I was helping my son with his homework last night and I noticed that he had accidentally dated his work in several places with 10/10 rather than 11/10. That’s when I realized that my brother’s birthday had snuck up on me. Tomorrow is his birthday and he would have been 57 years old. Last year, his birthday came so close on the heels of his unexpected death that it didn’t really add to our misery, but this year is different. This morning, I didn’t really want to get out of bed. I felt too nauseated to move.
Well, I got out of bed and I realized that I’m feeling nauseated a lot lately and it’s not the kind of sick feeling that has the prospect of going away any time soon.
I am certain I am not alone in this.
The last time I felt this way was as I watched the Twin Towers fall and I began to contemplate what it was going to do to our national character, particularly under the leadership of what I knew to be an administration absolutely bent on catering to and stoking our worst angels.
It took us a while back then to find each other and get organized, but we did it. It wasn’t quite in time for the 2004 elections, but by 2006 we were a real movement both online and in real life.
I’m feeling a little old and used up at the moment, as though maybe I can’t do this again. Maybe it’s time for the next generation. But that’s just stress and exhaustion speaking, and perhaps the realization that this is a thousand times more dire.
Right now, everyone wants to hash things out, settle scores, argue that their sage advice wasn’t heeded.
That’s human nature and you can’t really fight against it.
But eventually the people who are going to fight this battle and organize for it will find each other, and they’ll be the new leaders. They won’t be looking to score points against people who are mostly on their side. They’ll be looking to build the biggest, strongest movement possible.
When the time comes, look me up. I’ll be ready.
You’ve described exactly how I feel. I have slept maybe ten total hours the last three days — in maybe 20-60 minute spurts, and I have to force myself to eat.
But we must move forward. Volunteering for Planned Parenthood tomorrow. I need to do something to get out of this funk before I get an ulcer.
I’ll be there. Bet on it.
Atrios says, Don’t Overlearn. (A flaw of mine.)
http://www.eschatonblog.com/2016/11/dont-overlearn.html
I’ll be looking for those new leaders.
Obama was cool. Even in 2012 he was Dad cool and those voters chose him over an Old Money plutocrat. The challenge is different this time around. Im not saying dump cultural equality and economic fairness does not presage the demise of racism (Henry Louis Gates shows that) but without broad based prosperity you are starting in a deep hole to fight racism/sexism.
Still if Paul Ryan does axe medicare that is going to piss off a lot of folks.
Read the whole link? I think you’ll find yourself nodding in emphatic agreement.
Well I certainly do agree with that. Even if you make 80k a year to live middle class family of 4 these days makes that feel fragile af.
Persistent nausea is definitely a sympthom of depression/anxiety. If it persists too long you may need to seek help.
But with that out of the way, Bernie, Warren AND Schumer all seem to be supporting Kieth Ellison for DNC chair. That seems a positive.
Yes it does seem a positive — with the emphasis on ‘seems’.
What substantively will change? And will it improve?
The Yellen-Summers wars over the Fed Chair come to mind. No one bothered to remember that Yellen had been Vice-Chair for years under the demonic Bernanke. Or that macroeconomic policy wasn’t going to change in any measurable way. But it was frightfully, friendship-breaking-ly important that ‘my guy’ won.
Politics is all overdetermined. There are far more causes on offer than there are effects.
Who the DNC chair is, is one of the causes.
Yet at the moment perhaps a timely symbolic act.
There’s a big difference between Keith Ellison and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz.
Thanks for this post, BooMan. When the time comes, I’ll be ready, too.
I got pretty discouraged about this place during the primaries and in the run-up to the election, so I stopped dropping by every day.
Reading this post makes he hopeful that your voice is back. I hope you don’t mind, but I posted your words in their entirety on balloon juice, with a link back to you.
You and I locked horns a few times last decade. But we are on the same side, and I am up for the next round. I am older and a bit more frail than you, but I certainly will support any worthwhile effort to help bring some semblance of economic and social justice and equity to this country. I owe that much to my kids and their generation.
We owe that to your kids’ generation, too.
