Awasiwi odenak: Far from the things of men.

In a matter of days, we will be touching down on paradise.  Can you feel the magic tinkling in the breeze? Can you the feel the enchantment?  Do you even know where we’re going?  It’s a wonderful place known only as Fantasy Island.  You’re familiar with the name, no? Let me tell you about it. Fantasy Island is where you go to see your greatest wishes and deepest desires come to life, untouched by the rigors of reality and reason. The Island is positively sublime, and if you go there with an open heart, you shall know nothing but joy and fulfillment, perhaps eternally.  However, if you go there in blindness or with ill-intent…Well, the possibilities are endless.   Thankfully, you are not the reason we’re here today.  However, the question of how we came to be on this journey remains. Let us begin with the story:

What feels like a lifetime ago, but was in fact, not so long, many people had a wish.  They scraped together their pennies, their dimes, and their stock options to make that wish come true.  The wish that these people shared was that they should make themselves a President.    The time had come to choose again and, this time, they would be wise in their decision.   Things were much harder now and so were the choices.  Where these people parted ways was in the determination of what sort of person that President should be.

One large group had a desperate need for one who would work, for one who would slave tirelessly to ensure that their lives improved today and that the lives of their children would be even better tomorrow.  This idea they had, though far from new, was treated as the bastard child of self-preservation, and mocked for its simplicity.  Still, those people carried on in their search. With their determined ballots, they prayed; what little spare time they had to give, they shared.  They who had the least gave the most.  That was the kind of President they wanted and the kind they deserved.  They found a candidate equal to the task and quietly took up their cause.

Another group of individuals, long and disastrous in power, wanted another kind of Chief Executive.  They wanted the status quo because it had been good to them.  They championed their champion, too.  Unfortunately, those voters and their prayers were not with their champ.  He went down and the politician they got was not the one they had in mind. This one was different, solemnly uttering a kind of rhetoric for change. They were not that sort of people; they did not want that sort of leader. They did not stand behind their candidate.  They did not take up their cause.

Finally, there was one last group.  A sneaky bunch, you probably caught them entering out of the corner of your eye.  They were in desperate need as well.  Not of a leader who would work, however, but of one who, especially, would not. What they wanted was a face and a voice.  What they wanted was a string puppet.  There was an agenda at work, things to do and buy and dismantle. They prayed with their attorneys and their accountants, their publicists and their very loose pocketbooks.    Failing that, they prayed with Facebook.  Like smoke, up rose their candidate, resplendent with strings.  They didn’t stand behind them; they stood behind the curtains.  Someone had to man the thing!  It was perfect deception.  It was their cause.

Their cause became the nation’s ideology.   That ideology was cruel, remains cruel, and its means are dark, but the fantasy has been achieved.  The stress-bitten fingernails of hard workers have been stamped and their sun-reddened neck whipped.  The mothers of movements have forgotten where they came from and the daughters of them told not to care since they had enlightened husbands to attend to—tea cozies to knit.  Ignore the shadow in the window; there’s nothing there.  They promise.  They lie.

Soon, my friends, we will be arriving at Fantasy Island, the place where fool s go to have their way—and the helpless are dragged along.  What those that brought you fail to see is that often what they crave most is the very thing they should never have.  This election, their selection, is no exception.  The illusion isn’t real; it cannot last.  It won’t.  In the end, as in every Island tale, they will learn a fundamental lesson: Be careful what you wish for. For the puppet you guide today may move tomorrow by someone else’s strings.

'My dear guests, I am Mr. Roarke, your host. Welcome to Fantasy Island.'

In loving memory of Ricardo Montalban (1920-2009), Mr. Roarke himself, the indomitable host.

I know it’s way too early to be thinking about New Year’s so I’m not going to look to 2009 yet.  I will, however, take a relatively brief look back on the emotions of the year.  That’s what I have to do in order to move past it. Forgiveness is not a personal tenet of my faith.  Forgetfulness only applies to innocuous things like class assignments. I never forget a slight and when the time comes, I will always return it.  So, backwards for a minute.

January 2008: Hillary…Bill’s wife! When did she run for things? She doesn’t look like a monster. Kind of pretty actually. And smart. Where has she been hiding that brain? I must have been looking at Bill or something because I would not have missed that brain if I’d been paying attention.

February: Hillary…way more qualified than the rest of them.  Barack Obama…that’s an interesting name.  What hole did he crawl out of and can he go back?  Shut up, John Edwards with your stupid haircut. What is wrong with CNN? You have been my number one source of new coverage. What are you doing, man? Hillary didn’t say that! Or that. Leave Bill alone. What the hell?! (Stood in the rain for 2 hours to see the Big Dawg. Then had to wait standing for 2 hours more. Never regretted it.)

