Friday Cat Blogging

Frisker is glad all that election excitement is over. Her human servants have returned to their accustomed stations at their computers and can be herded toward the cat food cans without interruption by news of polls or attack ads.

She is concerned to learn that the Obama family wants a puppy. Who needs a puppy? Perhaps the confidence she expressed in her endorsement was misplaced. She is watchful.

Getting up to speed on Afghanistan

Tom Englehart is pessimistic about U.S. prospects in Afghanistan under our incoming regime:

... after January 20th, expect Obama to take possession of George Bush's disastrous Afghan War; and unless he is far more skilled than Alexander the Great, British empire builders, and the Russians, his war, too, will continue to rage without ever becoming a raging success.

Anita Inder Singh, a Swede who is currently a professor at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi, provides some data points that illuminate why Obama's hope of rescuing the Afghan debacle with European assistance is a pipe dream. Not only are European citizens unwilling to see their soldiers killed in the Hindu Kush, but their governments absolutely aren't going to pay to rebuild the place.

One of the deeper causes of the problems facing Karzai and NATO is that both the military and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan have been among the most inadequately funded peace-building operations in the world since 1945.

In effect, there are 1.2 NATO soldiers for every thousand Afghans, or four soldiers per thousand if the 85,000-strong Afghan security forces and all NATO personnel -- totaling 143,000 - are taken into account. In contrast, there are 20 NATO soldiers per 1,000 inhabitants in Kosovo, and nineteen per thousand in Bosnia. Underfunding has also left most Afghan soldiers and policemen poorly trained and ill-equipped to take on the Taliban. ...

NATO countries have not given enough for reconstruction. Foreign aid to Afghanistan has been a mere $57 per capita per year. This is "peanuts" in comparison to aid to Kosovo and Bosnia, which received annually $526 and $679 per capita respectively.

In reality, Afghanistan was never something Europe saw any need to throw down about. It is unlikely that Obama's popularity with European citizens will be enough to persuade their governments to risk getting in deep and reaping the unpopularity that will eventually fall on those who support this failed venture.

Meanwhile, its pretty clear that the Taliban are on their way back to power. See for example journalist Nir Rosen's dramatic account of traveling with the insurgents under the noses of NATO forces. Rosen describes the Taliban as being less extremely puritanical than when they last held power, even willing to put up with popular practices, such as educating some girls, which they outlawed last time around.

This devastating news clip from Al-Jezeera suggests Rosen was deceived. H/t Juan Cole.



Yet, disgusting as the Taliban's acts are, the Obama administration will almost certainly be forced to negotiate with them if Afghanistan is reach any kind of stability. There is no alternative. The U.S. right wing will go bonkers with rage when this inevitably result of George Bush's failures becomes apparent in the conflict that Democrats have tried to claim as the "right war." ***Insofar as any peace movement has survived the election campaign and the economic crisis, getting up to speed on Afghanistan is essential. This is another failed imperial adventure. Perhaps at one time it might have been something like a justifiable short term intervention, but as of now, the U.S. has managed to render both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan worse off than before we began blundering around in their countryside, bombing and killing their people.

At the very least, we -- the peace movement -- owe Afghans an informed witness to their plight and agitation for reconstruction assistance.

A pattern we might not notice ...

Springfield Fire Department Captain Robert Shewchuck (above) worked on the fire which started around 3 a.m. last Wednesday morning that destroyed the Macedonia Church of God. (Dennis Leger/ Springfield Fire Department)

If I didn't quickly scan newspapers at opposite ends of the country most days, I might have missed these items:

SPRINGFIELD - Donnie Hatten was ecstatic about last week's presidential election. But when she was invited to a large celebratory gathering at a banquet hall packed with other African-Americans that night, she balked.

" 'Somebody might throw a bomb in there,' " she recalls replying.

No bombs were thrown into the party, but just after 3 a.m. several miles away, someone crept into a clearing in the woods and set fire to the predominantly black Macedonia Church of God in Christ, reducing it to a skeleton of charred metal and wood. ...

