Debbie N. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} wild_irises) wrote,@ 2004-11-03 08:04:00 |
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Wednesday Morning, Might As Well Be 3 A.M.
You know, it wasn't going to be that good under John Kerry, either. The main thing that would have been different is that "we" would have had a better chance to push our agenda, the agenda which had already lost this year in the Democratic Party selection of a candidate. This way, asred_frog points out, we won't have to watch a Democratic administration preside over the disaster in Iraq. We won't have the horrible experience of the millions of people who voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 because they hated the war in Vietnam. We will have, on the other hand, a faith-based, anti-science, anti-environmentalist, dangerous administration working against the best interests of 98% of the American people, and 99.5% (at least) of the population of the world.
We have three choices: we can leave, which (as our friends who are not citizens of this country will tell us) will hardly save us from the effects of the Imperial Presidency. We can give in to despair. Or we can live as if what we do matters, even when we feel the most victimized, the least powerful. Let's face it, those of us with computers, and LiveJournals, and roofs over our heads are not the most victimized.
Here's playwright and inspiration Tony Kushner:
I don't speak to God, myself. But here's my plan: to get up every day, to live in the world as I have been living in the world, only more so, to do my work on myself, and to do my work in the world. And not to let those hatemongers make me more of a hater than a lover. Most days.
You know, it wasn't going to be that good under John Kerry, either. The main thing that would have been different is that "we" would have had a better chance to push our agenda, the agenda which had already lost this year in the Democratic Party selection of a candidate. This way, as
red_frog points out, we won't have to watch a Democratic administration preside over the disaster in Iraq. We won't have the horrible experience of the millions of people who voted for Lyndon Johnson in 1964 because they hated the war in Vietnam. We will have, on the other hand, a faith-based, anti-science, anti-environmentalist, dangerous administration working against the best interests of 98% of the American people, and 99.5% (at least) of the population of the world. We have three choices: we can leave, which (as our friends who are not citizens of this country will tell us) will hardly save us from the effects of the Imperial Presidency. We can give in to despair. Or we can live as if what we do matters, even when we feel the most victimized, the least powerful. Let's face it, those of us with computers, and LiveJournals, and roofs over our heads are not the most victimized.
Here's playwright and inspiration Tony Kushner:
I believe our despair is a lie we are telling ourselves. In many other periods of history, people, ordinary citizens, routinely set aside hours, days, time in their lives for doing the work of politics, some of which is glam and revolutionary and some of which is dull and electoral and tedious and not especially pure -- and the world changed because of the work they did. That's what we're starting now. It requires setting aside the time to do it, and then doing it. Not any single one of us has to or possibly can save the world, but together in some sort of concert, in even not-especially-coordinated concert, with all of us working where we see work to be done, the world will change. And we have to do it by showing up places, our bodies in places, turn off the fucking computers, leave the Web and the Net -- and show up, our bodies at meetings and demos and rallies and leafletting corners.
Because this is a moment in history that needs us to begin, each of us every day at her or his own pace, slowly and surely rediscovering how to be politically active, how to organize our disparate energies into effective group action -- and I choose to believe we will do what is required. Act. Organize. Assemble. Oppose. Resist. Find a place a cause a group a friend and start, today, now now now, continue continue continue. Being politically active is for the citizens of a democracy maybe the best way of speaking to God and hearing Her answer: You exist. If we are active, if we are activist, She replies to us: You specifically exist. Mazel tov. Now get busy, She replies. Maintain the world by changing the world.
I don't speak to God, myself. But here's my plan: to get up every day, to live in the world as I have been living in the world, only more so, to do my work on myself, and to do my work in the world. And not to let those hatemongers make me more of a hater than a lover. Most days.
