Dear Friend and Reader:
I DON’T KNOWВ about you, but I’m still in a state of shock.
ThingsВ will probably sink in around mid-January when Obama is sworn in as President, but its out of habit: based on the lastВ ten years ofВ political and psychicВ disaster management courtesy of theВ Clinton impeachment,В “Shock and Awe” in Iraq, the shredding of the Constitution by George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, war is peace, dark is light, Alberto Gonzales, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice and the entire cast of characters — I’ve had enough for a lifetime.
This comes afterВ eight years of Bush the Father, eight years of Nixon and eight years of Reagan. Over that period of timeВ I’ve built a pretty complex defense mechanism. But with the last eight years,В more so than others, I’ve been lied to, patronized and had my sense of democracy robbed, my country despoiled, innocent people torturedВ and the planet furious with us for causing even MORE havoc — allВ by a bunch of greedy, brutal and sadisticВ thugs at the very top of the Administration.
Saying my basic trust inВ people is shaken is putting it mildly. I’ve been made to sit through another war I didn’t want, and over theВ last decade I’ve been working to manage my anger and rage at varying levels. I feel like the battered wife who has just left the house in the middle of the night with nothing other than her wallet and her passport,В finally through with being beaten every night by her abusive drunken lout of a husband for burning the fish sticks. Looking inward, I feel a toxicity that I need to purge.
This morning, I got an e-mail from a friend of mine who wrote in response to Obama’s victory, simply:
Well I feel this – but in even more extreme terms…. Sorry but it will take some time for my fury to dissipate over the last 8 years. I am not there yet – obviously.
A couple of weeks ago, I started a discussion thread about living in a PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)В nation. I asked what do youВ think healers will be faced with? Crisis hot lines? Classrooms? Now that the election is over, and a new President from the other party will be taking office, what are your thoughts about what happened to you these last 48 – 72 hours?
How has your consciousness changed? How has it not? What feels different? What feels the same? There are politics and there are personal politics. For the sake of continuing discussion from the previous weeks, let’s stay on the personal.
Where are you at? What’s going on for you?
Yours and truly,
Fe Bongolan from San Francisco
As a healer, I have been getting busier and busier and . . . . It seems all a tangle with the astrology/energy ramping up. I have worked hard over several decades to heal my own personal PTSD, so I am personally in a good place. This election year, though, has been bizarre: Obama as the antichrist? Yes, my mother said that!!! Yikes. One friend – well I amend that – acquaintance has been filtered out of my inbox because she kept pounding on me about how awful Obama is. I still don’t understand what her issues were – perhaps disappointment as a Clinton supporter.
It is good to connect with those who are getting on with healing, growing and moving into the future. Thankfully I have lots of those people in my life.
It is good to cleanse and rest up for the work ahead.
I am mostest happy for those with slavery history because of the color of their skin. I sense an important validation. I am mostest excited about the younger generation. I sense they were the deciders. And I am mostest guilty that I feel relieved as the younger generation steps up to the plate. It is as if a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’m mostest snotty, when I say, I have been really weary babysitting younger workers in maintaining a system that is outdated, one that they obviously have no interest in. I have had to run hard to pick up the slack while being spit on as they played the game to move up in the old corrupt order.
I’ve been waiting for you. It’s your future.
I would say, after my experiences, I am exhaling.
~J writes: “Now I find out there are thirty million of me and one hundred million of him.”
One can only hope…
1898-1919: GI / Greatest Generation
1920-1942: Silent Generation
1943-1961: Baby Boomers
1962-1981: Generation X
1982-2003: Millennials
2004-2026: (as yet unnamed)
Funny this was here. I’ve been reading about it for a couple of days. I finally decided I am not a genexer: I am an outlier.
My son was born in 1992. I was a young parent intentionally because I thought, look: I’ve been walking under the mushroom cloud you people invented my whole life. I procreated, on purpose, that’s how much I don’t believe your bullshit.
Now I find out there are thirty million of me and one hundred million of him. I guess all of us were thinking the same thing.
~j
The People came out! In Chicago. In New York. In the streets of DC, under cover of darkness breaking into song: America the Beautiful. And I’m crying and crying.