Boston Globe,
November 12, 2008

TORRANCE - Vandals target Obama supporters' property

Vandals spray-painted swastikas and racial slurs on a house and several cars that displayed campaign signs or bumper stickers for President-elect Barack Obama, authorities said Tuesday.

The incidents occurred Saturday night in the Hollywood Riviera section of the city, said Sgt. Bernard Anderson. Four separate incidents were reported the next day, he said.

No arrests have been made.

At one house, the phrase "Go Back to Africa" was spray-painted across the wall, in addition to a racial epithet on the garage door, Anderson said. Several parked vehicles on the streets were spray-painted with racial slurs, he said. ...

Los Angeles Times,
November 11, 2008

Officials at St. Joseph's and La Salle Universities are investigating two racially charged incidents of the last two weeks, one involving vandalism in a classroom and the other a fight outside an off-campus fraternity house that allegedly involved racial slurs.

At both campuses, there were concerns from students and a parent that tensions had flared over the candidacy and victory of President-elect Barack Obama.

A white student at La Salle allegedly used a racial slur to describe Obama and insult students. ...

Philadelphia Inquirer,
November 11, 2008

West Salem High School principal Ed John acted quickly and decisively last week when three students used racial slurs after the election of Barack Obama.

He suspended one student for five days and punished the others in varying ways. He addressed the student body, sent phone messages home to parents, and entrusted student leaders, including black students, with educating their peers and promoting greater awareness. ...

Statesman Journal, Central Oregon,
November 11, 2008

Aside from the church burning, most of this stuff is pretty minor. And some incidents, including the worst, may not be entirely what they appear: racist backlash. We don't want to panic prematurely over every little incident.

But every since Barack Obama stepped out into the spotlight and claimed his right to present himself to the electorate, a lot of us with long memories have been holding our breath, hoping never again to live through hearing that a charismatic U.S. leader had been cut down by violence. It is impossible not to be afraid for the guy the Secret Service has named "Renegade."

I'm a big believer that you must expose and denounce the small racial episodes immediately and loudly. Keeping quiet doesn't serve. If there are folks who think an election victory by someone they do not believe is a "real American" is an excuse to act out, the rest of us need to let them know loudly that this isn't so.

A blot revealed

Turning out the Arabic-speaking vote.

For all the joy of this election season past, we do need to keep this in mind.

The deeper hurtful reality this election campaign has revealed is that Arabs and Muslims are the new Jews and Blacks in America, because they are treated today in the same way that Jews and Blacks (then called Negroes) were treated throughout the early- and mid-20th Century.

Legal action, political agitation, and civic activism brought an end to the public vilification of Jews and Negroes in the United States -- though racism and anti-Semitism continue to operate quietly in the hearts and minds of some Americans who refuse to see all their brothers and sisters as equal before God and the law.

It is neither legally possible nor politically acceptable today to treat Jews and Blacks in a racist, condescending manner in the United States, and that is now a considerable source of pride for Americans as a whole.

It is possible and permissible, though, to slander Arabs and Muslims in public -- even by candidates for president and vice president. ...

The new president will inherit this world where racism against Arabs and Muslims is the last permissible form of wholesale slander and denigration. This must be addressed through spirited collective activism in law, politics and society, so that Arabs and Muslims, like Jews and Blacks, can live like human beings in America, not like animals that can be caricatured, hounded, herded and hunted at will. The presidential campaign confirms much that Americans can be proud of today, along with some things that [should] still cause them real shame.

Rami Khouri,
Lebanese journalist,
November 5, 2008

That's my admonition added in the last sentence, not Mr. Khouri's.

On Veterans Day: Some people want more wars...

Georgian rockets fired into South Ossettia in August.

Before this news completely gets lost in post-election euphoria, it seems worth highlighting because similar episodes are likely to crop up during the coming Obama administration.

Last August, people in the US were incited to fear and hostility directed at Russia for its "unprovoked attack" on the poor, harmless democratic Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus. Big bad Russia was up to its evil empire ways again.

