Democracy at Work

Yesterday, I attended my second political rally at Obama’s Seminole, Florida whistle-stop. Back in ’83, I heard Gary Hart speak at the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana before some monkey business derailed his candidacy. Yesterday was Karen’s second time seeing a President. Her first was a speech in ’88 when Reagan bribed and bussed in a bevy of federal workers to the Capitol steps so his speech wouldn’t seem unattended. Ah, the good old days of graft.

Were the President not speaking within walking distance, I doubt either of us would have gone. I am half a political junkie though I prefer the clarity of transcripts and certain insights on the internet to partisan rallies. But how often in this life would I get to see a sitting President in person? Not very. Four years ago, friends of ours made the pilgrimage to witness his first inauguration. Theirs was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

So we braved the line at SPC Seminole on Wednesday evening to get tickets then wandered down on Saturday morning two hours before Obama’s speech. Like the President, we approached from the north. By the time we hit 113^th, the road was already closed and guarded. Police, parks and community officers manned the intersections and outposts. Red and blue lighted sedans, SUVs and pickups lined both sides of the road.

Once on campus, we were greeted by a sea of diversity, with a fleet of busses crashing like waves upon the shore, each moment disgorging more. Across the street, a Civil War skirmish line of protestors, perhaps a hundred, shouted their rallying cries, armed with the same battle flag that adorned our side.

A Disney-esque line snaked its way through familiar parking lots. A lone helicopter circled overhead. Pinellas’s finest were in charge of the somewhat chaotic crowd control, complete with conflicting lawful orders. As President’s motorcade crept nearer, they diverted and rediverted the line back and forth from the road to the sidewalk before deciding where we posed the minimum threat.

We formed an instant bond with the party of twenty-somethings in front of us who came up from Sarasota. Their day had started early. They were witty and knowledgeable, the perfect companions for our wait. They even tried to convince a deputy we were among their merry band of brothers when he broke the line just in front of us. But we came together again soon enough. The only problem we encountered was a herd of a half dozen self-identified and seemingly self-entitled fifty-something Republicans trampling their way through the line. We ignored them as their t-shirts professed they were engaged on the correct side of the argument.

At the end of the line, a mobile, scissoring sheriff’s watchtower overlooked a gatehouse garrisoned by a company of uniformed Secret Service. We entered a portcullis of a dozen metal detectors complete with magic wands. The whistle and mini-flashlight on my keychain garnered extra attention but otherwise there were no issues. A clutch of forcibly abandoned umbrellas lined a table just outside like an impromptu, OCD garage sale.

The cordoned field enclosed a crowd eleven thousand strong. Black uniformed silhouettes on the rooftops scanned us and the nearby woods for threats through their binoculars. Inside, as in line, volunteers distributed free water as light shields against the Florida heat. Though the staffers trying to energize the crowd met with more muted success. Despite the cloud cover, it was just too hot.

The day had dawned cloudy but not threatening. The field was muddy, humid and stifling from a deluge two days before. The pleasant breeze died as the sun emerged just in time to bear down upon the public press. We later heard one hundred people collapsed from the heat, ten of them hospitalized. One young woman was carried from the field by EMS like a wounded soldier about ten yards in front of us.

The President was a fashionable fifteen minutes late, which allowed most of the line behind us to file in. In later reports, we heard some were turned away when we hit capacity. We were lucky to get in. Perhaps we should have started our trek earlier.

Charming Charlie Crist performed the introduction. I will resist using his other sobriquet as he has become an ally rather than an adversary. He stood before the crowd as a former Republican governor citing how his erstwhile Party had abandoned him. If nothing else, as a former Rockefeller Republican from decades ago, I could empathize. The follies of my youth.

Here is where I must come to full disclosure. I am a Democrat. Although Obama wasn’t my first choice, I want him to succeed. I have a laundry list of reasons that it is unlikely I will ever again register as a Republican, at least until they undergo some very serious reforms. In that party, in my estimation, change must come from within. Still, I try not to let that distort my lens.

After a series of chants and very eerie “four more years” salutes from the crowd, Obama alighted at the podium. First, he recognized his allies, Gov. Crist, Sen. Nelson, Rep. Betty Castor. Of those three, Crist received the loudest cheers even though, unlike the other two, he is currently without portfolio. Nelson’s name received only a slightly worryingly, tepid response.

Unlike Crist, the podium was not miked well for Obama. The President was witty and interactive, improvising with the crowd. Unfortunately, that meant each time he turned to speak to an individual supporter, he turned away from the mikes at times leaving the rest of us in a Monty Python skit. ("Blessed are the Greeks?" "Oh, it's the MEEK!") Crist definitely knew better how to work the crowd and still maintain the microphone. That was perhaps the most disappointing experience of the day. 

