I Only Wish This Post was About the Bionic Woman...

Since the election, I've felt constantly on the defensive. Not since I was the only Angel-Luva on an all Spike Board, have I taken shit so personally while hanging out a normally escapist place (LJ). I've composed a lot of posts that I had to just wait on (and then delete) that were angry and reactionary and I am still upset and bitter from a percieved (by me) sense of abandonment by my party and then subsequent mocking and blame when the election went down the tubes. I have a bunch of deleted posts that pretty much say:

"You want the South? You want the Midwest? Then fight for them, dammit. Throwing up your hands and bemoaning the states full of Jesus-Freaks and inbred idiots is not conducive to winning the hearts and minds of middle American voters.

You can say you don't want us. You can wash your hands clean of the flyover states. But that would be stupid, cause you need us to win. And we want you to win. Some of us just don't know it yet and it would help if there was a method to get that message out. Like, I don't know - something radical like advertisements and commercials and perhaps campaigning. Just a thought."

I wonder at what kind of dynamics are at play where all of a sudden most of my people become "you" to me and I am suddenly part of a larger "we" with people who I have typically felt an entire cultural disconnect, despite sharing and living in the same environment and being raised around and understanding the same "values" that now is a dirty word in some circles and a call to action in others. I am bewildered. Also bothered and for once not bewitched cause apparently witchcraft is evil and I need to watch my step (here is where I would tell a story about how my fundamentalist preacher uncle forbade us from watching "Bewitched" when we were kids - but right now I don't want to deal with the demonization of my uncle so I don't tell the story except I just did. ACK!)

And normally I'd make a statement like that and laugh and "Praise Jesus" and wink and expect that everyone got the joke implied, but I can't right now in good conscience because what if they didn't? And really is it that much of a joke when there are still kids (well now they are young adults) on Death Row in Arkansas and the evidence against them at trial consisted of the fact that they wore Metallica t-shirts? Where can I find my comfort zone and function? I gotta be me, but I am wildly alternating between biting my tongue all the fucking time or lashing out without thinking and neither of those options feel like me at all.

And I think we are all raw and emotions are high - understandabley. I went off on someone for what I felt was her implying that there is some shortcoming in my mental reasoning for choosing to live my adult life in the South, as if I was an abused woman who continues to stay in a terrible situation.

A few days ago I responded negatively to someone's post (and now I can't even remember who it was) where she was angry about a guy in traffic. He was in a pickup truck and she said something along the lines of how he may find it socially acceptable where he is from to beat on women and marry his cousin and vote for a war-mongerer, but this is California and they don't cotton to that. Except she didn't say cotton and dude, I saw fucking red. I was furious. And all she was doing was letting off steam but I was so fucking angry I actually responded and normally, I don't do that. I'll rant here, but I try not to piss on someone else's LJ. They have a right to express, ya know?

Because - well none of that is true. And it is shit like that that continues to make people who feel like me and control the power of the Party to feel like the South is a lost cause and that is a fucking travesty. Remember when The Democrat party was the party of the poor? Well, we need to start getting in touch with that again, cause man - have I got some poor people for you.

So yeah - still pissed off. Trying to control it. Sorry for the seepage.

What I really want to do is to link to rageprufrock's latest post cause she can explain this so much better than me. So - here is the link.


http://www.livejournal.com/users/rageprufrock/146939.html

My Political Manifesto: Inspired By the Bionic Woman

My earlier post about Politics, the South, and well - I forget what else - have drained me. I am now drained. I started the post at a feeling of wistful tiredness, moved into righteous anger, transitioned straight into frustration with a stop-over at Lake Dear God I Need Some Fanfic.

And while I can see other's views and I totally get the anger - I still do not think my home is a lost cause peopled by raving lunatics. I believe in a few solid things:

I believe that the Democratic Party's future will be decided soon and it will be decided by us.

I believe that the key to winning is not in diluting our values and compromising our beliefs in order to appeal to more radical and fringe groups. I think that we will benefit by allowing our competitor to go this route of divisiveness.

I believe that the only way we are going to get this message out and to even begin to set the conversation and the tone and to take back our words are if we begin to fight back. I don't think we have. I think there is a view out there that this - what is at stake - is so obvious that anyone should be able to see it. Well, if the playing field was a fair one, perhaps they would. It isn't and we need to acknowledge that and do something about it.

Tearing apart at ourselves is not the way to do something about it. This is what the Conservatives want us to do. We need to take stock, for certain, and realize that we did fail. It is not easy to admit but we did. Excuses and blame and calling it a "values game" and saying that Jesusland wants G. W. is self-defeating, untrue and what they want us to do.

If we concede that this race was lost on values - we give them the next election on a silver platter.

The race was lost because we did not fight back. We let them dictate the conversation and the tone. They challenge our patriotism and we let them. They challenge our decency and we let them. They are organized and work together to set this tone and they have an agenda that has nothing at all to do what the voting public is seeing.

It's not religion, stupid. It is repetition.

I'm not saying that religion does not play a role in how people vote. Of course it does. When a person has a particular faith - that is an important part of who they are and it does shape what they see and how they react. But saying that all people of faith are single issue voters is short-sided and not true.

Also saying this is the first election where a candidate has smiled and talked about being a man of God isn't quite true- well this has been going on for awhile. The fact that it is such an issue now is quite possibly a positive indicator that a Great Big Change is on the horizon.

Y'all remember Nixon?

But when we allow them to over-simplify the issues and make the choice either you vote for God or Not, we lose.

So we either pull our shit together and start putting up a fight cause look here - we need a presence. If the administration is gonna be sending 5 different reps onto the Sunday morning talk show circuit and they are all going to be saying the same thing and we cannot count on our media to challenge or question anything so nebulous as "facts" then we are going to have to respond. We need credibility and a voice and we are not going to get either by insulting half the country.

We are the party of Hope. We need to start acting like it. And grind our enemies under our stylish, yet sanctified by logic, heels. That is what is missing from our Hope. The grinding of the enemies.

We need our own Karl Rove. Only less evil.

3, 2, 1... VID REEEEECCCCC!!!!! AtS

So - I blame Lum for my rant posts earlier cause I wouldn't have even been on LJ today if it had not been for waiting for her to post this vid.

And waiting.

And then more waiting.


I have been waiting since last night. I am not good with patience. I was born with a very limited supply and I used it all up when my mother forced me to play softball when I was eleven.

But this vid is worth it because it just... well it captures an essential element of the person that I think Angel is and it does it through the use of strict POV and capturing a character and what he is feeling and communicating that and she does it in a vid and that is so cool!

Not to mention that I happen to agree, prescribe and totally am down with her interpretation and while I want to smack Angel about the head repeatedly, it is all done with love. And a bit of lust.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/sockkpuppett/228608.html