In my fever dreams today I was trying to figure out why. You know how this is when you’re in bed: last year I started an application to become the citizen of another country besides America, should I still do that now? I want another master’s degree, I already have two. Why do I want that? I don’t know, what else is there to do? The Ghostdancers were there: this is about Imperialism. This is about the Indian American wars, the colonization of the continent, it really should not be but it is.
In Serbia the young people put on their thin blue jeans and packed their signs and drove their tiny aluminum cars to the capital, singing all the way. It was a peaceful revolution, they said. It was thrilling to behold, but puzzling. What happened? *How* did that happen?
When the people come out in the streets at the end, something much worse than bad taxes is going on. Something worse, even worse than an ill-considered war, worse than wiretaps, worse. This is not just about the First Black President.
When The People are crying tears of joy at midnight, something very fucking bad has gone down, something we never entirely named in the first place.
My mom told me today Rush Limbaugh was crowing about the stock market. Folks! The market is down eight hundred points! You wanted Obama? You wanted Obama? Well, you know what! ( and here you can imagine his tiny drug-addicted mouth spitting the words) That’s what you *get*.
That worries me. The cavalry is pissed.
~j
Nance… Great visualization. May I suggest one appendix?
Put happy demons under the drain, with great big, detergent bellies. Have ’em gulp and suck and lick all the delicious nastiness of the last eight (or whatever) years. Have it give them exactly what they need and want; then see that deep down in their happy demon core there an enzymatic cycle that absolutely retains every transformative, nutritive element of those horrors, and absolutely commits to Emptiness everything else.
(Hear: Emptiness is not exhaustion, it is the *potential* of an activity or idea before it is intentionally committed to one effect or another. Everything starts in Emptiness, even the most criminal acts. Let what does not serve to clarify our innate kaboom-monster-kissy-love-powers return to Emptiness…)
On another site, an astrologer was commenting on how Obama is our first president with his pluto in virgo. Here is the link:
http://www.jeannetteastrosoul.com/astro-soul-blog-beyond-your/2008/11/6/from-astrological-musings-and-now-we-move-forward.html
I really related to her comments. I am a baby boomer, but I am a 2nd wave baby boomer born with a virgo pluto. There has been always a disconnect with the first wave baby boomers, who always seemed a bit full of themselves. They also seemed to completely unaware of their own hypocrisy. The last two presidents had pluto in leo. Honestly, I think that the men were more interested in having the position of president, then in being leaders.
OK here’s my PTSD healing visualization:
Imagine the United States as a bathtub full of water. Now throw in 8 Bush years; the stolen elections, all the injustice, the torture, the lies, the war, the insults to intelligence and dignity, the regular outrage with no outlet, Gitmo… put it all in there. Now the water is black, thick with the darkness of it all. Imagine the election of Barack Obama pulls out the drain plug. Let it all go down the drain, release it, all of it. Now turn on the water. Let the clear clean water rinse out the tub and when you are ready, put the drain plug back and imagine the clear water as all the things you want to bring into the future of America. Peace in Iraq, health care for all, protection for the environment, clean energy, clean cars, acceptance of people of all religions, all races, all sexual preferences… you pick. Let it pour into the the bathtub. Let the water be light and clean and clear and full of your vision for the future. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Fe is correct – we all need to roll up our sleeves and take part in the transformation of our country. It’s going to take radical trust. It’s also going to take acceptance of all those who are afraid of the future we visualize. Easy to say, tough to do. Practice listening.
Fe,
Good point – there is a very positive ‘stripping away’ that is occurring now. There is both Brahma and Shiva energy in the current phase – death and birth at the same time. Resurrection of things thought dead.
mystes:
Sound advice about healing the body.
In fact I will take you up on taking the next step up and drive up to Calistoga. Lots of natural alkaline hot springs. Its “off-season” there and so la touristas will be long gone.
Funny thing about the psychic swords one forges in life. Had a deep conversation with one of my work buds today about that very same thing. Got to make sure that at time and place appropriate moments, that it is more ornamental than habitual.
