Thanks a lot, asshole

At the gas station this morning, and this story came over my local NPR station.

One person injured during altercation at healthcare rally in T.O.

TPM's already got a link up, so the story isn't staying local. There are, as well, conflicting eye-witness accounts of the incident, who did what, the usual. The basic facts are not disputed, though: an anti-reformer and a pro-reformer mixed it up, and the anti-reformer got his finger bitten off at the first knuckle.

Depressing that a pro-reform demonstrator committed assault? Oh, absolutely. Here we've been asserting all summer that we just want a discussion based on fact, that we're trying to be rational and democratic (please note the small d), while the opposition is intent on pushing crazy paranoid junk and intimidation. And someone here in my little town just lost it and irresponsibly engaged in confrontation, and committed assault.

Dude, whoever you are: that's MY corner you just shit on, and I don't really care who started it.

That's the corner where we demonstrated every weekend from November 2002 through March 2003 against war with Iraq, the corner we've returned to many times since, to rally or to mourn. That's the corner where we stood silently while people yelled obscenities at us, that's the corner where we stood in pouring rain while Catholic schoolgirls engaged in counter-demonstration across the street.

That's the corner where I stood smiling, eyes full of tears, as teenagers gleefully and proudly joined our ranks in support of marriage equality and against discrimination in all its forms.

That's the corner where we have peacefully gathered and sometimes cried and always been respectful, reminding our neighbors that here in Reagan country, there is a liberal population.

And that's the corner where I have personally engaged in some amazing conversations, like the time a young Army recruit came to ask me to explain if we could support the troops and oppose the war. The Catholic schoolgirls I mentioned above, who were really very brave, out there in the rain, and we talked about Catholic beliefs (Pope John Paul, remember, spoke out against the invasion of Iraq), and how they could support the invasion if they understood that civilians would die.

I wasn't there last night. I haven't been there for a demonstration since shortly after prop 8 passed. I don't respond to the MoveOn organizing emails lately, because there are several people here in the Conejo who are well-connected and can be relied upon to answer the call (in fact, often several people put up the same event). They're very good at this, so I'm not much needed, really.

One thing you can generally count on at larger demonstrations is that there will be a group charged with being peacemakers. Often, their jobs will be to just keep the two sides physically apart. At the 2004 March for Women's Lives in DC, attendees were asked to come to peacekeeper training the night before. During the March, peacekeepers often formed human chains, arms linked, keeping the marchers separated from the anti-abortion protesters who staged a "die-in" at the front of the march (they were removed by law enforcement), and stationed in clumps along the way. At Camp Casey in the summer of 2005, a firm no-man's-land was monitored by both the local police (who were wonderful, and friends of the Camp) and designated campers. In both cases, in addition to the peacekeepers, all attendees were admonished at the start to refrain from engaging the other side in anger.

In TO, the corner has always been so small, 35 to 150 people, and always familiar faces. Organized peacekeeping hasn't been necessary. Individuals reminding each other to behave is really all it's ever taken. There has been no hard fast rule about crossing the street, because people who cross the street do so to shake hands and agree that we all have good intentions. 

(Ok, there was the one time I lost it on a neo-Nazi, but I'm only human and anyway once I realized I was screaming I forced myself to walk away.)

So it would seem that the conversation in this country has become so heated that even here, in little TO, the civility of the population cannot be taken for granted anymore. I'm sickened that our corner was disgraced last night. I'm wondering if I feel a responsibility to be there from now on, or if I'm having grandiose notions of just how much help am.

I have no wise conclusions as of this morning. I'm just sad, and angry too.

Incidentally, it's interesting, in a vaguely nauseating way, that the intensity of emotion over health care reform trumps the public concern over the invasion of Iraq.

Hi, I'm a member of the "Hateful Left"

Over the course of the Bush administration, I've repeatedly started and repeatedly stopped an essay or a letter on a theme that feels so huge to me, I can't ever get it concisely into words. I'm not sure I can today, but speeches at the Republican National Convention have picked scab after scab, and so I think I'll try to get this theme out, let it be my summation of two weeks of conventions.

My theme has always started with the words George Bush doesn't want to be my president. This week I have come to the conclusion that John McCain doesn't, either. Once I would have thought that, as different as we are, he'd at least assume that "willing patriots" included people like me. At the end of a full week of speeches by his surrogates and supporters, I am left with the inescapable conclusion that that John McCain, if he existed, is now too beholden to the radical community organizers who get out the ideological vote. The rest of us, you moderates and faithful liberals, you whiners, you 70% of the American public, have been cast aside.