Obama spoke for half an hour almost precisely to the second. It took the celebratory crowd five minutes before they calmed enough to listen in. He sprinkled several clever sound bites in with a detailed, four-point plan for moving the country forward. Prosperity comes from the middle out, not the top down. This is an election about choice not cynicism. We have a responsibility to keep the promises we’ve made.

His four points centered on creating manufacturing jobs, not rewarding corporations for outsourcing; controlling the nation’s energy through a diversity of domestic production; focusing on education to provide people with the skills, degrees and financing they need to succeed; and responsibly reducing the Federal deficit by rolling back taxes on the wealthy to the levels under the Clinton Administration and the prosperity it saw, as well as using the savings from ending two wars to pay down the debt.

Throughout, Obama came across soft-spoken. His speech was full of light, prosperity and solutions, and a quiet hope, though he never invoked that word. He sounded a clear counter-note to darkness and doom I constantly hear from the other side, which seems to say that our best days are behind us, and that tax cuts and gutting regulations are our only hope at salvation. As with many points in their platform, their arguments seem to ignore the economists and the advice of experts in favor of ideology.

The response from the crowd was more intriguing than the speech itself. In rising levels of applause, people admired, third, Obam’s bullet point on education, then, second, that bin Laden was finally dead. But the single most uniting issue that saw the crowd spontaneously erupt to drown out the President? His support of gay marriage and gay rights. That was perhaps the most surprising response. Seminole is not exactly a bastion of liberalism in admittedly moderate Pinellas County. In fact, our state rep climbed into office two years ago from the depths of Tea Party central.

In closing, Obama encouraged everyone to talk, not just to people who shared their opinions, but to people who didn’t, Democrats, Republicans and Independents. Dialogue is the mainsail of a successful democracy. He then encouraged everyone to register and to vote. To reinforce that point, he gave out a website: Gottavote.com.

With that, we began the long, overheated walk back home, downing more water, thankful that our training for Dragon*Con had prepared us for the noonday sun. Just as there was a line to get in, there was a narrow, funneled line to get out, directed by our county’s finest into trampling the landscape.

Tired after three hours of walking and standing in the Florida heat, it took me the rest of the day to recover. After napping and downing a couple Gatorades to rehydrate, Karen and I swung back by the campus on our way to grab a quick dinner out. All the busses, staffers and supporters were gone, leaving a only handful of workers to clean up the mess. Watching them bag up the litter and discarded bottles, I saw a metaphor. The still cordoned off scene seemed to resonate with so many experiences from the past four years and the fundamental nature of democracy at work. In this case, perhaps, a work in progress.

A worthwhile experience despite the energy-draining heat. One I’m sure I will remember fondly for many years to come regardless of the outcome of this election.


© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Expectations

I get the feeling some people are expecting me to say something this morning. That somehow I will be able to capture the historic nature of last night in a way that they cannot.

I hesitate to try. Nothing I say about the election can live up to those expectations. I can bring it no greater meaning than my own.

After the polls closed on the West Coast last night, a friend of mine from high school called me. He was excited that the networks had officially declared the election for Obama. After we had talked for a few minutes, I asked him what his mother, who had died a few years ago, would have thought. He told me that growing up, she used to tell him that while he could do almost anything he wanted to do in this country, he would never be President. Because he was black. I think she would have been tickled to see this day, though perhaps not for the reason you might think.

This was a woman who taught me the meaning of being colorblind. She adopted each of her son's friends as her own. She cared for us, nurtured us. She helped us work through our problems. She protected us, at least where she could. She didn't care about our backgrounds or heritage or skin tones; her son's judgment of our character was good enough for her. She was the village auntie who wouldn't hesitate to set us straight in her own gentle but authoritative way.

I think what she might have been most pleased with out of this election was that for the vast majority of Americans it was not a referendum on race. For most of us, it was about policy, about character, about outlook and direction, whether our candidate won or lost. Race was incidental. As it should be. For that, I think she would have been most proud.

Don't be fooled by the pundits and experts this morning citing how this demographic or that voted by percentages. People are not monolithic, not by gender, not by religion, not by skin tone, no more than by the color of their hair or eyes. The experience of having certain qualities changes us; they don't define us in absolutes. If you don't believe that, have a conversation with a redhead or two some time. Or an Abenaki. Or a Jew. Each has a different perspective on what it meant to grow up in this country, some of which was directly shaped by how they were treated and perceived.