I know that with getting older, energy conservation and sorting away the non-essential expenditure of energy was critical to my physical health. And I figured out something else. I needed that energy to dance.
i sat through election night in the south side of chicago and then flew to nyc the next morning
i felt the difference
though i’ve been living outside the country in asia for the past year
maybe that’s why I could sense it more
i’m a brown asian ;p and for the first time since i can’t remember when there was a sense in the air of “its okay to think nonwhite people are cool” to be honest it felt a tad like “ooo now brown is trendy”
mind you I’m not complaning
but its a good shift that’s taken place, albeit a subtle one
every cabbie will dream big for his son, and I have a photo of a black boy reading a book and making notes right there in a train station
“A couple of weeks ago, I started a discussion thread about living in a PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) nation. I asked what do you think healers will be faced with? Crisis hot lines? Classrooms?”
I think healers have always had a responsibility to educate their community about self-reliance and to remind everybody that we have their own “inner healer” that we need to awaken and reconnect with our inherent healing abilities and personal power. We all have Chiron somewhwere in our charts. Industrial medicine teaches us to disconnect from our personal healing abilities. The belief that only doctors who can afford expensive educations know and understand the mysteries and complexities (and simplicities) of the human mind and body is detrimental to the collective national health. I am not suggesting we stop seeing our physicians. I am suggesting we take personal responsibility and empower ourselves to learn and understand about what makes us healthy and unhealthy, so we have to visit them less frequently. The internet is a place to start, although filtering the misinformation being spread today, can make for an arduous journey.
I was lucky enough to have a French teacher in public junior high school for 8th and 9th grade who would give us the option to learn meditation on certain Fridays or around holidays when attention deficits decreased. Those not interested in participating were asked to observe quietly or given a library pass for the period. Observing one’s breath is a simple exercise to reduce daily and accumulated stress and tension.
Will public school districts ever recognize the value of teaching breathwork if it is introduced without the “new age” and religious baggage that words like “yoga” and “pranayama” and even “meditation” conjure for Bible Belters? Praying is a form of “guided”meditation that scientifically gives similar health benefits, the difference being one is focused on an external relationship with God and other is focused on an internal relationship with self. Some practices offer focus on both. Children could be given an optional basic exercise to practice when they are sent to “time out.” Would productivity suffer if employers offered classes on the clock at the worksite? How about removing prescription drug advertisements from television? And maybe also reducing the frequency of military recruitment and combat simulation video game commercials while we’re at it? I’m looking at you Comedy Central.
Meditation reduces the need for medication.
“Nervous tension, man’s invention,
Is the biggest killer that’s around today
Let the tension out or it will build and build inside
And strike you down some day
Nervous tension, man’s invention
Is the biggest waste of human energy
Let the tension out, or it will surely kill
And that will be a tragedy…
..It sure beats quaaludes
It sure beats cocaine
Even Freud recomends it
To ease the strain…
..If it’s good for your health
It’s good for your mind
If it keeps you together
It’s really all right
We oh we oh”
Let me hear everybody.
“Oh oh oh ah ah ah”
– from “National Health” by the Kinks
Fe… If you can afford a footrub, check your local Hilton. This is one of the best-kept secrets around. My membership is $65 a month — mine has come to me as a gift, since I am still not back in balance from my summer/fall travels. The one here is the nicest in Texas – half of the water facilities are outside on a rooftop overlooking the city. You can also check the Four Seasons, who have a similar gig, with a cheaper rate for the locals.
I know, I know… this sounds insanely luxurious. But having had a half-dozen pre-cancerous lesions disappear from my skin the last six months tells me that purified, alkaloidal water pulled *through* your skin is way cheaper than a trip to the dermatologist.
Take care of yourselves. Take Care of Your Sweet Asses. Do you hear me? TAKE CARE of your physiology, and when the moment comes for you to look *directly* into things that might not have your greatest good at heart, your body will give you what you need.
***
Purple? I’m not much of a romance writer, but yeah, I’ve published here and there. Mostly about art. I won’t link it here, but writing about Trent Tate’s Levity/Gravity was one of the strangest pieces I’ve gotten away with.
