YES, WE DID
Nov. 4th, 2008 11:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saavedra77I want a T-shirt that says that.
Tonight, I sat down at the Showbox in downtown Seattle with Randall, the friend who took me to see Obama speak for the first time just over two years ago, and Tiffany and Barb, with whom I canvassed for Obama earlier this year, and we watched a thing we'd devoutly wished for but still somehow couldn't believe, actually take place. We saw a skinny black guy with an exotic name win over states in the Old Confederacy. We saw him outperform the Southern white males who were our last two Democratic presidents. (Tonight was truly the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down ...) We watched a cool, thoughtful, eloquent politician emerge unscathed--in fact, arguably stronger--from a swamp of rumor and fearmongering. We saw Southern Strategies and wedge issue campaigns and swift boat attacks flounder and fail. We saw the familiar lines between red and blue states collapse. We watched Barack Obama win the presidency. I can't remember when I've ever felt prouder of my country.
Afterward, my friend Nicole and I walked through downtown surrounded by ecstatic people, screaming, shouting, high-fiving, jumping, marching, honking car horns. A little later, heading up Capitol Hill, I waded through throngs of revelers crowding the middle of Pike Street, which momentarily seemed as thick with human bodies as during the WTO protests of nine years ago or the immigration marches just a couple of years back, but this time not angry or defiant--just overjoyed. Somewhere along the way, a woman stood by the roadside holding a sparkler, looking for all the world like some kind of goth Statue of Liberty.
Now, outside my window, I can hear the celebrations still going on. No doubt about it, this is one deliriously happy city, tonight. And one that feels closer to the rest of the country than it has in a long, long while.
I have pictures. I probably even have more intelligent things to say about all of this. But it's late, and I'm already drifting off. So I'll post that stuff later, maybe tomorrow.
But, man, I have to say that waking up tomorrow is going to feel better than waking up any day has for the past eight years.
Tonight, I sat down at the Showbox in downtown Seattle with Randall, the friend who took me to see Obama speak for the first time just over two years ago, and Tiffany and Barb, with whom I canvassed for Obama earlier this year, and we watched a thing we'd devoutly wished for but still somehow couldn't believe, actually take place. We saw a skinny black guy with an exotic name win over states in the Old Confederacy. We saw him outperform the Southern white males who were our last two Democratic presidents. (Tonight was truly the Night They Drove Old Dixie Down ...) We watched a cool, thoughtful, eloquent politician emerge unscathed--in fact, arguably stronger--from a swamp of rumor and fearmongering. We saw Southern Strategies and wedge issue campaigns and swift boat attacks flounder and fail. We saw the familiar lines between red and blue states collapse. We watched Barack Obama win the presidency. I can't remember when I've ever felt prouder of my country.
Afterward, my friend Nicole and I walked through downtown surrounded by ecstatic people, screaming, shouting, high-fiving, jumping, marching, honking car horns. A little later, heading up Capitol Hill, I waded through throngs of revelers crowding the middle of Pike Street, which momentarily seemed as thick with human bodies as during the WTO protests of nine years ago or the immigration marches just a couple of years back, but this time not angry or defiant--just overjoyed. Somewhere along the way, a woman stood by the roadside holding a sparkler, looking for all the world like some kind of goth Statue of Liberty.
Now, outside my window, I can hear the celebrations still going on. No doubt about it, this is one deliriously happy city, tonight. And one that feels closer to the rest of the country than it has in a long, long while.
I have pictures. I probably even have more intelligent things to say about all of this. But it's late, and I'm already drifting off. So I'll post that stuff later, maybe tomorrow.
But, man, I have to say that waking up tomorrow is going to feel better than waking up any day has for the past eight years.
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an emotional night
Date: 2008-11-05 08:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 09:14 am (UTC)(excuse me)
FUCK YEAH! I am so proud of us right now. Yes we can, and YES we DID. Si se puede. (I want to say "Si, podremos" but I'm not sure that's right. Did I make that up?)
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 04:48 am (UTC)FWIW: "Sí, podemos" (no "r" in there) literally means "yes, we can." But "Sí, se puede" (roughly: "yes, it can be done", "yes, it's possible"?) has been a political slogan since Caesar Chavez started organizing farmworkers. I think "Sí, se puede" sounds better in Spanish ....
no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 04:27 pm (UTC)Anon
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-05 06:49 pm (UTC)I remember the August '91, when the coup d'etat attempt failed in the USSR. People in streets felt themselves brothers and felt that the world was changing - for the better (in fact, however imperfect the life in modern Russia (o Belarus) might be, it is still much better compared with the Soviet version).
I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change
Some "wind of change" is what the States need now, imho - as they did when FDR was elected
no subject
Date: 2008-11-09 04:43 am (UTC)Agreed: The situation is so serious, and our hopes and expectations for the new administration are great. I hope that the new government--president and Congress--are everything that they promise to be.