My aunt, who had a double-shot of my splash of native blood, used to get hassled at the beach back in the '50's and 60's because people thought she wasn't white. That experience changed her, just as hearing her retell it years later changed me. She always wanted me to be proud of that sliver of my background. My grandfather wouldn't talk about it, because of his father's and grandfather's experiences I'm told. He lived in New England, not Selma, but his society's expectations still changed him.

As my own changed me. The friend I spoke with last night was once told by my high school girlfriend's parents not to come around alone to see her, at least not to the front door. They were concerned with what the neighbors might think. One member of my own family used to joke that my dark complexion came from all that "nigger blood" in me. This was acceptable behavior at the time. This wasn't segregationist or backwoods Florida. This was an educated suburb in the early '80's, a stone's throw from the Cape. Canaveral, not Cod.

Though they still make me angry sometimes, those memories belong to the past now, not the present. I think we can finally say we've moved on.

Do we have different expectations of this President-elect than of any one previous? I hope not. He is a man, not an icon. He will certainly make mistakes. And we, as a nation, will continue to stumble forward, hopefully toward a better future, for our children or our grandchildren, if not always for ourselves.

Cleo, if you are looking on this morning, I hope you are smiling. For myself, I am content that we have redefined at least one expectation in this country. Though I can see from some of the returns last night that on a number of other issues, we, as a nation, still have a long, hard path ahead.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

The Die is Cast

Or should I say the ballot? By ten thirty this morning, Karen and I had arrived at the early voting station near where she works downtown. About thirty people were in line outside. Maybe another fifteen standing inside the door. And five more waiting for one of the two dozen privacy booths to open up.

There was a good mix of people in line, older, younger, men, women, mildly affluent and working class, all chatting together amicably, their only concern that someone else might cut in line. There was a security guard directing us, and poll workers counting us into the building. There was at least one family represented by three generations, the youngest not quite old enough to vote. Or read. Or hold the pen. Or really do much more than smile at all of us funny looking people and drool. She was a very cute baby out with her mother and grandmother for her first electoral experience. Always good to see them started young even if they won't remember.

Oh, since we're in Florida, perhaps some of you were looking for a different set of demographics? Let's just say that in line I felt like the shirt of a tuxedo attending a formal dinner, by which I mean as an ensemble we all looked good.

The line moved steadily. After they checked my ID, I felt like that dream where I'm back in school again taking a standardized test. Here's your black pen. Don't drop it, don't lose it, don't eat it. Don't take it with you. Here's a sheet to mark your answers. Fill in the bubble completely. Only color inside the lines. If you make a mistake, raise your hand to request a new paper. Don't open your booklet until you're standing in the voting booth. No talking. Keep your eyes on your own test. When you're finished, run it through the scanner to tally your final grade. If everything checks, you are free to go. You should receive your results in just under two weeks.

The only difference was they encouraged us to bring a crib sheet, like an open book SAT. Just beyond the Neutral Zone at the entrance a young woman representing one of the major parties was handing out a substitute in case you forgot your own.

There was an older man in front of me with a discernable eastern European accent. When asked at the registration desk whether he wanted his next ballot mailed to him, he replied firmly, "I don't believe in that. I would rather come down here and spend my time to make sure everything goes right." Everyone smiled at his answer, the poll workers and the patrons. On his way out, the party rep tried to hand him a "good government team" cheat sheet which he casually waved away saying he had already voted, "Only for the main man." "Oh, which one?" Whisper, whisper, mumble. "Oh, great! High five."

We had stickers in hand before eleven, twenty-five minutes tops, line and all. Karen and I made a morning of it, casting our ballots then going out to her favorite downtown deli where we compared notes over sandwiches. We had reached similar conclusions on most of the issues. On one or two, we cancelled each other out. Several local races were contests between incompetence and inexperience. Hard to know which way to lean there, toward the devil you know or the demon you don't. Either one could steal your lunch.

The Supervisor of Elections says we're on track for twenty-five thousand early voters at a paltry three locations. Counties with half our population have double that number of sites. Another hundred and seventy thousand citizens have requested mail-in ballots. Seventy thousand of those have already been returned. That out of six hundred and fifty thousand registered voters broken almost evenly between Democrats and Republicans with a quarter sitting it out in other parties. Historically, we have turnouts like our November highs, hovering near the upper seventies to low eighties. I'm curious whether we see a mini-heat wave this year.

Nothing left for us now but to sit back and enjoy the game. For those of you who know my politics and agree, I encourage you to come out and support my choices. For those who disagree, I encourage you to come out and nullify my vote. For those who are unsure where I stand, swing by the house; from there it should be obvious. Or the more clever among you can puzzle something out of this message.