***
Weapons aren’t necessarily bad, Fe, at least as Ornament. Only *you* need to know where the morph button that turns the damn thing back into the featherboa, velvet handcuffs, nippleclamp. Seriously, let it swing and bump your leg a while longer. You’ve gotten used to the weight, it’ll serve you.
***
astrodem, thanks for the breakdown. Twenty-year/Uranian swathes also correspond (according to my Oneiric sources) to the approximate R&R period between incarnations. Or used to be. The rules have been squiggling around in the last 10 years or so. I wonder how much of these new, oddball incarnatory patterns correspond to new celestial bodies brought into the astro-analytical frameworks.
***
(now *that* was Purple…)
bkoehler:
“Yes, yes, writing here really, really does help. Thanks for giving us good and juicy starter-topics.”
At Planet Waves, we aim to provide a unique, elegant and essential service in keeping with these trying times.
😉
Fe:
Lucky you in San Francisco….I live in bloody red Kentucky, although Louisville can (and was this time) Barack Blue. I’m sure it will take some time for you to decompress after keeping the vigil for so long. But you will.
Yes, yes, writing here really, really does help. Thanks for giving us good and juicy starter-topics.
brendan and bkoehler:
I think for me, the biggest thing I’m having a hard time letting go of is the psychic sword I’ve kept by my side to deal with idiocy when its come up–either virtually or on the streets. Thank goodness I live in ultra-violet blue San Francisco Bay Area.
I remember being at the Democratic Convention in Boston in 2004, and coming out, we were confronted by a number of pro-lifers who started yelling at us for being baby-killers. Trying to talk to them was like shouting at a wall, nothing was getting through, only going down and bounced back. It took alot of energy to calm down after that. I felt like I needed to meet up with them and fight it out–anywhere. In a fair fight.
What that did was serve a fantasy of theirs as well–to meet and confront the enemy with righteous anger and to smote them with violent words as weapons. We were mirroring each other.
Hard to put down weapons when others were so ready to use them against you. Creating room inside myself to absorb and reflect this energy off is going to take time. Writing here really really does help.
Mystes,
I actually don’t know who the pollster was. I was not told at the time, but I know the folks who led the campaign and I know they’re people who have good judgment when it comes to picking a pollster.
Actually, the Gen Xers are considerably more tolerant than their elders as well, but not as much as the Millennials. Xers have a strong libertarian streak so even if they don’t self-identify as queer, they tend to prefer a hands-off approach to social issues. Boomers though are tricky. Their generation has a reputation for being liberal, based on the experiences of the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, but when you poll them it turns out that they’re ideologically split down the middle. Counter-intuitively, the fundies in this country draw their largest support from late Boomers and very early Gen-Xers…people right around Barack Obama’s age (plus or minus about 7 years on either side). And the Silent Generation, the oldest generation with substantial numbers left alive, is the most conservative generation these days.
For clarity, I’m including the following list to demarcate the APPROXIMATE birth years for each of the generations. You will notice if you study astrology that generational changes correspond almost exactly to Uranus cycles, specifically to when Uranus enters the mutable signs.
1898-1919: GI / Greatest Generation
1920-1942: Silent Generation
1943-1961: Baby Boomers
1962-1981: Generation X
1982-2003: Millennials
2004-2026: (as yet unnamed)
“I think drumming, listening to rain fall and to water moving is an act of prayer with the planet.”
Or to hear a fresh storm, blowing the leaves away, the tree branches swaying, the rain beating on the window. Seeing the clouds race quickly by, hiding the islands and mountains from view.
So much to appreciate and love once again now.
Fe:
These responses are the most personal/intimate words I’ve taken in for a long time, and practically the only words I’ve taken in since before I voted. I am surprised that, with one exception, I’ve not had the opportunitity to communicate with any of my (condo) neighbors in 48 hours, especially since so many of us were/are Obama supporters. Gradually, I suppose, we will all return to some sort of normalcy, but I’m guessing they (my neighbors) are trying to deal with the routine responsibilities that have been put on hold for several days. At least that’s what I’m doing.
