Searching for Barack Obama

Yesterday, I went to Ground Zero (only about a five-minute walk from my apartment) in a valiant attempt to see Barack Obama, who visited the site yesterday with McCain to honor the victims of 9/11.

It should be noted that I walk past the World Trade Center all the time on my way to and from the subway, but I've never been there on September 11.  It was a very sobering feeling being right across the street on this particular day: seeing so many policeman milling about, barricades set up everywhere and families of the victims with young kids and single mothers and fathers.  Very, very sobering.  It was a good reminder of the sheer luck and wonder involved simply with being alive and the good fortune to have not lost anyone on that horrible day.

Anyway, the main mission of the afternoon was to catch a glimpse of Barack Obama.  As might have been expected, no one knew what the fuck was going on.  I talked to at least four or five different cops who all gave me conflicting reports on where he would be, when he would be there and if he'd even be there at all.  It was truly the deaf leading the blind.

To make a long story short, I never got to see him.  I do, however, have a hilarious story from my travels and travails of the day, and that's why I'm writing this post.

There was a woman, a family member of one of the victims, who set up shop on Broadway with a bunch of signs and photographs shortly after a quasi-parade of protesters (the people who thought 9/11 was an inside job, etc.).  She basically was telling the crowd that, if we elect Barack Obama, we somehow elect the mindset of those crazy protesters, and therefore we will all become part of a Muslim socialist nation that looks a lot like Europe.  Now, I of course failed to see the logic in this woman's argument (for a number of reasons - I mean, where in Europe are there any Muslim socialist nations?).  I stood there in the front of the crowd, proudly wearing my Obama shirt, as she yapped about "freedom" (and how, somehow, the GOP is in favor of that) and tried to make everyone afraid of Islam - and, thus, Barack Obama.  Because Barack Obama is Muslim.  And socialist.  And European!

Anyway, after about five minutes of this bullshit, I escaped in a brave effort to find more intelligent life.  I failed, and ended up returning to this same spot about an hour later.  Now, I was pleased to see, this woman was holding a sign that said "Drill Baby Drill" and was trying to get the crowd going in a chant: "McCAIN AND PALIN FOR A SAFE AMERICA!  McCAIN AND PALIN FOR A SAFE AMERICA!"  The crowd didn't really seem to be buying it.  I turned to some guy who was standing next to me and said, "This woman is a fucking idiot."  This woman, who is clearly voting Republican and I'm sure voted for Bush at least once, had in her hand a copy of the Constitution, as if to imply that somehow the Republican Party - which brought us Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act - was the party of civil liberties.

My first instinct was to throw up, but luckily I didn't follow through on that.  So I decided to do the only thing I was capable of doing at that point - I screamed.  Pushing away all self-consciousness, I started yelling, "OBAMA!  OBAMA!  OBAMA!  OBAMA!  OBAMA!  OBAMA" at the top of my lungs to drown this woman out.  Lo and behold, most of the rest of the crowd joined in with me!  (Ah, New York...)  So there we were, us vs. this stupid woman, a meek "McCAIN!" vs. a robust "OBAMA!"  It was a hilariously wonderful release of the pent-up frustration I have for every stupid McCain supporter who still thinks the Republicans offer small government and guarantee on personal freedoms.  I was giddy afterwards.

So, I didn't get to see Barack. But I did get to shout his name in the face of a woman so ignorant and ill-informed that she dared chant the names of McCain and She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named four blocks from my apartment in broad daylight.  Not in my neighborhood, bitch.

Thoughts on 9/11

Seven years ago tomorrow, the men and women of the United States Congress stood together on the steps of the Capitol and sang "God Bless America."  It was an incredible display of unity and bipartisanship on perhaps the worst day in this nation's history.

Seven years later, it feels like we are right back where we were on September 10, 2001 - maybe even that we're worse off.  George W. Bush, besides simply squandering the international goodwill generated after 9/11, has pushed a mantra that only a great fascist dictator could find attractive - he has not only disagreed with intelligent dissent, he has sought to quash dissent altogether.

If you've disagreed with this president's actions, either at home or abroad, you've been branded a 21st-century Benedict Arnold.  This all started with Bush's "You're either with us or you're against us" and "Bring 'em on" mentality that he foisted upon the rest of the world, the same way guys with really small dicks are usually obnoxious.  We were going to unleash war, Bush said, wherever and whenever we wanted - and as Heidi might say on Project Runway, "you're either in you're out." (Supply your own cute German accent.)

The problem is twofold: one, as we have all learned, Bush is all smoke and mirrors.  We never went to go get Osama bin Laden (which our allies and enemies would have approved of), instead opting to alienate everyone but Tony Blair in a ludicrous attempt to bring "freedom" to Iraq.  (This, of course, was never about Saddam Hussein, it was about oil.)  Six years and a shitload of $4.00-a-gallon tanks later, we are entangled in more problems than - well, ever.

But that's not even the biggest problem, at least not in the greater scope of human history.  The biggest tragedy of the Bush administration is the "with us or against us" mentality Bush and the Republicans have used to rationalizes every fucked-up thing they've done.  They turn anyone who disagrees with them into a traitor.  Just because I think this president (and vice president, and former secretary of defense, etc. etc. etc.) is a lying, conspiring scumbag doesn't make me a traitor.  Just because I didn't support this ridiculous war doesn't mean I don't and won't always support the troops.  Just because I don't seek to politicize 9/11 along with the Republicans (i.e. their 2008 convention video, their 2004 convention IN NEW YORK CITY, et. al.) doesn't make me un-American.

In fact, it makes me more American, dare I say.  Disagreement, dissent, discourse - this is what makes for a successful democracy.  You cannot have democracy without active participation of all the players involved - Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, white, black, Latino, Asian, Native American, male, female, straight, gay, young and old.  The rights of those in the minority are as important - if not more important - than the robust power of the majority.  The voices of the people - all the people, even if they passionately disagree - are vitally important, even if the president is the ultimate "decider."

Dissent is essential to this country and to the future of this world.  That's why Palin's adventures in book-banning scares me so much.  We can move forward, together, in this country but only if we air our differences - frequently.  And we must be allowed to do so.  Disagree, disagree, disagree - and then agree to disagree, and have firm faith that we are all Americans first, and we can all still be Americans even while thinking the other guy is totally fucking nuts.