Now the New York Times says the story is not so simple.

TBILISI, Georgia -- Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia's inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

Immediately in the wake of the episode, it came out that John McCain's foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann, was a paid lobbyist for the Georgian Republic. Were the neocons egging on Georgia start a war so that John McCain could posture in the Cold War mode? It certainly seems possible -- these people have never given a damn who they got killed and rendered homeless in the service of their imperial pipedreams.

Worse, the super-heated election context pushed Obama off his initial, sensible, wait-and-see reaction to offering support for McCain and Bush's bluster at the Russians.

It seems most likely that neo-imperialists in Washington and the military will happily encourage similar challenges when Obama takes office. The C.I.A. in its heyday in 1961 did the same to the incoming John F. Kennedy administration with its Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

At the very least, we the people need to loudly and insistently demand that an Obama administration follow a new course, a resort to dialogue and cooperation in foreign affairs, that repudiates Washington's delusional pursuit of world domination. The peace movement has its work cut out for itself in Obama-land.

On the road: Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park

The sign on California Route 46 between Highway 99 and I-5 was small. My GPS said the destination was 18 miles out of my way on the long drive home. But when else might I have a chance to stop by Colonel Allensworth State Historic Park? Here's a little of what I saw...

Colonel Allen Allensworth was born in Louisville, Kentucky into slavery in 1842. Determined to get educated, he left his family and served in the Union Army in the Civil War rising to the rank of chief petty officer. With slavery abolished, he went on to get the education he craved, including a doctorate in theology. He then became chaplain to one of the U.S. Army's four segregated regiments, retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 1906.



Allensworth was an exponent of Booker T. Washington's philosophy that African-Americans should pull themselves up by their bootstraps through self-reliance, education and hard work. Along with Professor William Payne of Pasadena, Allensworth shared a mutual desire to live in an environment where Blacks could be free from discrimination. They formed the California Colonization and Home Promotion Association in 1908 and purchased 800 acres along the Santa Fe railroad line in Tulare Country in California's San Joaquin agricultural heartland. The park brochure reports proudly:

In 1909 the colony of Allensworth began to rise from the flat countryside -- the first town in California founded, financed and governed by Black Americans.

The town quickly attracted residents. But Allensworth died in an accident in 1914, just about the time that it became apparent that settlers faced a severely depleted water supply in an area always arid and made more-so by heavy agricultural development. Residents drifted away -- by 1973 the town no longer appeared on maps.

But California African Americans were determined that Allensworth's special history should be preserved: the land was purchased by the state in 1974 and buildings have been restored since. This year the park celebrated the town's centennial.


To a contemporary eye, the restored houses look small -- and very solid.


It's hard to tell whether during Allensworth's heyday, residents enjoyed any protective shade. The Smith house is the only contemporary one surrounded by any trees, including a magnificent Lombardy poplar that dominates the pancake flat landscape.


There was a hotel. Elizabeth Dougherty of Oakland saw a business opportunity, financed its construction and hired John and Clara Morris to manage it. The building was site of community social evenings and dances to music provided by a player piano.


Residents built themselves an elementary school ...


and a Baptist Church which continued to serve a congregation until 1967.


The town had a bakery...


a barber shop marked by a traditional pole ...


and even a sort of "motel" -- this building served as temporary housing for visitors and new residents who had not yet built solid homes.

Allensworth seems a fascinating instance of the deeply ingrained U.S. tradition of people going apart (voluntarily and involuntarily) into not-yet-developed lands to live more freely and as they think rightly; other examples include the 1840s transcendentalist utopia Brook Farm, early Mormon wanderings which resulted in the state of Utah, and such more contemporary examples as The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee. I'm glad the memory of this African American experimental community is preserved as a state historic park.

