential tomorrow, it would be an end to this dark, lawless period in American constitutional government. The domestic cultural and political reasons for an Obama presidency remain as strong as they were when I wrote “Goodbye To All That” over a year ago. His ability to get us past the culture war has been proven in this campaign, in the generation now coming of age that will elect him if they turn out, in Obama’s staggering ability not to take the bait.

Unlike McCain, Obama has never wavered on torture or habeas corpus or on keeping the executive branch under the law. His deep understanding and awareness of the Constitution eclipses McCain’s. Coming from the opposing party, he will also be able to restore confidence that what lies within America’s secret government - the one constructed by Bush and Cheney beyond any accountability, law or morality - will be ended or cleaned up. He can restore critically needed trust again - and force the Democratic party to take responsibility for a war which we all need to own, and take responsibility for, again.

The truth is: we are in a war for the future of human civilization. We are fighting for a world in which destructive technology need not collide with fierce religious fundamentalism to annihilate us all; for a world in which dialogue across cultures and religions and regions (even within America) is essential if we are to survive. We need to win the argument in the developing world; we need to reach out and persuade the Muslim middle - especially the next generation in Iran and Iraq and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and Western Europe - about the virtues of democracy and constitutionalism. We cannot do that if we trash our own values ourselves. It is self-defeating. We cannot be a beacon to the world until we have reformed ourselves. In this war, we are also fighting for an America that does not lose its soul in fighting our enemy. Just because we are fighting evil does not mean we cannot ourselves succumb to it. That is what my Christian faith teaches me - that no nation has a monopoly on virtue, and that every generation has to earn its own integrity. I fear and believe we have given away far too much - and that, while this loss is permanent, it can nonetheless be mitigated by a new start, a new direction, a new statement that the America the world once knew and loved is back.

It will not be easy. The world will soon remember why it resents America as well as loves it. But until this unlikely fellow with the funny ears and strange name and exotic biography emerged on the scene, I had begun to wonder if it was possible at all. I had almost given up hope, and he helped restore it. That is what is stirring out there; and although you are welcome to mock me for it, I remain unashamed. As someone once said, in the unlikely story of America, there is never anything false about hope. Obama, moreover, seems to bring out the best in people, and the calmest, and the sanest. He seems to me to have a blend of Midwestern good sense, an intuitive understanding of the developing world that is as much our future now as theirs’, an analyst’s mind and a poet’s tongue. He is human. He is flawed. He will make mistakes. His passivity and ambiguity are sometimes weaknesses as well as strengths.

But there is something about his rise that is also supremely American, a reminder of why so many of us love this country so passionately and are filled with such grief at what has been done to it and in its name. I endorse Barack Obama because I will not give up on America, because I believe in America, and in her constitution and decency and character and strength.

And the world needs that America now as much as it ever has. Can we start that healing, that rebirth, tomorrow?

Yes. We. Can.

i’m not nearly that nationalistic; however, i do believe that america should strive to restore the dignity, decency and hope lost during these past 8 years.  we should strive to do ~better than that~.  we ~need~ change and, without hope, there can be no change.  when the highest office in the nation has been achieved by someone once completely locked out of the process, it instills hope in the minds of the children watching this election.  it makes the world just that much bigger for them and, this time, for all the right reasons (no C student, obama).

“rosa sat so martin could walk.  martin walked so obama could run.  obama runs so our children can fly.”

go vote.

Blogged, Politics, election2008, Comments (0)
Tagged as: politics,elections2008,obama November 04, 2008 @ 05:36 am