Remember, it doesn't matter if you see politics like an organized sport or like a crapshoot lottery: you can't win if you don't play. So, get out there and vote. And best of luck to you and your candidates. I think we'll all need it soon.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III

Courage

I am Edward Morgan and I approved this message.

Today, I venture into politics. If that makes you uncomfortable, stop reading here and delete this message. But before you do, understand that my intent is not to influence the way you vote. I am not here to define my politics, I am not here to defend them. I am not here to debate. I am not calling you to arms to support one party or the other. I am not here to persuade you that my thoughts and understanding are any better than your own. They most certainly are not. By definition they can't be, not for you. At the moment, it is the tone of our national conversation that concerns me, not its composition. The arrangement, not the orchestra.

Over the past several years, I have been confronted by people on the left and the right. I have been called a traitor for the candidate I support. I have been called a mindless drone for pointing out the other candidate isn't always wrong and, in some things, actually better. I have been told that I have no right to vote because I wasn't in the military. I have been called un-American for either way I see the war. I have been told the 1st Amendment doesn't apply to me because my religion isn't practiced by the majority. I have been called irrational because I hold those same beliefs. I have been informed that the people I claim on the census are nothing but drunks so deserve whatever destitution befalls them. Some of this by family, some by friends and colleagues, otherwise reasonable people, not anonymous operatives for one party or the other.

This must end.

I hear cries from both sides to adopt the tactics of the opposition, meet fire with fire. This is the model of failed states around the world, countries with names few people recognize in places few people can point to on a map with borders no one agrees upon or controls. It is a policy of revolution breeding revolution under which the majority of people suffer and only dictators and demagogues flourish. It is the politics of divisiveness, the politics of demonization. The politics of personal destruction. The politics of fear.

This must end.

Machiavelli says it is better to be feared than loved. Fear is a powerful emotion, more powerful than greed, more powerful than hope. It is far easier to incite a mob to violence than inspire one to build or talk one into cutting down a noose. It is easier to sketch the world in charcoal than to paint it in vivid color. In the real world, even shadows have color reflected by the light. We prefer black and white because it is easier to distinguish contrast. We don't have to think, just react when a given line is crossed. It is the politics of laziness.

In an environment of fear, it becomes too easy to rely on someone else's judgment, to dig in and retrench when someone violates our principles. It is easy to blame the other side, whichever side that is. "They" always started it; "they" always escalated it. "We" have no choice but to respond or appear weak. "We" have been maligned and have no other recourse than to fight.

This must end.

This trend has continued until the most vile slurs and epithets are now shouted at political rallies: Sexist, bigot, baby-killer, terrorist, anti-Semite, communist, Nazi. They culminate with a simple, two word phrase: "Kill him." That utterance marks the end of any rational democracy. It is the voice of anarchy, not the language of impassioned debate. First it is shouted, then whispered, in a theater, in a railroad station, at an exposition, in a book depository, beyond a balcony, in a kitchen just off a ballroom floor.

This. Must. End.

At some point we, the people, have to say enough. We don't have to agree. In fact, we rarely will. Each of us has our own opinions, our own priorities regarding the direction we think the country needs to go. Different experiences shaped each of us and what we value. Our perspective on these experiences is unique. Some have more impact than others, but each has no less value, not to the individual. We gain, not lose, when we pause a moment to consider and draw a breath.

My grandfather's grandfather lied about his age to sign up with the Grand Army of the Republic during the American Civil War. I don't know why he joined, whether he was full of belief and righteous indignation, whether he was full of a childish concept of glory, whether he thought it would be an adventure, whether he thought he had something to prove, whether he thought he could make his name. I don't know what regiment he marched with, he lived with, he fought with, he watched perish. His service ribbon does not say. It only says he joined, he served, he did not die. He returned home a different man, a man who drank, a man who suffered nightmares. A man who died, haunted, I am told, by the history that had unfolded around him of which he would not speak.

Our experiences change us.

My uncle, really my father's cousin, was seventeen when World War II came to this country. I don't know why he entered the army. I don't know whether he chose his duties or someone chose them for him. During that war, he tended the troops who had been injured and transported back to England. There were no med-evacs, no helicopters, no trauma teams standing by to treat the wounded. Antibiotics were cutting edge medicine, as was something resembling modern anesthesia. Day after day, he witnessed the only constant in war, the parade of wounded and maimed returning from the battlefield. He helped the ones he could recover. He has never described his experiences to me directly, only talked about the useless nature of war.

Our experiences change us.