More importantly, the possibility of the others depends on it over the long run.
Definitely. I have kids who are very upset about climate change as it is. We owe it to them to at least minimize the damage to the planet that they will still be calling home long after we have each passed away. I vote, live, and advocate accordingly.
I’m right there with you. And I’m going to be very interested in what you and Al Giordano have to say moving forward.
Currently he’s blasting last nights protestors. Hes going to be ordering himself until Jan 20.
You know I dislike him immensely but I agree that acting out now is just going to give LE an easy way to crack down. Maybe thats because Im brown and like he said I’m laying low right now.
It’s reasonable for POC to want to stay out of the limelight right now. White liberal America just learned some really unpleasant lessons. Let us take the lead on protesting. It’s about time we took to the streets.
Thanks for such a terrific post.
I don’t see a lot of positive things in me getting older, but one big difference for me between now and when Dubya was elected (and then 9/11) is that I feel a little less primed to join the circular firing squad. Maybe it’s because I am wise. Likely, it’s because I am tired. But either way, I feel optimistic that we will be able to join together. And it’s not that I agree with all my comrades on the Left about everything … I don’t … but we agree on so much and it’s so much easier for me to actively look for common cause now. That, and Evan Bayh is still a private citizen (I couldn’t help it, bad hippo, bad).
Once again…your ideas and prognostications on exactly how this healing will happen would be welcome.
Are you saying that the Democratic Party will recover its soul? Its mojo? If so…how, given the economic necessities of big party politics, the almost leaden makeup of most of those Dems who manage to continue to remain in office and the seemingly permanent infestation of bureaucratic, revolving door types at all party organizational levels.
Are you saying that a new party must be started? I agree, although I also think that such an effort would be so difficult as to be a pipe dream. I am not a organization person, myself, so I really cannot even guess at how that could be accomplished in a practical, organizational sense. I have little or no experience at that level even within my own field because I have always been so busy “doing” that I have never had time to organize others. I can barely organize myself.
I am really asking for answers here, Booman.
I wish someone would at least try to provide them.
Later…
AG
I cut my teeth in political activism in the mid-2000s after Bush got reelected. I was a college student and had the time and energy to devote to activism. Now I’m 30, married, and have more responsibilities – but the need for activism is more urgent than ever.
After some self-reflection at the end of the year, it’s going to be time to get back in the saddle. We are at a moment where things could happen that our country – and our world – may never come back from. I hope that everyone here is on-board and ready to fight.
Oh that macho word “fight”. What exactly and concretely does that look like beyond the great speech of Shakespeare’s Henry V at Agincourt.
What is that going to do to change our daily routines, alter the way we do our jobs, change our days off?
There’s the rub.
Tear gas, a crack on the head and time, if you’re lucky.
As romantic as that imagery is in the movies that have heroic endings, that does not of itself create change.
The civil rights movement took advantage of the neutral eye of the Golden Age of Television to show the world what discrimination in public accommodations looked like. It was able to create chaos in small towns of the South because these towns did not have large jails. I believe that my town of 20,000 only went from 10 cells to 30 in 1959, and they had an open house of the new jail to mark the transition.
IOW, there was a strategy, geographical, timing, and mix of tactics.
It was a common fight in which people mostly could trust each other because they were known in the community.
And the final leverage came institutionally from a President facing election and seeing a way to move a more Republican electorate to the Democrats.
It takes more than being willing to fight, but that is a precondition.
Prosaic, not romantic.
OK, here is some typical gloating from the other side–reasoned intellectual gloating, not outright trolling.
Rod Dreher, American Conservative: Trump, Empathy, and Epistemic Closure
Lots of quotes from lefty post mortems.
Tyler, Sic Semper Tyrannis: Trump Ascends the Cherry-Blossom Throne
A hand calming the sheep before the knife comes out. Or the first hagiography of St. The Donald. Take your pick.
Read the pushback in the comments.
It seems that privatized healthcare is a huge tarbaby for every President.
And one accomplishment: the two US political dynasties are finished, one by the primary, the other by the general.