March:  Go, Texas, Rhode Island, and Ohio. So goes Ohio, so goes the nation! …Right?

For everyone here in Ohio and across America who’s ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, and for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up, this one is for you.

April: Why won’t that stupid bitch quit?  Because she isn’t stupid. Oh my god, what the hell? What parallel reality is this? He is not the nominee.  Am I sleepwalking?  Democrats, say something! Bill and Hillary Clinton are not racists. Who keeps bringing up Monica? And, no, random Obot at a college campus, Chelsea doesn’t have to answer your questions. Oh, and Pennsylvania, you make my life. *high-five* That is a what a landslide looks like! Tell ‘em, Ed.

May: I have my eye on you, Gary, Indiana.  I always will. You, too, North Carolina. Kentucky & West Virginia, let me buy you some drinks. How do you feel about Presidentes?  Let’s party down with Puerto Rico. See? They get it! Guam nearly did too.

Why won’t that stupid bitch quit? Because that stupid bitch keeps winning. The media can be bought but voters are not that stupid. Least of all this one. Democrats, you can still come back with your souls intact. Don’t. Do. This. Put aside the Messiah and pick a president.

May 31: Forget I said anything. Burn for all I care. Thanks for ruining graduation day, assholes.

June 3rd: What does Hillary want? To speak the truth for herself, Associated Press. You have no standing and your reputation is in the sewer right along with the Democratic Party. That was a master stroke of Journalistic Integrity. I’m proud of that bullshit. I’m even more proud of South Dakota, which was supposed to go another way if you recall. You made the news that day, but Hillary had the victory. Never had she been more Presidential or more beautiful than she was as she stood at that podium in that brilliant cobalt blue. I saw what I wanted. I wanted Denver and I wanted the Capitol and I wanted her right hand on the Bible and the stars in her eyes. I got that smile and Terry McAuliffe with one last, “The next President of the United States: Hillary Rodham Clinton.”  And for the first time through this whole thing, I completely understood the compulsion towards Hope.

Then I woke up.

June 7th:  She mourns in black. Bill claps with bleary eyes and that proud smile he can’t suppress when he looks at her.  Chelsea will not cry where they can see her.  She gets that from her mama.  Dorothy wishes she could make it better–mamas always do. I just wish I could be there. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.  She blinks fast, points towards the heavens and talks about cracks in an immortal ceiling. We look up with her and that damned hope springs renewed in our hearts.

A cracked smile and “we must elect Barack Obama” said sixteen times so hard it nearly breaks her. It does break me and I cry for two hours before I force myself to think about something stupider and less crucial than what’s just been lost. I will not remember the sympathetic pain in her eyes as she reaches for her supporters or the slight way she leans into Chelsea when she steps on stage to embrace her mother. Chelsea was the mother then, the mother of the grown girl with her glass heart–all 18 million splinters of it. I can’t remember that or I will never move on.

You’re likeable enough, Hillary.

I will never move on.

June 26th: …Unity really is just a town in New Hampshire.  She won that one, asshole. God, don’t let this be the end. God, don’t let this be the nominee.

August 22-25th: We deserve so much better than this.  We deserve her. We had Bill! Are we confused? Do we not know quality anymore? Keep going? Okay.  Just wish I knew where to.

No, I do know.  This is a travesty. I can’t even breathe I’m so angry. Okay, maybe that’s the crying.

It can’t happen again. It won’t. I will not reward this with my vote. He needs to go back to Chicago. I’ll buy the plane ticket. Time to get to work. *rolls up sleeves* John, what can I do for you?

August 31st: Well, now it’s gonna be fun.  Sarah, you have a unique opporunity to do what  no other women has. Break that highest, hardest glass ceiling for us.  We tried so hard this year.  You ain’t them that brung me, but I’d still love to dance–all the way to Washington.

September-October: Shocked silence.  Smug (guilty) silence from women’s groups everywhere. I can only ask what the hell is wrong with you so many times before I get sick of the sound of my own keyboard. What. the Fuck. Is Wrong. With You? This is a woman. This is a modern, working mother. Her very life is progressive regardless of whether her politics are. She’s one of us. Come on. This is our chance to stand together and show that we will not stand for misogyny in pursuit of the highest seat of government in this country. This is our chance to make Cady, Susan, Lucretia and the gang proud of us. Gloria, Nora, Ellen? Anybody?  Doesn’t anyone care that our daughter are watching and learning who they can be from what they see us accept? Anybody?