A friend's mother managed an apartment complex in a public housing neighborhood known as "Little Vietnam." It was at heart of a police no-go zone where you regularly heard gunshots on a Friday night. Cruisers might roll up late or never. If they did, they were as likely to hassle the innocent as the guilty. Even knowing that, she drew a line in the sand against the drug dealers in her building, telling them they were not welcome. These men reacted first with intimidation, then with vandalism and finally with threats against her family. From that point forward, she kept a pistol within easy reach of her bed. When I knocked on her door after dark, I knew to stay in the light until I heard her voice, knew that each time I saw the curtain move, there was a gun behind the window.

Our experiences change us.

A woman I know had an abortion when she was fifteen. I didn't find out until many years later. We grew up together, but were not close at the time. I don't know the details of her pregnancy, don't know the details of her relationship with the father. I don't know the details of her decision other than she felt pressured by her family. All I know is that she had chosen a name she still remembers. Thirty years later, I can still hear the anguish and regret in her voice when she recalls that moment in her life.

Our experiences change us.

Those experiences run across the current fault lines of American politics, war, gun control, abortion. Hot button issues where people make snap judgments based on pure emotion. Whether I agree or disagree with the conclusions each of those individuals drew from their experience, I cannot attack them. I can only wonder how being in their position would have altered my life, my beliefs. How can I invalidate an experience I did not have, a memory that I do not share? Should I demonize them for what they learned from a life different from my own? Intolerance breeds intolerance as surely violence begets violence, a outcome as old as obsidian knives, as inevitable as moonrise.

Everyone remembers September 11th, where they were, what they were doing when they heard. I remember April 19th. My wife was on vacation from her job with the federal government. We had slept in that morning. When we got up, we turned on the television to check the news. What I saw was a gutted and smoking federal building, almost identical to the one near the office where my wife worked downtown. The image left an indelible mark upon my psyche. That could have been my city, my neighbors, my wife. All because an individual, a veteran who had sworn to defend this country and uphold its laws, had honed a grudge like a well-stropped razor, then slashed out against the government thinking he was reclaiming an eye for an eye. For me, that morning in 1995 revealed the natural terminus of the politics of hate.

Our experiences change us.

We will take back the tools of democracy not by electing one candidate instead of the other, but by repudiating the tactics of fear, the tactics of hate, by insisting on decency despite our differences, not just for the candidate we support but for the one we don't. Courage is often confused with combat. Courage isn't fighting for something we believe in; courage is standing up to fear.

As most of you know, I spent several months last year hanging around a chemo ward. It is a grim place despite the comfortable chairs, the beautiful view, the kind and helpful nurses. It is a place occupied by men and women, some young, some old, some outwardly healthy, some not, some on their first visit, some on a repeat itinerary. That place isn't about fighting, it isn't about winning; it is about living. The ones who complete that journey, and not everyone does, come out different than they started, sometimes subtly, sometimes radically. The experience shapes them, changes them. Some who don't see the other side show more courage than some who do. The ones who emerge aren't called "victors," they aren't called "winners;" they are called "survivors."

Our experiences change us.

On its journey, our country has survived a President who ignored Supreme Court rulings when they did not suit him. We have survived a President who suspended the writ of habeas corpus. We survived our government publicly blacklisting citizens because of their political affiliation. We survived our government imprisoning citizens based on their ethnicity. We have survived stripping people of their rights and land based solely on their race. We have survived buying and selling individuals as though they were commodities. None of this happened within the past fifty years. We will most certainly survive either of these Senators being elected.

You are not racist if you don't vote for a one candidate; you are not sexist if you do not vote for another. Unless, of course, race or gender are the reason for your decision; then you might have a problem. You are not a terrorist if you don't support a certain candidate. You are not a torturer if you don't endorse another. Anyone who tells you differently is trying to manipulate you. That road ends in totalitarianism, pick your flavor, left or right. In practical execution, they are difficult to distinguish.

Over the summer, roughly half of Zimbabwe, a country of some 12 million people, went out to vote for an opposition candidate. They didn't have the luxury of a secret ballot. They knew their government would never allow their candidate to win, despite public assurances promising a free and fair election. They went out despite knowing from experience that they risked being beaten, risked having their livelihood taken, their property stolen, their homes burned. They voted anyway. These weren't people steeped in centuries of democracy. They weren't people ready to take back their government by any means, at any cost. These were ordinary men and women, just like you and me. They knew what was coming and cast their vote anyway, in most cases in an orderly and peaceful manner, at least where their government allowed it. That, my friends, is courage.

Whatever your politics, I hope you have the courage to defend even those you disagree with from slander and from hate. In the coming election, I hope you have the courage to vote your convictions rather than someone else's fears.

I am Edward Morgan and I approved this message.


© 2008 Edward P. Morgan III