And Soros is paying for the multi-city protests, a color revolution.
TarheelDem, can you say more about what you mean by this?
“And Soros is paying for the multi-city protests, a color revolution.”
he’s quoting from the Sic Semper Tyrannis article he linked to
that guy (Tyler I mean, not THD) is seriously fucked in the head, this is by no means the worst of his “analysis”.
“And Soros is paying for the multi-city protests, a color revolution.”
Like WaterGirl, I too am intrigued by that comment.
Also I’m curious, what’s your take on the protests?
Two thoughts of my own.
I’m taking the guy who uttered the quote as providing the intellectual argument for a harsh crackdown on all protests. The fact that protesters are paid is meant to delegitimize them enough to argue that the First Amendment does not protect them. He outs himself as conservative propagandist, not a true explainer of what Trump’s policies might mean. I have used the image of the hand gentling the sheep before slaughter a lot today as regards to the moderate soothing tones of a lot of Trump propagandists.
The protests are wider movemental ripples from the networks created during Occupy Wall Street and successive movement outbreaks like #blacklivesmatter and #NoDAPL. They cannot be organized per se, but organizations can spring from them like Campaign Zero has from #blacklivesmatter.
The protests of the past five years (going back to Madison Wi have not fizzled. They have been suppressed by ever greater force. Unless they allowed themselves to be co-opted into a losing electoral movement–the effort to recall Scott Walker, the effort to turn out Rahm Emanuel, for example.
I have no doubt that Soros is contributing to some organizations seeking some sort of change just as Pierre Omidyar is underwriting First Look, whose flagship is The Intercept. But the Soros charge is to deny these movements grassroots legitimacy.
If they birth organizations, it must be multiple organizations organized as networks that cannot be undone by big donors like Soros suddenly withdrawing support when they get close to a personal interest that creates his wealth.
We have seen how Enron dragged down the quality of the PBS Nightly News even before other sponsors took it further. Or how the AARP choked on opposing chained-CPI when the Grand Bargain was being considered. Organizations come with the risk betraying co-option.
Movements come with the risk of embedded provacateurs (generally police agents) sparking violence to allow a repressive response.
Shutting down protests and co-opting organizations means that nothing changes fast enough and the spontaneous reactions turn really violent and unmanageable at least in time and space by the authorities.
With law enforcement integrated into the military (Israeli-style as it happens–thank Joe Lieberman) and on a hair-trigger for potential terrorism of the non-white kind, suppression of protest just might create the conditions that existed in 1965 and after and erupted in major neighborhood and multi-neighborhood riots requiring actual military deployment. The police claiming riot now for peaceful protests is a tactic of security theater; what they do not understand is that they risk real riots later on that are spontaneous outbreaks of running violence, not a bunch of people with signs doing mass jaywalking.
Well as to dynasties, George P Bush was the only one to endorse Trump from that clan. P will go far, or at least he thinks he will.
And the groupies are already hovering around Chelsea Clinton, who claims she is not interested.
I honestly feel sorry for her as the vultures hover. She’s only 2-3 years younger than I am and I’m sure she has many more compelling options.
Gag.
I am very tired. And old enough (a senior senior citizen) that I don’t have a lot more fight in me. It’s up to the generations coming after me to get out there and secure the gains we thought we had made for the environment, social justice, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, freedom of religious choice (including none), etc. The most ephemeral of our gains was peace. As Boo said, with 9/11 the country changed, and I fear it is not going back to reining in the military or military adventures any time soon.
The young ones will need your “war stories”, your wisdom, and your counsel as to what likely are mistakes if they are to secure the gains going forward.
What is at most jeopardy in the most recent political environment is the integrity of the political process, which was always dodgy at best. There likely are local actions that even we can take to rebuild the political process. It’s been a while since neighbors sorted out things together without Fox News or Rush Limbaugh intervening. How do we get beyond that issue?
Thanks. After I wrote this a friend emailed to ask how we can revolutionize the Democratic Party here in our rural county. I immediately responded with plans to meet after the various holidays and plot our course. 🙂 Once and activist, always an activist, but I am getting much choosier about how I use my time and energy.
first.