One thing I’ve noticed in myself is a desire to accomplish stuff that the pre-election anxiety prevented me from getting done. Unlike yesterday, today I haven’t thought much about the big win, and a lot of energy has been freed up. I feel 20 lbs lighter! Unlike, say the day after Christmas, I don’t dread the return to chores and duties that were forgotten or put on hold.
Perhaps we are not quite ready to deal with the newness of our world publicly, and want a little more time to savor the victory privately. Is it just me that feels that way? My emotions are very much on the surface right now. . .another reason I hesitate to seek out face-to-face encounters.
Looking forward to the challenges because it now seems possible to make positive change. Thank you Neptune for a little break in time to dream.
As it’s now the second day after ‘our’ win, I’m beginning to come down a little, like the adrenaline is wearing off, and my physical body is beginning to relax now.
As for the mind, well, I’d like to think it’s just getting wound up. Jere hit it out of the park at the first pitch: “These days (perhaps it’s something to do with the world.. always does) I’m interested in people. I truly enjoy the energy that people emit.”
There is this aura of relief all around me, no matter where I am. If I’m around someone who was in the dark side and is there still, I can feel this coldness and isolation within them. The warmth is wide and easily felt, but the cold is withdrawn and tightly bound.
I’m also on board with Fe, thinking it might not be until January that I begin to recover what I can in the way of something resembling balance. Until then I’ll remain blissful, and try to figure out where we’re all going next.
A roller coaster comes to mind, and we’ve just left the gate.
Thaddeus:
I’m thinking about how we work with Pluto in Capricorn energies.
I saw one of Michael Lutin’s comments yesterday on his website–businesses and services should be unique, fill an essential need, and be elegant…whatever it is.
Our deepest structures and core needs are going to be explored and the useless stripped away, replaced with something more essential.
I think drumming, listening to rain fall and to water moving is an act of prayer with the planet. Might be a good idea just to listen for awhile and learn something about ourselves on the orb. I feel peaceful just thinking about it.
“Honey if you don’t mind, I’m gonna hitch that in to my apology to Fe for my вЂ?cows in poppy-fields’ comment over in the civilrights thread. I can hear her now: “Who you callin’ вЂ?we,’ mystesyster?.” I live in the only blue county in Texas, so this has been a reaaaal nice ride for us Texocrats. But what was hilarious was seeing our Republican stronghold cities sport a clear majority of Obama signs in each and every neighborhood.”
mystes:
No apology needed. And I love the spa thing, though the closest thing I can afford at this moment is a good 30 minute foot massage.
Actually, you know what? That may be the most Pluto in Capricorn thing to do–either as a business or to consume as a service. People need simple pleasures that restore them as they work harder than ever to survice
Purple prose will ALWAYS be in demand. Are you published yet?
“To maintain my hope, I keep making sure I keep this light of hope on inside myself, and keep the light on for Barack Obama. We can all send him our light and protection, daily. My daycare provider asked the kids why they thought all the adults were so happy yesterday. My 4-year old daughter said вЂ?Barack Obama’!”
nance:
Nice-in amongst the gentlest of us. I am glad that Obama has created such a visceral response with people that small children instantly recognize him. The name itself is now said by children with joy.
What’s harder is that their parents and all of us are going to have to roll up their sleeves and work with him. I almost suspect we’re not going to be dealing with President as Father anymore, but President as Partner. I think we’ll all have to pitch in to make this work.
I want to share an email sent to me Wednesday morning by my college buddy, Kenny Turner. He gave me permission to share this story. I was moved by it. I hope that you are moved by it.
