sun_set_bravely

The Republicans have invaded my city. They're trying to tell me that I'm not a patriot if I don't follow them. They're trying to sell me the memories of smoke and death, like I wasn't there on that day, watching with my face pressed to the glass. I'm angry for those who have lost more than me, whose grief is being used for a party agenda. I'm heartened by the protesters, and I'm trying to find my place among them. Where is my work? Where do I want to stand in all of this?

I got an e-mail today from a high school friend that I haven't seen in years. She got married a few years ago, and recently had her first child. It's exactly what she wanted to do, and I'm happy for her at the same time that I'm glad for the choices I've made for my life. Her e-mail made me sad today, though. She writes about being at home with the baby while her Navy husband is out on duty, and her sentences run on and on. I can imagine her confessing without pausing, her disappointment, her disillusionment suddenly overflowing because I asked how she was doing. She says, "it's just a lot harder than I thought it would be" and I want to ask, "How did you think it would be easy?"

I just watched Johnny Cash's "Hurt" video again for the first time in about a year.

I haven't cried in a long, long time. Too long. For me, tears are a way of cleansing, of letting out the residue of emotional buildup. A good cry makes me feel so, so good and refreshed. I'm not sure how to induce crying. A sad movie, perhaps?

The birthday picnic on Saturday was awesome. My friend

heidilouwho surprised me by flying in secretly for the weekend. She came in on Saturday morning and left yesterday. It was so awesome to have her here for the fun celebration. I see that LJ now offers picture hosting for all paid members; I may try to upload some party pictures.

We watched "Amelie" on Monday. I didn't care for the movie that much the first time I saw it, but with each viewing, I'm more and more enchanted. Pure, ecstatic movie magic! It's so... well, magical! I want to make something so luminous, so seamless, and so enthralling.

My dad and stepmom arrive tomorrow for a week-long visit. I'm looking forward to hanging out with them. Maybe we'll all go protest together.

I'm discombobulated and tired. On the subway today, I opened my journal and saw that I hadn't written in it for five days. I use my journal to sift, to reflect, to process. This means that I have a lot of raw experience sitting around in my corners right now. I think this is why I feel so weird.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

poetbear.livejournal.com

"I see that LJ now offers picture hosting for all paid members; I may try to upload some party pictures."
i'm going to have to get into that myself. i didn't post for about
three weeks, but have restarted. ~paul

From:

sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com

It's good to see you back!

From:

poetbear.livejournal.com

tuvm
U2!~paul

From:

gurdonark.livejournal.com

Perhaps your work is to volunteer to spend time in New Hampshire, registering Democratic voters. It looks as though New Hampsire might actually have a not entirely remote shot of going for Kerry, and my own view is that the way to beat Bush is in the balloting, not on the streets. Protest has its place for a disempowered minority, but the reality here is that most of us in the US don't want Bush, but a majority don't turn out to vote. I'd suggest you do that work in NY, but in NY, the issue appears already resolved for Kerrey. But NH can't be that far from Manhattan by train, and yet there the vote could be close (and usually will go toward Bush, unless enough democrats both register and vote).

I think it will be fun to write with that raw experience. Maybe there's a poem in five days of such experience. I am not much for crying, but a movie which is both sad and somehow redemptive can do it for me.

I feel for your friend, but frankly, for everyone with every choice, it's not as though it's all easy. The funny thing (a bit like your writing, really), is that the worthwhile things to do are sometimes also the hardest.

Sometimes I think I could have become an optometrist, and it would all be easy. They call you doctor, you get paid well, and you work forty hour weeks.

I must check out LJ's picture hosting. I use picturetrail.com and like it, but it would be easier, perhaps to use LJ.

I am not sure if I wished you a timely happy birthday, so I'll wish you a belated one. Here in Texas, the bluebonnets have sadly been replaced by Bush/Cheney blue bumperstickers, but we're all surviving anyway.

From:

freak1c.livejournal.com

Protest has its place for a disempowered minority...

I've been thinking about this a lot lately - and I think that the minority is actually at this point so disempowered that they are without a voice.

The marching, the protesting seems a little strange considering who it's coming from - mostly white (and I'm guessing here- but mostly middle-class) kids. I've been wondering - where are my Asian brothers and sisters? Where is the black community? Where are the demonstrations in Harlem? Orange County?

The only answer that makes any sense to me is that the thousands that have been showing the Republican Delegates that the Nation Does Not Agree With Them - that those relatively few people are fighting for the future of all of us, and to those that can't stand up for fear of being arrested - and not being released in a day's time.

Other tactics are just as necessary - but a change in culture requires an increase in awareness. Which historically, and even now - can be accomplished through civil disobedience.