All the rest depends on that. Few seem focused on it.
I remember a brief “moment” back in the late 60s/early 70s when this was widely recognized.
We seem to have lost that understanding.
It’s a problem.
In the wake of Tuesday’s result, the challenge I’m going through in this community is that I no longer believe that many here are on my side.
These prolific posters talk a great game about wanting a more progressive/liberal/transparent government, but they looked at a Clinton/Trump matchup in the general election and decided the most important thing they needed to do from January to Election Day was to post over and over and over and over and over and over again, nonstop, about how horrible Clinton was.
These same community members then proceeded to complain when BooMan and community members provided frequent responses to how historically terrible Trump’s policies were, and how radically offensive his behavior was as a candidate.
I don’t know about my “sage advice.” I just knew that it was vital for the Democratic nominee to win this election, and that it was playing with fire to set up a negative narrative for our nominee and ride it to November. I found it remarkable when Frog Ponders not only played with that fire all the way to Election Day, but started spraying rhetorical kerosene around and spreading the fire to others.
I returned fire, doubtless. I did it because it was important to work to get Clinton and Senate Dems elected, and I felt that personal, factually distorted attacks on the only person standing between Trump and the Presidency should not be allowed to proceed without response. The back-and-forths became unbelievably unpleasant.
As the campaign season hit, I took much time to talk to voters and led volunteers to do the same. Our Clinton detractors here chose to catapult the propaganda which the FBI and the Russian government provided to them down the stretch. What an unfortunate choice they made.
The utter indifference these community members hold in reaction to the fact that the Justice Department interfered with the election is shocking to me. I feel somewhat certain these people were outraged by Justice Department shenanigans during the Bush Administration, yet some here argue in favor of the FBI’s election interference even in the wake of the disastrous outcome for progressive policies.
It is now far beyond disliking some of the participants here. I just don’t trust this community now.
I’m going to outsource to Paul Campos Lawyers, Guns, and Money
—-
If you helped bring about the election of Donald Trump by doing the best you could to publicize every sordid little detail of the Wikileaks data dumps that tumbled into your lap, then that’s what you did.
That’s what you did when everything was on the line. That’s how you decided, freely and consciously, to use your time and your very considerable talents. That’s what you chose to do at a moment of supreme moral and political crisis.
—–
He’s talking about one of the biggest wankers of the election cycle, Glenn Greenwald, but it fits many around here. It was all on the line….how did you choose to spent your time? Excusing Putin’s interference? Post diaries about emails, which is a completely made up ‘scandal’? Saying what Comey did was no big deal?
People here own their behavior, some of it incredibly racist (‘blacks only do what their ministers tell them to do’) during the primaries, and LOTS of misogyny during the campaign.
Like Greenwald, if I wanted to commit suicide I would climb to the top of their ego and leap down to their IQ.
.
Perspective. The ones you tangled with are sticking in the foreground of your vision.
Go back and check your threads for how many people supported your position.
This is a diverse and contentious but fundamentally straightforward community with few (considering the number of commenters) with hidden agendas (well, there’s AG who wants up to WTFU).
I have made the argument that the moral standards for political office were always a double-standard for the Clintons and that it was rooted in the segregationist establishment that they opposed in Arkansas. And that that establishment became the core of the Republican Party in Arkansas after the Nixon victory in 1968.
Folks not familiar with Southern politics and prone to judgments against Southern politicians just based on region took issue with my opinions there.
I supported and voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary. My wife registered voters; I write much better than I persuade in person; lots of folks have that defect. I voted straight Democratic ticket again like I have done since the election of Ronald Reagan.
Online communities at the moment are less important than geographical communities. You are more likely to build safe zones there.
It wasn’t the loss of sentiment and opinion here that lost Hillary Clinton the Presidency. In fact, it wasn’t the loss of sentiment and opinion at all: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Nothing anyone said here affected that outcome. You are going to have to detail the process by which that spread of fire occurred, because I did not see it.