Former residents certainly seem to have fond memories. Here (transcribed from a park sign) is what Elizabeth Payne McGhee recalled:

We never felt deprived. We didn't have plumbing facilities, we didn't have electricity, there were many things that we didn't have, but we didn't feel the lack of them. We would got to Pasadena in the summer and enjoy all those things in the city, but when we got home we were quite content, because there were always streams to explore, and fish to catch and we took lots of pictures. Women did needlework, lots of crocheting, canning and so forth. And we read and wrote. I remember when I was nine and my sister was eleven and we had started a novel, and we were writing a play, and my eldest sister played the piano. We composed songs. Everyone was creative, because if you don't have it handed out to you, you make your own.

Colorado preserves affirmative action

Yet another piece of good news from Tuesday's elections was that one of the ballot initiative industry's true lowlife's got his slime kicked back at him.

Ward Connerly's latest effort to outlaw programs that strive for equality of opportunity was defeated by Colorado's voters. Opponents, including politicians, like Governor Bill Ritter and Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, educators, and even NCAA basketball coaches, feared this threat to racial and sexual equality would get lost in the noise of the Presidential race and the long ballot. But voters proved too smart to let that happen by a slim margin.

Connerly is a California businessman, himself a beneficiary of affirmative action in contracting, who has made a career of fronting for killing the programs that help minorities and women. The guy has traded on his own mixed race heritage to push for discrimination in several states around the country, after pioneering the scam in his own home state in 1996. He draws millions from his phony nonprofits.

Here's clip from the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center about this con man.


As we mourn and rage against the passage of California Prop. 8, voter-mandated discrimination against gays, we need to remember that it was Colorado that in 1992, by popular vote, tried to write broad discrimination against LGBT people into its constitution. Fortunately, the US Supreme Court (a better one before so many Republican appointments) said no to this measure in Romer v. Evans. California lawyers have gone to court to preserve the marriages denied in California on Tuesday. This challenge may or may not succeed. But outraged Californians should take hope from Colorado's historic shift toward inclusion and equity.

Don't let the shadow of a rat keep you from feeling the sun

Here's a guest post from my friend Dajenya Kafele about the election, Prop. 8 and hope for activists. She describes herself as mixed-race and bisexual -- and I'll add that she is social worker and has been a writer for all the long years I've known her. I have shortened her original, but, I hope, retained its sense and spirit.

There are so many reasons that I am euphoric about Obama's landslide election that I can't begin to name them all, and when I try, I get tangled up in words, none of which can adequately express all the reasons.

At first I was happy not to have to explain anything as most people around me share my elation, and people all over the US, and indeed around the world, understand in great measure the significance of what just happened here.

However, by the day after the election I was disheartened by the number of people in my LGBT community who were so disillusioned and depressed by the gay-marriage setbacks that they failed to be moved by the significance of Obama's election. It is not all LGBT people, by any means, who are too boggled down by that single issue to appreciate the magnitude of the good thing that just happened. But a significant number seem to be.

My initial reaction was to feel sorry that some of my friends and associates were missing out on something so wonderful and I put forth my arguments for why they should celebrate, not mourn, this incredible moment.

As I continued to hear from more and more LGBT people for whom the (temporary) gay marriage defeat overshadowed the election of the first Black president of the United States (who also happens to be more progressive than most presidents of our lifetime), I began to get annoyed by the tunnel vision of so many in the LGBT community who, (like so many individuals in so many oppressed groups), can only see their own oppression, their own struggle, their own specific needs, and can do no more than give lip-service to any other cause. I don't know why I always expect more of activists, (and of everyone I know personally), but I do.

Finally, I came to terms with the fact that badgering people haphazardly with various reasons they should be absolutely elated right now rather than sad and self-pitying was not helping anyone, and that I was wasting too much time reacting to the statements of individuals one at a time. So let me begin by taking head-on what is getting in the way of so many of my LGBT sisters and brothers:

Learn the difference between a setback and a defeat. The struggle for LGBT rights that has taken place over my lifetime has made so much incredible progress in such a historically short period of time. Are you old enough to remember the 50's when people were arrested merely for being in a gay bar (and when there was no where else for gay people to meet)? We have now come so far that so many people have the luxury of believing that acceptance of gay-marriage IS the (whole) struggle today.