Once the campaign of 2000 ended, when George W Bush took the White House still promising to be "a uniter, not a divider", his method for unity was creative: all citizens who disagreed with anything he said or did simply ceased to exist. All decisions were explained with The American People want..., any challenge to a decision was met with, The American People want.... Each time he made a decision, he chose the path guaranteed to be met with the greatest controversy and opposition, and then sneered at any opposition for not trusting his judgement for the sake of The American People.

(Except in his first stem cell decision, summer of 2001. This time, he made a wishy-washy 50-50 call, because The American People had to include both Nancy Reagan and James Dobson.)

When the March For Women's Lives brought over a million people to the National Mall in support of a vast array of policies: comprehensive sex-ed, access to contraception, canceling the deadly global gag rule, and yes: protecting Roe v Wade, We didn't expect the president to acknowledge us, really. He was up at Camp David, anyway, and even though he always acknowledges the comparatively tiny annual anti-abortion demonstrations in DC, it would have been a stretch to think he'd give us a wave.

What we didn't expect was that the media would for the most part ignore the sheer massiveness of the March, or that Karen Hughes would be trotted out to respond. The American People, she said, understand since 9/11 that the US is different from terrorists because we value a Culture of Life.

When challenged her words later, she said she had never compared pro-choice citizens to terrorists- which is true, strictly and carefully speaking. What she did, and what she was not challenged on, was sweep our very citizenship out from under us by excluding us from The American People.

The Bush administration, with back up from the press, did this consistently throughout his first term. There was no thoughtful opposition to the invasion of Iraq: there were Anti-War groups and Pro-America groups. Meaning that my position was, by default, Anti-American. Dixie Chicks CD burning rallies? Pro-America! Get a camera out there! March on the White House by veteran's groups? Never happened, as far as the administration and the media were concerned. A recent analysis of guests on the major news outlets during this period found that opposition to the invasion was consistently presented by foreigners. That is, Americans presented to us by the news media almost uniformly supported the invasion.

It's like being in a dream, where you keep trying to scream, but no sound comes out. Is it any wonder so many of us took to the streets?

This rhetorical exclusion continued apace until finally, Bush redefined the terms. After the election of 2004, rather than attempting to pretend that The American People wanted anything in unanimity, he said he would work with everyone, if they supported his goals. Which meant not Goals, like dealing with Social Security in such a way that the government meets its responsibilities, but specific policies: private accounts for all.

At least this time he was honest.

After the summer of 2005 (Camp Casey, Katrina, and falling poll numbers- trifecta!) surrogates like Mary Matalin, rather than ignoring us entirely, went on the air to offer cheap analysis and faux pity. It's just so sad, these people. They're so angry. Bush began to at least acknowledge that some of The American People disagree with him, on a lot. But that does not mean his style of governing changed, nor has the rhetorical exile for most of us. The press continues to court the fiction that opposing Bush on anything is "leftist" or "extreme", even when poll data belies that.

The party George Bush leads enjoys this kind of with us/ against us bravado, and has no desire to change it. In fact, the party's strength has always been in hardening that rhetorical divide- there is no political gain, for them, in respect for differences, in bipartisanship, in synthesis of ideas.

The mythology of John McCain lies in his perceived rejection of such division. Working across the aisle, all of that. This week, however, a week when he presumably needed to both fire up the Base and make an appeal to moderates and independents, the convention has been about nothing except defining, once again, the The American People who attended his convention and debasing the rest of us.

President Bush, confined to a few minutes from a remote location, still managed to remind the delegates why the campaign mattered: The Hateful Left is obviously still a threat, and John McCain won't let them win.

(Which is interesting, because on what may be described as McCain's two signature issues over the past 4 years- immigration and torture- he capitulated not to any Hateful Left, but to the nationalist right and President Bush, respectively.)

Romney sneered at us. Guiliani made fun of us. Sarah Palin skinned us like a recent kill. The Senator from Arizona? He made some noise about respecting Obama for what he's accomplished, but it rang empty when followed up with the willing patriots line. Let's face it: Patriot means, to them, whatever they've decided it to mean this week. Willing Patriot means supporting whatever it is they want to do this week. If they win, we are headed straight to rhetorical and practical exile, once again.

McCain does not have the Rove-built get out the vote organization that Bush did. He's counting on those red meat delegates and the Focus on the Family email list to win this thing. They do not want to hear that the other side has a rightful seat at the table, nor will they work to elect anyone who won't harden the divide.

I look forward to packing away my giant Sharpies and giving up the need to march in the streets. I'm hoping that we can have an administration for all Americans, one that won't pretend that faithful opposition and valid counter arguments don't exist, that won't seek to define everything outside of their preferences as "fringe", "left", "hateful", "angry". I am hoping that under such a presidency, I would lose the scream stuck in my throat feeling, and actual work could be done in the federal government, for the betterment of our country.