November 4th: Guess not.

I’m sorry, John.  You worked so hard. You paid your dues and I wanted this for you as much as I wanted it for this country. You’re such a good man.

Sarah, please don’t be sad. This wasn’t you. This was every woman who nodded her head when you were called “Bible Spice” or donned her “Sarah Palin is a C**t” shirt with pride when she attended a gay pride parade.  She thought she was being cutsie and all the boys thought it was so hot how she trashed you. Something about that metaphorical catfight made him want to call her back in the morning.  Please don’t think too much about those LGBT who trashed you either, despite the fact that you did more for the than Barack has ever done for anyone. (I’ll never understand, and you’re probably in similar straits, how a woman can stand tall for another minority group but be the first to hang the rope for her own.)

Fatefully, I suppose, it seems that we don’t care about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people either. All those people in matching t-shirts, bumping fists and yelling epithets, didn’t share a fundamental belief.  They didn’t believe in the rights of gay men and women to marry. (Some did, but they didn’t vote downticket, so too bad for the ‘mos.) Not a huge surprise but there ya go. They came for the Messiah and left the Hebrews to drown in the Red Sea. These are the people that came out to vote. Who knew? and here I thought the Conservatives stayed home.

See, Sarah, it wasn’t you. In my not at all humble opinion, a whole lot of,  misguided, feckless jackoffs got together and decided to throw you and Johnny Mac to the dogs. Many good, patriotic people worked their hearts out for another outcome. We didn’t fail. You didn’t surrender. You fought until you knew there was no victory in the night. Then, you stood under harsh lights and you waved like a queen. Not like a beauty queen, but a queen mother and wife, a queen-governor and partner.  You waved like a leader. 

When John stood at that podium and set down his dreams in that painful way he had to, he handed them to you. In that very same way, I handed mine to you when Hillary–in that oh so painful way–did the same. I handed them to you and I know that you hold them to your heart and you nourish your children with them. You’ve shown them, with all the vibrancy of your joy, that they can be whatever they want to be and that you will stand under klieg lights, at podiums, behind microphones, in front of cameras, and the world to make it a reality.  You will carry the torch of change, even if you weren’t first to feel the flames burn.  You can name every casualty and every hero of that war, just as John can name the heroes of his own.  You can be the heroine for your little girls and mine.

Or not. 

Maybe I’ve already asked too much and the scars will deter you for all time.  I’d understand if you preferred your Alaskan chaotica to the task of symbolizing a movement. (Especially one consisting of women whose stances you may be diametrically opposed to.) Sometimes the hardest thing to be is the face. Sometimes the hardest thing to be is noticed.

Sometimes, most times, the hardest thing to do is go on. I can vouch for that.

You’ll go on to bigger and better days. With 5 children and imminent grandkids, I don’t think there was any chance you wouldn’t.

John will be the Maverick and he will be re-elected in 2010.  Somebody has to be left who knows where one aisle ends and the other begins.

Hillary will be Hillary and be brilliant at it, where she’s planted.  I think you can vouch for that too.

You will all go on and so will the country. Somehow.

But, still, I think I’ll stay in bed tomorrow.

November 24: I cannot finish this entry with abounding wishes of “hope” because that’s just not my nature.  However, I can believe, and do, that better days are ahead. I don’t know how many or how far from us they are now, but they’re there, beyond the horizon–waiting. My resolution for the year, made too early and while I still recall, is to remember that. I wish the same for everyone.

Care deeply about what you believe in. And never listen to anyone who says that you can’t or shouldn’t go on

Well well well, look at what the AP & NBC News dropped on us:

US president-elect Barack Obama is considering naming former first lady Hillary Clinton (seen here on November 10), his onetime rival for the White House, as his secretary of state, according to NBC News.

OH REALLY???  Here’s the blurb:

Sorry my posting have been a bit short for my usual style. Life is catching up with me and I needed to tend to real life matters. PS: Thanks for the wonderful B-Day wishes from everyone!

I love this Hillary photo so much, I had to post it twice. From Perez Hilton (yes, I read the Cuban Gossip Gangsta):

Hillary Clinton ditched the blocky pantsuit to glam it up in a conservative floor-length gown in New York City on Monday night.

She was honored at the Glamour Magazine Honors the 2008 Women of the Year event at Carnegie Hall.

[Image via WENN.]

The woman pictured above, the wondrous, brilliant Senator Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton, wanted her voters to support President-Elect Barack Obama after she gracefully conceded her candidacy on August 26th 2008. Although a good percentage did, many of her voters decided to support the Republican candidate, Senator John McCain. I (like many of you reading this) did as well. Why? Why did lifelong Democrats take the plunge into “Red States-ville?”