To date we have been so successful in our struggle for equal rights that in our battle for gay marriage, the opposition resorts to defending domestic partnership as being what we have a right to. Don't you see? They are not positioned to take away the rights we have already successfully won, so much as they are desperately trying to keep us from getting more. The opposition is actually on the defensive trying to stem the tide of freedom and equality as we march forward.

Did you expect that we would never have a set back? Did you think all our work was done? Did you think we could sit back, ignore the need to keep educating "the masses" and let the Courts do our work for us against the will of voters, and it would stick with no more effort on our part? Changing minds takes time, but we have made incredible progress over my short lifetime and we will continue to do so.

Losing a battle is not losing a war.

Perhaps being mixed race and bi-sexual has forced me to always be cognizant of more than one struggle, more than one oppression, more than one cause. Then again, most people around me today, white as well as black (and 'other'), LGBT as well as straight, seem to get it; seem to understand the amazing significance of what just took place.

It is not Obama that is the "almost-miracle." It's great that he is as progressive as he is on domestic issues and the environment. It is too bad that he is not (yet?) more progressive regarding foreign policy and our relationship to foreign countries and our role in the world. We hope with bated breath and caution (and readiness to take to the streets) that he won't pull us out of one war only to rush us into another.

It's great that Obama seems more like a real human being to me than any president in my adult life time...someone who I can relate to, identify with, who I could see being friends with. It's great that Obama seems so honest and real (very unusual in a president candidate -- let alone an elected president).

But the "almost miracle" is not Obama. The "almost miracle" is the fact that the US elected him president.

On the race issue alone, this is an "almost-miracle." This is the part that so many people all over the world get. People outside the US are very aware how racist the US has always been, even if so many white people in the US fail to see it. That the US elected a black person (any black person) to be president IS a revolution in the consciousness of America. It is also a conscious raising model for the world. People will think: if it can happen in the US it can happen anywhere.

But this is not just a step forward in the struggle against racism. It is a major step for all struggles for civil rights, equality, justice; a major step forward for the US, in fact for all humanity. If you think that any minority (such as LGBT people) will succeed in all their endeavor for equal treatment, while the great grandchildren of slaves continue to be treated us 3rd class citizens, you are sorely mistaken. This victory for one very oppressed group is a victory for all oppressed groups. In fact, it is a victory for everyone, as it is a very beneficial step in our common evolution and provides so much more hope in the world for our mutual survival and betterment of the world.

Add to the immense significance of Obama's ethnicity, the fact that Obama appears to be standing to the left of any president we ever had (certainly in MY lifetime). The fact that he is so focused on unifying people on the left and the right is not such a bad thing either -- even though it means negotiation, compromise and slow progress. We don't move forward alone. We must bring "the people", all the people, along with us. We are one species, one humanity and our seemingly endless wars of "us and them" hurt all of us. We must learn to befriend our "enemies" and educate instead of alienate if humanity is ever to learn peace.

Well, I cannot tell people how to think or what to feel. It just saddens me when so many of my sisters and brothers deprive themselves of the awesome emotional appreciation of this unique (possibly once-in-a-lifetime) experience of such revolutionary significance and social/political/spiritual/human magnitude. Obama provides hope for ALL struggles, ALL oppressed people. And enough of us knew that and felt that through the core of our being to participate in the communal euphoria that spread all over this country and around the world when Barack Hussein Obama II was elected president of the United States of America.

I think many of us activists are so used to struggling and fighting for our rights and complaining about everything that we think is bad or that we think should be better, that we don't know how to react when something wonderful happens ... and then we completely miss the moment and the extra-ordinary experience that we could be sharing with all the forward-thinking people of the world.

Wake up and smell the (de-caffeinated fair-trade) coffee. This is a wonderful moment. It is big enough to last for many a day. It is not too late to appreciate it. Take a minute to soak it in and bask in a well-earned euphoria before marching on to the next plateau.

With nothing but love for us all,

Dajenya

Whatever happened with Prop. 8?