“Ok guys……forgive me for rambling but the events of last night were huge to me in so many ways. When I was at SIU, living at Wilson Hall, my mom called me to tell me that my Uncle Bud had passed away. He was 96 years old and was part of the first generation of my family to be born free. My mom’s family comes from Leflore County in Mississippi the town she grew up in is called Swift Town. You won’t find Swift Town on any maps because it is not an official town. It was the part of Greenwood where all the Blacks were made to live. Greenwood was a вЂ?sundown town’ and Black were not allowed in certain parts of the city after the sun went down. Anyway I remember when I was boy my Uncle Bud telling me a story of how he went to vote for the very first time. It was 1960 and he was voting for JFK. Back then in Mississippi Black people were made to pay a voting tax before they could cast their vote. The tax was $2 and it had taken my Uncle Bud almost a month to save the money. On election day he walks 20 miles to the polling place to vote only to be told that the tax had been raised to $3 dollars. So my uncle turns around and walks the 20 miles back home. In 1964 he walk the 20 miles to vote for LBJ. No voting tax this time but when he gets to the polling place they tell him he is supposed to vote in Itta Bena which another 20 miles down the road. So he turns around and heads back home. By the time 1968 rolls around Uncle Bud is completely deaf, he has a bad hip, and he needs a cane to get around. But he walks the 20 mile to vote and this time he is allowed to cast his vote for President of the United States. He then turns around an walks home like he had done when he tried to vote for JFK and LBJ. Last night while watching Barack Obama win the election I thought about my Uncle Bud and how he would have felt if had lived to see Obama speak last night. I thought about my Grandpa Jack who never voted a day in his life because when he was a young man in Arkansas Blacks risked the real possibility of harm and even death if they tried to vote. I wishing that they were all alive to see something that in their wildest dream they would have never believed possible. The first President of the United States my son Jack will remember will be Barack Obama. A man that has realized the dreams of an entire people.”
Kenneth L. Turner
I am a life long fan of romance novels. As one writer wrote, the great thing about romance novels is that the end is really the beginning. We are getting a chance for a a new beginning. Let’s make the most of it.
flip
Astrodem… Which pollster? I have quite a list of bad boys you’d’ve wanted to avoid, despite their appearance of ‘neutrality.’
As for the Millennials… mebbe, mebbe. My kiddo was born a few years before the big M, and he’s in a magnet school that voted 90% Obama in their mocks. About 1 in 4 are self-id’ed bi/queer/lez. So that’s something. Like the wave of hs kids in the 1980s, bisexuality is au courant, but I’m still wondering what happened? My daughter’s cohort (in highschool from 1990-1995) HPCs all (translation: Happy Perverts Club), seem to have melted into the landscape in terms of GLBT civil rights.
The fundies are right, you know. I raised both of my kids to be polymorphously perverse. And they didn’t disappoint. All you have to do is STAY OUT OF THE WAY.
BTW All my PW Friends:
I’ve been busy yesterday today making sure that That Which I Am Leaving Behind is as orderly and beautiful as I can leave it.
Believing in “there exists no such thing as time” (other than a device by which we can rondevouz for lunch) then, it is reasonable to do that which I know to do by way of leaving this space/this place “better than I found it” if you will……..
Into newness, into the unknown – wow! Sounds like Sci-Fi LOL!
Lots of laughter following the tears of relief/release,
Linda.Raven (paradigm of change)
Fe,
I do feel like it’s a new world. For the last 8 years I feel that I have watched two very different visions of what America could be do battle – and up until yesterday my version kept losing.
It won’t be all sunshine and roses, but something has changed at a deep and fundamental level. Even though the rain is falling outside my window right now I feel that I am in a pool of sunshine that I have not felt since I can’t remember when.
…everything else can be dealt with in time.
Thanks Fe!
I agree with everything you said. Gavin Newsom needs to be tossed out of office for this one, though he’s not my mayor. The people of San Francisco will have to decide that one.
I agree with you that I think we will ultimately get gay marriage, but probably not until Pluto has spent some time in Aquarius, redefining how we understand groups, relationships, families, and communities. In other words, no sooner than the mid 2020’s and probably not realistically until the 2030’s. I’ll be in my late 40’s by then and will hopefully be in a position to actually get married by that point.
Hey Fe,
I dunno, I mean, I’m Pisces after all….
Ha – and also seriously — I have this bad habit of never never never stopping believing in the Human Spirit. Through a lifetime of stories that would knock yer socks off — I can’t help it. Stupid thought it may be — I BELIEVE.