John McCain, like George Bush before him, does not seek to be my president. To my way of thinking, he doesn't deserve the office.

Crazy-ass friends

Don't forget to tell them you love them.

Because you do, and because when one of them suffers a tragic loss, you will want to be there for them. Unintentional walls between you will feel really, really bad.

After a respite, the keyboard beckons

It's been almost two weeks since I last logged on. Knoxville took my attention for a time. I worked out a local service with two other women in their honor, which we will hold tomorrow night. We'll acknowledge the sadness and anger, honor the dead and express our support for the surviving community. And we'll reaffirm our shared values. Putting this together has been a powerful experience for me. Almost no writing was required; there have been so many beautiful words written by UUs across the country. Creating the service was almost a process of simple selection and editing.

In addition to Knoxville, certain home and hearth things have been demanding, and so I haven't made the time to write about exterior things.

But my personal internal is often moved forcefully by the external, so it's best that I blog, even if it has no outcome other than that I have spent some time forming sentences.

Ahhh... so off I go.

So apparently I'm really white.

According to the Stuff White People Like blog, I am almost unbearably white in the left-leaning, educated, upper middle class coastal sort of way. How I got to be this white without grad school I have no idea- so maybe I'm just a poseur. Still my love of my Prius, David Sedaris, Wes Anderson movies, and "The Idea of Soccer" alone would seem to cinch my place in the halls of pretentious lefty whiteness.

I have another indicator of unbearable lefty whiteness this morning.

Yesterday at a party, my friend Tina said, "I have to ask you something, and I have to see your face." I gazed earnestly at her (or, as earnestly as I could, given the amount of rum and fruit juice coursing through my brain). She looked intently at me and said:

"Jesse Helms died. What do you think about that?"

And I am certain that I screwed up my face a bit as I tried to formulate a response. Because, as a person who fits so neatly in the category we're discussing, I have standards. I cannot take pleasure in the death of a human being. And I cannot speak ill of the dead (which is why we all love Hunter S. Thompson so much. When Nixon died, he alone could pen a an obit that refused to elevate a figure we all considered despicable.)

I have other standards, too. I love art, loathe racism (especially in its hateful mainstream form- something that Helms was exceptionally good at exploiting.)

My standards, in this moment, are completely at odds.

When Ronald Reagan died, I could acknowledge that he was the President, and give respect. I could say, honestly, that in his personal writings he seemed to be such a sweet person, such a good friend.

I cannot imagine having a friend like Jesse Helms.

I think I finally said something not quite witty, like what a tragedy for him that he died before realizing his dream of getting all the artists and uppity negroes into gulags.

But I didn't feel good about it.

The "Civility Scam"

My crazy-ass friend sent me an email this week (which was nice, thank you). One of the things he said sort of cracked me up,

I had actually never seen your website before that day and I was a bit shocked by the tone of it. I suppose I shouldn't have been, as it is typical of tone found at most Leftwing blogs.

Ah. The tone thing.

I responded that I figured I'd seem mild to someone who hangs out at LGF and links to Malkin, but there you go. No accounting for subjective preception.

Anyway, FDL has a bit on the "Civility Scam" this morning, a short one, but still rings close to home.

Primary unease

First, I would like to send congratulations to the GOP- who've managed to grow their anti-voter efforts since the 2000 elections so succesfully. Back then, they only threw out Dem votes. Now, they throw out their own.

And I'd like to note that I was having a lot more fun before I voted in the primary. I liked not owning any of the candidates. I liked knowing that our side offers strong choices, and that I'd be happy with whomever won.

Now that I've voted, I feel like I have a stake in the Clinton/Obama race, and it isn't as much fun.

I voted Obama, by the way. And I've been thinking about a cabinet.

AG: John Dean
State: Richardson
Labor: Edwards

That's as far as I've got... any ideas out there?

Primaries

What to think, what to do...

I confess to a yearning for our own JFK, and that yearning leads me toward Obama. And any of us should be so smart and dedicated and CLASSY as Edwards. However, my son has done his own research and informed me that Hillary's policy plans are much more clearly stated and actionable (from the mouths of babes...).

Doing my own cruise of the candidate's websites, I tend to agree with the boy that Hillary's plans seem concrete and actionable. Edwards offers an 80 page download on his economic plan, and Obama's has TOO MANY WORDS.

When a geek like me thinks there's too much information, there's probably too much information.

So, despite my concerns about triangulation and equivocation, I'm leaning toward Hillary.

And I'm willing to bet that there will be no consensus among my friends and fellow travelers when Super Duper Tuesday hits.