A friend who lives far from California asks:

I just ... found that Prop. 8 passed. How could California go so overwhelmingly for Obama and not defeat this? We've got a good ways to go on full civil rights...

Yes, electing a President Obama (that sure sounds good!) is just about the greatest symbolic blow for an expansive understanding of who we are as a people that most of us have ever experienced. And yet the people of California, by popular vote (it seems to be roughly 52-48) voted to deny full civil rights to their gay citizens by amending our state constitution to ban same-sex marriages.

There will be long and painful dissections of this outcome. There are many people who were closer to this and who are wiser than I am. But here are my preliminary thoughts:

Item: This isn't the first time recently that a subset of Californians have seen their fellow citizens vote to reject their rights and their very personhood. In 1994, a much larger majority than this (roughly 60-40) voted that their fear of being overwhelmed by Brown immigrants justified denying their immigrants' children education and health care. In 1996, a similar majority voted that the occasional hurt to white people that is a by-product of using affirmative action to give Black and Brown people a fair shake was enough reason to forbid such efforts to spread opportunity around. The California electorate sometimes votes its fears when incited to do so.

Item: And there was lots of incitement to fear in the campaign to pass Prop. 8. Lies flew nonstop from proponents. Moreover the incitement came from a particularly evil source: "religious" authorities who appropriate human longing for God to prop up their human power and glory. In particular, the Mormon church, right wing Protestant "Christian" dominionists, and segments of a fading type of authoritarian Roman Catholicism (the Panzer Pope's kind -- there are others) used Prop. 8 to bind their followers ever more closely in a hidey-hole of fear where the men in charge can reign supreme.

To my kind of Christian -- a kind who experiences God as sacrificial love embodied -- this kind of religion seems demonic. They reduce God to a monster hovering to pounce on unfortunates who violate a long list of rules. And somehow those rules always prop up the current distribution of power in society, especially the waning power of anxious men over "their" women.

Item: These rightwing religious guys get away it because historic Christianity does have a lot to answer for when it comes to promoting intolerance. Lots of people have said this better than I can. Two books I've touched on in blog posts this year come to mind. Gene Robinson (the delightfully openly-gay Episcopal bishop of New Hampshire), in his new book wrote about how religion had such a central role in promoting homophobia that faithful people had a special responsibility to root out this particular societal intolerance. The Prop. 8 result shows how right he is.

And Chris Hedges challenged Christians who believe in love to deconstruct and delegitimze the many Biblical passages that justify promotion of an angry intolerant picture of God. He's right too -- this is our job.

Item: Elections are not a time for having complex, nuanced discussions; they are a time for turning out voters. But outside the campaign season, many of us in the LGBT movement have failed to do the hard emotional and intellectual work of understanding the anxieties so many of our fellow citizens have about "family." We've been content to just want "in" to marriage. The people who want to ban our marriages prey on real, widely felt, fears that "the family" is under threat. For lots of folks, in our dog-eat-dog system, blood relatives are all they can imagine to fall back on when times are tough; government and institutions don't help.

Our society is not helpful to any of us in maintaining our web of relationships. Our economy treats us as interchangeable units of labor: want a job? -- go work where some company or institution needs you, even if that tears up your human connections. Trying to raise children? You are on your own with maybe a parenting class if you are lucky -- and forget affordable childcare so you can go to that job that moved you away from relatives and friends. The divorce rate shows the strain all this puts coupled relationships.

Gay people, of necessity, have become quite adept at forming intentional human support systems to replace the broken connections too many of us experience. The AIDS epidemic challenged us; in some times and places, we responded creatively and humanely. We know we have made good, strong, loving relationships and we want our families recognized in the one way that society does recognize relationships: by allowing us to enter into civil marriages. But civil marriage itself is under great strain. Despite the wedding industry's glowing promotions, it is not working very well. So we are fighting hard to enter an institution where conflict and anxiety are already acute. Maybe gay and straight together need to ponder how to give our complex enduring relationships more structural support from society at large.