Thank you for putting the time into canvassing. You and others will have to do that again, regardless of the outcome, if we are ever to change the direction of our country.
Isn’t it interesting that the FBI and the Russian government were in cahoots to smear Hillary Clinton? I hope there is some real evidence that that happened, enough to take down some public officials. In the context of the mudslinging of a political campaign, the charge of Russian meddling was made without real evidence and came off as a weak attempt at defense against the GOP-engineered email scandal. That was an internal campaign failing of Robby Mook and the senior staffers of Clinton’s campaign.
There are other online communities, but your presence and pushback will be missed at the frog pond.
BTW, the next battles are between now and next November in Virginia, New Jersey and mayors of some critical cities (the Democratic bench if there is one anymore). Look for folks under 50. And folks under 40 for state legislatures.
Oh, don’t you worry, TarheelDem. I’m in it for the duration. Not just professionally; it’s my personal passion.
Passion comes with heartbreak. It also returns with inspiration. This will not stand. We’ll win wherever we can, somehow.
All I could think about all that night was what I would tell my son in the morning.
Maybe us Philly area folk could meet up for hike in the woods, far from our electronic devices.
I’m in the Collegeville area and would be happy to lend my support, volunteer, and meet up with like-minded people. Please let me know where/when and I will definitely be there.
Wednesday morning I contacted the Montco 4 Dems to volunteer and to get more active; the results of this election showed me that donating money and canvassing the Philly ‘burbs was not enough. I have more to give, and much more that I could do.
If you and/or Martin want to organize efforts, let me know and I will be there. Our Democracy is too important.
I’m in the Collegeville area and would be happy to lend my support, volunteer, and meet up with like-minded people. Please let me know where/when and I will definitely be there.
Wednesday morning I contacted the Montco 4 Dems to volunteer and to get more active; the results of this election showed me that donating money and canvassing the Philly ‘burbs was not enough. I have more to give, and much more that I could do.
If you and/or Martin want to organize efforts, let me know and I will be there. Our Democracy is too important.
Joan Baez, [Joe Hill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX7M9psH0rM&list=RDPX7M9psH0rM#t=4%5D I never died said he. Organize!
Not for nothing, but I know a lot of teachers, at every level of education. Most of my family are teachers. Many, many of the teachers I know here in CA and around the country posted in the past few days about how simply being around their students is giving them immense encouragement.
I know shit will be, at best, a very bumpy ride for everybody in the next 4 years. We’re looking at a 21st-century equivalent to the post-1877 period, for sure. But if we despair we are all lost. The kids are giving us a great example to follow. We should do that.
Sacramento, CA had a gathering today for progressives to discuss what happened and what to do next. They expected 30 people. They got more than 200. There may have been more than one sleeping giant awakened by this election.
Your statement about this feeling similar to 9/11 echos my sentiment exactly. It took at least 24 hours to recognize, but recognize I did. I also agree with you that this election will make the US look substantially worse in eyes of the rest of the world than did the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq.
There are so many pressing issues that need addressing that will now be pushed to the side. Issues that really appear a matter of life and death for the human race.
I’d argue they are not two distinct events. Shortly after Sep 11 the head of the NY Council on the Arts pointed out that the fall of the Towers would probably remain as a significant turning point [conceptually] because it coincided with a falling/ collapse/ loss of confidence in many institutions perceived as stable – he mentioned, for example, financial institutions, the Catholic church due to the pedophile situation, and others. I’d argue we’re undergoing a combination of ebb and flow collapses and sea change of which this shock is a part.
First of all, Booman, I understand your melancholy. The anniversary of my brother’s death from cancer was earlier this month, and I always have the blues on that date.
In terms of the nausea and sick feeling, apparently this is common, and is sort of like what happens when someone is in shock after an injury. And as you know, shock can be a protective reaction of the body, but can also be fatal itself. We’ve suffered a psychological and emotional injury and our bodies have gone into a sort of protective shock response.
I scanned the diaries and see a lot of score settling going on. I’m avoiding that stuff.