While I have been “burned” enough to believe that some people are too far gone to find a turn-about; I generically believe in the human race and always have. No douts here. No debate here. Just moving on and on and on and on — and so greatful that at this point in time SO MANY OTHER PEOPLE AROUND ME ARE READY TO DO THE SAME THING – in the same spirit of, well – maybe TRUST? Belief that it takes UNITY to move as One? (duh)
I know that’s still an idealistic vantage point; but I DO believe that is is a VANTAGE point, not a VIEW point.
Love and Light (and so glad to have spent the past couple of weeks with you all),
Linda.Raven
astrodem:
I knew there was a reason my draft response to mystes and nance was unceremoniously dumped while I checked out nance’s link. It was to answer to you.
Yes, I think the onslaught of new black voters, particularly organized within Black churches, brought us an Obama victory and a Yes on 8. And I’m equally angry with the No on 8 campaign that put Gavin Newsom up as its poster boy–a person who already was a polarizing figure amongst the right from 2004 and the first series of gay marriages used as commercial fodder by Karl Rove against Kerry in the red states. The campaign should have put up black churches that agreed to vote NO. It was a sloppy campaign.
I think there’s alot of work that needs to be done between the communities. And the coming home may have to start with gays and lesbians of color, if they can, to start to breach the subject within their own communities. That, is a very tall order, given the layers of history the group and the subset of the group has withstood. It may have to begin with the more progressive black churches that have a mixed community to spread the message of understanding. The groundwork has to be laid as carefully as the Mormon Church laid theirs.
I do believe marriage will ultimately be more broadly defined. Its not going to come this decade, but I believe it will come.
As they worked the pro-life agenda in the 90s, so can the broadening the marriage agenda as well. Its called shifting the Overton Window–making what conventional wisdom currently calls unthinkable into actual policy. Its turned this country from center to center-right. We can turn this country from center-right to center, to center-left. But the groundwork takes more than counter initiatives and lawsuits (though those help). It takes city after city-county after county, to embrace the changes and the communities in question. Its gotta be grassroots for awhile.
mystes and nance, I’ve got you two next…
As an openly gay person, the passage of Prop 8 in California hit me hard. Much harder than I expected given that I have experienced defeat on the marriage equality issue many times before.
I think the reason it hit me so hard is because of where it happened. I think many people in this country share this sense that New York represents this country’s present and that California represents the country’s future…the possibilities, the potentials, the hope. It’s not something I can really explain; it’s just a kind of gut level sense that I’ve noticed a lot of people seem to share. That a place which represents the future and that is supposed to be such a bastion of liberalism could so abruptly and so callously slam the door in my face…it hurts.
Honestly, I’ve never even been in a relationship for longer than three months. The idea of me actually getting married to another person seems so remote and so distant that it’s hard for me to understand why gay marriage should even matter to me at this point in my life. Maybe it’s not about marriage. Maybe it’s about dignity. And respect. And how the majority of this country seems to believe that I deserve neither. I know this will change in time…that as the Millennials age and their values transform the political and cultural landscape, gay people will be welcomed into the American family and granted the right to make their own families. But for now, the passage of Prop 8 was a painful setback in what was otherwise a celebratory November night.
I’m also angry. I’m angry at the Mormons and the mainline protestant evangelicals for their bigoted homophobia, although I’ve become accustomed to their fear and hatred, which are the dominant values in their worldview. But right now, they aren’t the ones I’m the most angry at. I’m especially angry at the black community, particularly black churches, who bear a large measure of responsibility for the passage of Prop 8. The black community has suffered enormously–in ways I cannot even begin to fathom–because of hatred, bigotry, and oppression. To see them attack and marginalize another minority community, gays and lesbians, is both heartbreaking and horrifying. But it’s also the oldest story in the book: the oppressed becoming the oppressor.