From:

gurdonark.livejournal.com

You may be right. My own feeling, though, is that awareness is not particularly increased by the current spate of marches. I think that America has an awareness of what is happening. Most of America lives every day with what is happening.

The question, really, is how to empower people. Marches can serve a wonderful function of empowerment, but they can also serve as an alternative to more prosaic but sometimes more successful strategies.

In Florida, the Republicans turned back thousands of Gore voters who would have voted, but had failed to register. If only 600 of them had registered, Mr. Bush would not be president today.

That's not to say that protest is "wrong". It is a tested and true instrument of individual empowerment.

But for me and many others, the civil disobedience speaks far less for our desire to rid the nation of the right than simply voting would.

The left is not showing up to vote. We know they are more numerous than their polling numbers show. They can flood a street with demonstrators. But where are they on election Tuesday?

If a protest will get the votes out to defeat Bush, well and good. But the left and left/moderate can win this election, and it will happen in the polling place.

I think that the situation today is not Birmingham 1964, but a more nuanced situation. Protest is a useful and valid means of expression, and I don't discourage it
today. But I'm far less interested in agitprop than in election Tuesday.

From:

gurdonark.livejournal.com

hmmm...did I say 600...I think that figure in Florida is a bit higher.

From:

sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com

Yes, but Bush would also not be in office if Florida officials hadn't purged 57,000 votes from registered voters (most of them minorities) as well.

There is a time to politely take the action that is supposed to get us the results (voting). But when people have so much anger and frustration about the miscarriages of justice and loss of life, that is the time to take to the streets and make some noise. Peaceful protest is possible (see Sunday's massive protests) and desirable.

One friend of mine compared going to a protest to going to church. You're surrounded by people that believe what you believe, and you sing songs and chant words that affirm the validity of your emotions and experience. In that way, I think that these protests are necessary community experiences that can channel negative energy into a force for change.

From:

gurdonark.livejournal.com

Yes. I've always been disheartened that the Voting Rights Act violations inherent in the Florida election did not get addressed.

I don't think there's anything wrong with making some noise--that's what democracy is for. I can imagine that it must be affirming to be in a throng of like-minded people.

I hope what we all hope, that this next election goes to the Democrats.

From:

sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com

I did not mean to criticize my friend's choice. I intended to lament the fact that anyone these days, especially a young woman, could truly believe that raising a child is easy.

Also, these protests can be a great eye-opener for people who might not realize how big the problem is. And once that seed has been planted, they can consider ways that they can make change in their communities.

Change needs actions on all sides. Even if the mainstream media chokes our stories, and highlights the arrests instead of the fact that there were 500,000 peaceful protesters on the streets of NYC on Sunday, protest is a vital and energetic part of democracy. It takes all kinds to make a world.

From:

gurdonark.livejournal.com

I didn't take your comment as criticism of your friend. I thought that you were saying what you were saying.
I was trying to say that people have a way of thinking things are always easy, but they often are not.

That's a good point about protest. Mainstream media has never given good coverage to agitprop, but I think the internet makes mainstream media irrelevant anyway.
You're right that protest is a vital and energetic part of democracy. My frustration is not that people protest, but that people are not galvanized to vote.
But that's not the fault of protesters.

You're right--it takes all kinds to make a world.

From:

chaptal.livejournal.com

Being a parent is the hardest thing, ever.

I am disgusted at the GOP's use of September 11th as a talking point, a sacrament for political gain.

Be careful out there.

From:

sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com

And I respect every person who makes the decision to become a parent. It's a uniquely demanding job.

Thanks; I'm trying to stay safe and sane.

From:

http://users.livejournal.com/lindalee_/

that last paragraph... just screams at me.... because i have done exactly the same thing... and i'm feeling it!

From:

oceanic.livejournal.com

Sometimes that raw experience won't come out until it wants to. For some reason, it seems that I occasionally need to let my raw experiences accumulate and calcify before I can write them out. However, if you feel you have something to write, I'd get it out before it does damage with all that bouncing around.
In reference to needing an outlet to cry (and I agree with you on its cleansing purposes), I'm lucky (?) enough to have a song that I've tapped for so long in the name of grief that it never, ever, fails to cut through whatever walls I've got going up. However, the downside of that is that I can't ever listen to that song without everything crashing down to sheer vulnerability, and I don't ever listen to it unless something hideous or life-changing has happened. If you have a song and/or movie like that, or that inspires the same sense of stripping defenses away (in a safe way), that would be my recommendation.

My consolations on the protesting wear and tear. It's not easy to feel like you're taking the issues of the whole country on your shoulders, and sometimes it can be too much. *hugs* to you and chrisle.