“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” ~Anne Lamott
Once someone told me that “you can’t spin hope”. And I quoted it for months with a snicker. ‘Hope’ isn’t part of the party platform. I’ve read the party platform and next to ‘improving public education’ it doesn’t say ‘dream big’ with little unicorns and a heart instead of a dot above the lowercase i. I find myself to be a generally cynical person and pragmatic. The glass is never half full or half empty it’s just a glass with water for me to quench my thirst. Which is why when ‘hope’ was used as a catalyst for people to throw their cautions to the wind and vote for ‘change’, I scoffed and guffawed and remained a non-believer.
There was no push or drive during the last two years, I was just going through the motions of electing a President whose platform most aligned with my ideals. That is until last night when my coworker, Ben, a man old enough to think that he would never see the Berlin Wall come down, started to tell me a story that I had been dying to hear. I was already for the The Drama when out of the corner of my eye I saw something that made me stop everything. It’s rare that I’m at a loss for words or that when something exciting or monumental happens that I’m not shouting from the rooftops. I turned to Ben and politely said to him, “Barack Obama is the President”. He just stared back at me and said “Wait. What?”
“I think that Barack Obama is the President”.
He stopped the story that I was so dying to hear to turn around and look at the television screen with me. You know those moments that are forever etched in your mind? Those moments when you remember exactly how you were standing, which way the moon was facing and the color of the chipped nail polish on your fingers? Those moments? It’s just that…it isn’t everyday that I stand in a room full of people, put my head down and my hands on my knees and feel everything inside of me collapse and then cry. Two minutes later Ben went back to telling me the story and I stopped him to say, “Yeah, whatever you’re going to say is going to be boring as shit compared to this”. But he told me anyway.
I called my father later and he was far too quiet than usual. Not the normal banter and telling me that I’m adopted but he was quiet and thoughtful. If you grow up in segregated Birmingham, Alabama, you can never really prepare yourself for raising children in the suburbs of Upstate NY. You probably don’t envision your black son and daughter discussing political science and supply side economics and the LSATS and their white peers as if they were common place. And you sure as shit don’t ever bring yourself to really push your mind to pursue the possibility of a black man living in the White House.
But you hope. I hope for a lot of things. That my check clears or that a pair of perfect shoes are available in my size or that one day I’ll be able to fit into my favorite dress again. I hope that the Giants win this weekend and I hope there’s more wine. I’m neither sentimental nor idealistic, but yeah, sometimes I hope. We all hope every single day because it’s what gets us up in the morning: That hope that things will be better or just as good as the day before. That hope that whatever we are working towards – either alone or as a people – will go well and get better. It’s just that on any given day we don’t realize how much we hope because we never outwardly say it because it’s just a little too trite and rainbows and kittens to say that you spend your days hoping. Though I think it’s human nature and catching to see one person be optimistic and so it’s hard to avoid that drug of good feeling.
So would you like to know what my first thoughts were last night? After the tears and my father. It was of my friends, Leah and Simon, and then of every other parent I know that has young children. But Leah and Simon especially because they’re having a baby in six weeks and their baby will never know of anything different than having a black president it will be natural to him and forever be a grip on my heart and something that I remember vaguely thinking about. Just as it will always be baffling to my father that Garrett and I have always experienced integration (its ups and its harsh, harsh downs) as it’s always been natural to us but a grip on his heart.
There are these little tiny babies who will always think of this – what just happened – as ordinary. And they will have that luxury and life because one day in November several million of us chose to lean on the idea of hope a little more than we had in days, weeks and months prior. It was one day in November when we said we could and so we did. We hoped and then we changed.
Game Change!
I have watched the trailer for Game Change no less than 10 times. I stopped right before 11 because I figured that someone from our IT department was going to come up and start lecturing me on my YouTube watching:
You know how teenage girls line up for like hours to see the midnight showing of Breaking Dawn just so they can spend 45 minutes screaming at Taylor Lautner? That’s exactly how I feel about this movie but if Ed Harris (as John McCain) removes his shirt then I might ask HBO for a refund.
Also: Jon Huntsman; it’s a damn shame you won’t win:
And finally. If your family is anything like mine – oh, wait, you thought I was birthed from a bunch of progressives who protest corporate greed each weekend? HA HA. No. So this is for your crazy, right-wing family members who think that Barack Obama is single-handedly ruining this country and have a photo of John Boehner (orange and weeping) on their mantle via Media Matters:
Tip Sheet for the Holiday Dinner Table: 2011 Edition
This holiday season, here’s our guide to talking politics over turkey and eggnog — and winning the debate. Below are talking points to beat the 12 top falsehoods and attacks to expect from your Fox News-watching uncle. (Here’s the PDF version to print out and take with you.)
1. When they say: “We can’t raise taxes on job creators.”
Then you say…
We should be putting money in the pockets of the real job creators: the middle class whose spending keeps our businesses thriving and hiring.