Item: Because Prop. 8 won and the campaign against it failed, there will be recriminations about the campaign itself. Some obvious ones:

• Too many California progressives were too obsessed with electing Obama; they should have stayed home. Maybe -- or maybe not. As one who traveled, it is hard for me not to be a little defensive on this one. Electing a mildly progressive President of color was more important to this lesbian than winning civil marriage. I admit that.

• The campaign used the wrong messages, either messages that were too mushy or messages that failed to reassure voters. Get over it. Campaigns do their best; you can't satisfy every constituency. When you lose, your message was always wrong, if you could afford to deliver it at all.

• The campaign didn't appreciate that Obama would bring out masses of voters from communities of color who believed they had more urgent needs than appreciating why gay people might want to get married. Maybe, but the real problem implicit in this line of thought may be that too few people of color were part of the "no on 8" campaign structure from the get-go. Messages for and messengers to these communities had to come from these communities. Were they there and empowered? I don't know.

All these recriminations have to be understood in the context of the structural problems built into a campaign to defeat an initiative that someone else put on the ballot to hurt you. When you work for a candidate, the buck stops with the candidate. There is someone structurally empowered to say "yes" or "no" to campaign decisions. In a defensive ballot campaign, it is very hard to run a coherent effort. Everyone who feels under assault believes (not wrongly, but inconveniently) that they have a right to campaign for their own survival in their own way. And they mostly will. So in managing the campaign, you struggle with trying to maintain appropriate message discipline within your ranks at the same time you have to go out to combat the other side. It's a wonder when anyone who assumes leadership in these kind of emotional fights comes out relatively unscarred by bitterness at her own side. But these tensions are not solely the consequence of individuals' behavior on the campaign -- on who was acting as an arrogant idiot, for example -- but on the structure of the defensive situation.

As far as gay marriage is concerned -- I'm not worried. Here's why:

This is a struggle that reflects a moment in time. Barring that our society goes belly up completely -- and we now have a President who will at least try to prevent that, -- the fight over gay civil rights will go away when some of the current electorate dies off and their children replace them. Our time will come.

The struggle is long, but the arc of the universe bends toward justice and love.

Something I had not seen before today...

Southwestern Utah is astonishingly beautiful. Today I just rushed across on the way to a meeting, but someday I'll have to return and explore a canyon or climb a mesa. Or both.

The people reclaim the people's house

For so many who have been outside, today there is joy! It is a time to be glad. Analysis is for later.

Obama wins!

My friend Ruth and her son Emiliano greet the appearance of President-elect Barack Obama on television last night.

We marvel and celebrate! Could it be there is hope for this contradictory, dangerous and beautiful country?

Election Day finally arrives

A day that dawns like this, must be auspicious.


This poll watcher from the Obama campaign (wearing the yellow "Vote Today" button) has just found the right polling place for a voter who had come to the wrong address. They are both thrilled that the system works. This polling place was in the rec center of a gated senior community; they NEVER had a Democratic presence at the polls before this campaign.


Michelle greets arriving volunteers. She's got a big interest in the Obama campaign: her husband is serving in Afghanistan. She doesn't want him sent to war "where they don't have a mission." She has been terrified that he'll be sent to Iraq, a war she thinks is wrong.


Volunteers pour in, eager to help.


This Obama office has a child care room; here, Daddy calls voters while keeping track of his son.


Canvassers sort out their packets after knocking on doors.


Careful tallies help campaigners know which voters have been reached -- and who still should be pushed to go vote. Over 50 percent of Coloradans had voted before today, many of them Obama voters. The campaign will be pursuing its remaining identified supporters for the rest of the day.

Election Day, minus one

This blog is likely to be without much thoughtful content until well after the polls close tomorrow.

Perhaps, instead, I'll manage to post a few pictures of democracy in action with the Obama campaign outside Denver.


It dawned bright and clear here this morning. The city -- those little blocks in the middle distance -- looks tiny from our exurban location.


At the campaign office, Joanie has put out breakfast snacks for the canvassers.