For me, it was Democracy (as I stated in this Conflucian post). I cannot forgive nor forget how my vote was stolen in 2008 Democratic primaries which became collateral damage due to a DNC chosen symbolic presidency. Identity politics should never EVER trump Democracy, otherwise, any type of right which as Americans we are promised by as per the Constitution, will be erased thanks to the media and the multinational corporations that control everything in this country.

Living in Florida for the past 8 years helped me understand this: votes are stolen, misplaced, misinterpreted to benefit whoever paid off the media and/or global conglomerate who wants a return on their investment in XYZ puppet candidate. This is not the United States of America taught to us in our schoolbooks, nor the United states of America that my parents decided to make their new life as immigrants in, nor the United States of America our Founding Fathers/Mothers and brave soldiers fought for. But it’s the United States of America we are currently living in and I refuse to accept Democracy being thrown under the rug just because the media tells me to.

I like Will Bower’s recent Huffing Post’s proposal of Primary Reform but I’d add the elimination of all caucuses and closed primaries ONLY to registered party members. I’d like to see the elimination of superdelegates (since they can be too easily influenced by $$$ or forced to support a candidate by threatening their careers) and let the primary winner be decided by a count of the popular vote, BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE. Even though some of you may disagree, but I really think that a voter registration card with photo identification included in the card (like a driver’s license except it’s a “voting license”) is vital to ensure the sanctity of one person = one vote. Anyone who’s that interested in participating in Democracy would be willing to register with a photo ID voter card. – and/or anyone who’s willing to put up their picture on a MySpace or FaceBook account too.

Voter registration rolls on Excel spreadsheets (like I saw in FL at my polling station) is not accurate nor does it ensure a secure checkpoint, as early voters could vote a couple of days before Election Day and no one would be able to prove that they already voted. Human data entry processes would take several weeks just to update last minute early voters. I think scanning a voter ID card under a laser reader should keep count whether you already “early voted” or not. I can go on & on of the many ways Democracy can be ensured. Again, some of you may disagree and that’s ok. If you have a better idea, please leave it in the comments section. Anyone who’s interested in fair elections should be able to agree on some of these points.

Ultimately, I think we as that loud and hellacious group who dared defy the staus quo of our Democratic Party should concentrate all of our efforts to ensure that the electoral process is guaranteed. No citizen in this great nation should be denied a voice in the electoral process. We have many battles to wage that falls under the Big Tent of Human Rights, but none of these will be achievable unless we have an indivisible and uncorruptable system for voting.

From Perez Hilton (yes, I read the Cuban Gossip Gangsta):

Hillary Clinton ditched the blocky pantsuit to glam it up in a conservative floor-length gown in New York City on Monday night.

She was honored at the Glamour Magazine Honors the 2008 Women of the Year event at Carnegie Hall.

[Image via WENN.]

Look at the women in the main photo.  Is Obama REALLY going to do them right?

From Tampa Tribune:

Lowe said reporters are asking a lot of hard questions of the president-elect.

“How do you plan to pay for all these things, such as your health-care plan? They need to understand everything belongs to God. Nothing is too hard for God.”

The Rev. Art Jones of Bible Based Fellowship Church in Carrollwood opened his service on hands and knees, offering a prayer for the president-elect.

“Bless the world that welcomed his coming,” Jones said.

This is Bush 2.0 when the Repubs got the evangelical base all fired up.  I feel very bad for anyone who put this much faith in Obama.

Since I was 10,  I’ve never had a birthday party thrown in my honor.  I’m always buying myself cake & planning dinners, going out with friends etc.  Until yesterday that is.  My family planned a surprise B-Day party with some long distance relatives visiting for the occasion.  I must say that it cheered me the heck up after this awful week.

Have some birthday cake!

Not only did I get my very first troll (see below), I got a surprise birthday party from my familia. Ain’t that sweet?  I’ll be posting later on in the day.

1. JoeBamaMama, on November 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pm Said:

   Hey, now that Obama is president, is this just the Obama bashing blog?

   And while we’re at it, are you also going to block the IP of everyone that doesn’t come here to bitch and kvetch like they do at RiverDaughter?

2. 

   JoeBamaMama, on November 8th, 2008 at 5:41 pm Said:
   

   Hey! Politics is politics, baybee. If Barack could beat the Clinton machine and the DNC preordained Clinton nomination, then what else can you say? That’s politics. He won, get over it. Booyah!