What really saddens me is the knowledge that there is basically nothing the GLBT community can do to reach out to the black community on the issue of gay marriage. Back in 2005, I lived with an individual who had close ties to the No Nonsense Campaign, a coalition assembled to try to defeat anti gay marriage ballot measure in Texas that ultimately passed by a huge margin. That summer, the No Nonsense Campaign quietly commissioned a reliable pollster to test out messaging on the African American community in Houston. My then roommate shared with me that they tried at least a dozen different messages and themes on the issue of gay marriage to try to figure out the best way to talk to the black community. None of the messages they tried worked. Every single formulation they tried yielded abysmal polling results and in many cases produced outrage and hostility from those polled. The pollster is rumored to have told the No Nonsense Campaign that their best hope was to “pray the blacks stay home” or consider using Republican tactics to suppress the black vote. Getting the black community to accept gay marriage or even civil unions is about as plausible as getting the right wing evangelical community to drop their views on abortion or asking white liberals to ditch their support for freedom of expression. It’s simply not going to happen. And that is really really frustrating.
While the rest of the country may feel as though progressive change is coming, you can talk to any gay person and I’m sure they will share my acute sense of awareness that the institutional and structural obstacles to progress have never been higher. A new government may be coming to power in 2009, but we’ve got a long and hard fight ahead of us. And if we want change, it’s going to be up to us to make it happen. This election may have been the end of one era, but it is only the prologue to the coming struggle for truth, justice, and dignity.
It feels like a new world! I woke up yesterday and had to check the results again to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. My only question is ‘can he start being president today?’
Then there’s news of Bush burning down the house on his way out. It seems almost impossible that he could do more damage, but there it is: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/opinion/04tue1.html?ex=1383541200&en=d1f187ca43fa8c3f&ei=5124&partner=digg&exprod=digg)
But they are on their way out, and maybe they will even go to jail.
To maintain my hope, I keep making sure I keep this light of hope on inside myself, and keep the light on for Barack Obama. We can all send him our light and protection, daily. My daycare provider asked the kids why they thought all the adults were so happy yesterday. My 4-year old daughter said ‘Barack Obama’!
Jinspace writes: “If only people realized that there are millions of us who never stop doing what we can to uphold our democracy, that we respect our country, even when we’re disgusted with it, who try every day to help improve conditions, not just in election years. And that we know once again what we may have forgotten (justifiably, after two stolen elections) and what many over here don’t believe: that every vote really does count.”
Honey if you don’t mind, I’m gonna hitch that in to my apology to Fe for my ‘cows in poppy-fields’ comment over in the civilrights thread. I can hear her now: “Who you callin’ ‘we,’ mystesyster?.” I live in the only blue county in Texas, so this has been a reaaaal nice ride for us Texocrats. But what was hilarious was seeing our Republican stronghold cities sport a clear majority of Obama signs in each and every neighborhood.
Detoxing: I belong to a Hilton healthspa that has reverse-osmosis, salinized water for every facility: steam/tropicalshowers/hottub, lappool. That, judicious applications of Cibo Matto, and writing out what has happened in my neighborhood in the last eight years ought to do it.
Have I mentioned that the *amor fati* -my 30-year creative partner- owned the company that smeared McCain in 2000? And that, my angels, isn’t even the beginning of the first hair of the tip of the iceberg. And, yes, the tale is unfolding nicely.
Back to the veritable Amazon of 5th-world Porn flowing from my pen.
I’ve been on an odd track for years now. What just happened here in the usa has seemed to me as a culmination of my inner being. I’ve been bucking and trying to ride individually hard the system that has been shoved at me. For the most part I live without the system but, I always recognize my space within.
These days (perhaps it’s something to do with the world.. always does) I’m interested in people. I truly enjoy the energy that people emit. I’ve no judgements (always assessing) towards people, and it’s actually a gorgeous thing to be able to hear anything someone has to say, and be “cool enough” with it.
Anyway, I’m still pretty much “outside” convention (no bills, responsibilities, etc.), and it feels as if I actually have the “time and space” to be ME.
I haven’t laughed, cried, smiled, loved so much ever in my life than these days here. I’m absolutely stoked for our collective portion of reality right now! AND yes!, it is the personal that matters, thanks.
I, personally, will continue to live my life as I see fit, regardless of anything other than that point inside me I’ve been trying to reach. The point that allows me the openess, the awareness, and understanding, as well as perhaps wisdom, to have a damned happy lifetime! I, as well as everyone else deserves that! (It’s always created from within!) (Although externals can be great catalysts!)
In spirit…. LOVE PEACE HAPPINESS …..and reality
Jere