Instead, the GOP just voted to raise taxes on millions of middle-class Americans and protect tax giveaways for those few Americans who already have more than they could ever spend.
We already tried “trickle down” economics and it didn’t work.
2. “Regulations kill jobs and economic growth.”
Talk to real business owners and they’ll tell you they’re hurting because they don’t have enough customers — not because of regulations.
We don’t have to choose between jobs and common-sense safeguards that protect the food we eat, the air our kids breathe, and the products we buy.
New standards encourage industries to innovate and can CREATE jobs — just like safety standards spawned a new industry in safety gear for construction workers.
3. “Half of Americans don’t pay taxes.”
Do you know anyone who doesn’t pay property, payroll, or sales taxes? Didn’t think so. That’s because all Americans pay taxes.
The real problem is that regular Americans are working harder and harder but getting paid less and less. With half of Americans making less than $30,000 a year, many just aren’t earning enough to be taxed on their income.
Now when it comes to income taxes, regular Americans struggling to get by would gladly pay the same income taxes as millionaires if it meant making as much money as millionaires do!
4. “Obama is waging class warfare.”
As Warren Buffett tells it, the only class warfare in America is being waged by his class — and they’re winning.
Middle-class families shouldn’t have to pay higher taxes than any millionaire. That’s not class warfare. That’s a basic American value.
5. “Obama made the economy worse.”
It’s hard to feel optimistic when we all have friends and family members who have lost jobs and are struggling. But the reality is that Obama’s economic policies put people back to work and kept unemployment from shooting up even higher.
Just before Obama came into office, we were dealing with the worst recession since the Great Depression. We can’t go back to the ways that caused the mess we’re still dealing with today.
We can create good jobs and get our economy back on track — but we need leaders who want Americans to succeed more than they want the President to fail.
6. “Obamacare is a disaster.”
Actually, the health care law is already working. Just ask the 2.5 million college age kids who are now covered through their parents’ plans. Or the 24 million seniors who got preventative wellness checkups through Medicare or the 17 million kids who can no longer be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
Let’s stick with what’s working — we can’t go back to the broken system we had before where insurance companies were in charge.
Say this … instead of that
“Actually” or “As it turns out” … instead of “you’re wrong”
“Teachers, nurses, and firefighters” or “Americans who keep our country running” … instead of “government employees”
“Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid” … instead of “entitlements”
“Our roads, bridges, and schools” … instead of “government spending”
7. “We need to cut spending to grow the economy.”
Actually, when we cut investments in our roads, bridges, and schools, Americans lose their jobs. That takes away customers from businesses — and that means less hiring and less economic growth.
The best way to get our economy moving is to put Americans back to work, not to lay off our cops, teachers, and construction workers.
8. “Corporate tax rates are too high.”
Actually, we have the second lowest corporate tax rate in the developed world. And some companies like Bank of America don’t pay any taxes at all, thanks to corporate tax loopholes.
Right now, big corporations are sitting on record piles of cash, raking in record profits, and handing out record bonuses to CEOs — while paying the lowest tax rates in decades.
America’s middle class is carrying too much of the burden and getting crushed — we need to ask millionaires and big corporations to pay their fair share.
9. “Wall Street didn’t cause our economic crisis — irresponsible homeowners did.”
Americans have always been advised to buy as much house as they could afford. What changed was that banks suddenly started telling homebuyers they could afford houses they really couldn’t, because the banks knew they could sell the mortgage to Wall Street at a profit before it went bad.
Wall Street greed caused the financial crisis. They sliced and diced risky mortgages into fancy financial products that no one understood, took a profit each step of the way, and dumped the risks on us.
The more Wall Street abused the rules, the more money they made. Markets work when there is one set of rules for everyone and everyone plays by those rules.
10. “Allowing gay couples to marry is an attack on marriage.”
Gay couples just want to be able to make the same public commitment and lifetime promise to take care of each other and their families as everyone else.
With so many marriages ending in divorce, it doesn’t weaken marriage to allow people who’ve been fighting so hard to commit to each other to publicly do that.What we really need are more couples willing to fight as hard for their marriages as gay couples do.
11. “Government workers’ huge benefits and salaries drove states to bankruptcy.”
As it turns out, our teachers, nurses, and firefighters make less than they would in the private sector. And they’ve sacrificed a great deal, like taking pay freezes.
Corporate special interests, on the other hand, have enjoyed massive tax giveaways that have made our budget problems worse. Hardworking middle class Americans have sacrificed enough. It’s time for politicians to ask the big corporations to share the burden.
12. “The Occupy protesters are [fill in latest smear].”
Do you disagree with them that Wall Street CEOs shouldn’t be able to pay politicians to write the rules and get rewarded when they break them? Or that those politicians are putting the wealthiest 1% ahead of everyone else?
These protesters are ordinary Americans from all walks of life joining together and speaking out. This is democracy. Like General Colin Powell said, that’s as American as apple pie.
Have a great holiday and I’ll see you back here next week wherein I will tell you how embarrassed I am to love congress. I know. I KNOW.