Getting out the vote is all about having accurate lists of voters and understanding how to mark new information on them so they become more and more useful for pushing out the last few stragglers.


Canvassing effectively means understanding what you're doing, so canvassers get a quick training.


Phoning voters with information about where to vote is also hard work that requires attention to detail and getting out the right messages.

Campaigns still come down to this...

For all the technical brilliance and technological sophistication the Obama campaign is bringing to getting out the vote, as the end nears, people end up sorting through mountains of paper, manually ensuring that targeted voters don't escape the attentions of canvassers and phonebankers. Bottlenecks in printing and data entry have thrown campaigners back to dependence on highlighting names and the sheer determination of legions of volunteers.

Heaven help any voter who has been identified as leaning toward Obama and hasn't voted yet in our Colorado exurb! You will be hounded to the polls over the next two days. ***Check out my friend SFMike's blog for a happy pictorial story of early voting in San Francisco, where Senator Obama is a shoo-in, but voters who believe in hope still need to defeat Prop. 8, the effort to legislate discrimination against gay marriage.

On the campaign trail: Colorado early voting

Early voting here concluded yesterday. According to my lead organizer here in an exurb of Denver, half of Coloradans who are going to vote have already done so.


In our tiny corner of this huge project, the lines were long all day. At times the wait to get inside was an hour and a half.


Lots of people brought their kids. I imagine those young people are learning that voting, however boring the standing in line seems, is just something you do, like partying on Halloween or going to the snow in the mountains in winter. That's good.

As the day got pretty hot, "comfort teams" from the Obama campaign brought water and granola bars to the waiting throngs. We didn't wear our buttons or other Obama markers, but waiting voters knew who we were. McCain has nothing remotely comparable here -- in fact, aside from some lawn signs, nothing that I've seen at all.


The arrival of the "Obama-mobile" raised the hackles of some country bigwigs who pushed the election authorities to keep us away. The bus was parked well outside the 100 foot line within which campaigning was illegal, but it was large. It was obvious who had the energy. (The bus was on a tour of polling places, full of students from downtown Denver.) So, for a little while, we were ordered not to offer our water inside the 100 foot limit, despite a county clerk's letter that this was permitted.

But eventually the bus left, calm returned, and we resumed handing out water. As the day went on a steady stream of voters arrived at the office, having learned that we were set up just blocks from the polling place. They took their lawn signs for the last few days -- and some volunteered to help get out the remaining vote on weekend canvasses.

This is a disciplined, steady, cheerful effort here. Folks remain anxious, slightly unbelieving that Senator Obama can win, but determined and ready to do whatever they can to complete a campaign they still find a little unimaginable.

More Alaskan weirdness

On October 27, Senator Ted Stevens was convicted of seven felonies; he was found guilty of taking unreported gifts from people who very likely had interests in legislation. That is, of corruption.

Today this longest sitting Senator returned to his home state of Alaska to campaign for re-election. Though the polls don't favor him winning, he still has his enthusiasts. An Alaskan sent along this picture of die-hard Stevens fans.



She writes: "I love Alaska and I love living here but these people ... make me wonder if there isn't damage occuring when our brains are exposed to extreme cold and dry air . . ."

Friday cat blogging: Louie is not bothered

Thanks to Moises Rodriguez for the photo.

Three humans and a dog have invaded his home to work on the Obama campaign, but he has some sleeping to do.

My sentiments exactly

H/t Cogitamus.

I've resisted piling on Sarah Palin. This campaign isn't really about her. It's about what kind of country we are and what kind of country we hope to become. I don't want Palin's country as far as I can discern it -- but she's not really the point. John McCain, rather crudely, tried to use her as bait for both wacko conservatives and for women proud of their accomplishments. She seems to genuninely appeal to the former -- the latter have rapidly become deeply offended by being offered such a shallow individual as a role model.

No, we women didn't wait 232 years for Sarah Palin.

Hope and a lot of work

This poster hangs in front hall of the Obama campaign office in a Denver exurb where I'm spending this week. The people who flow in and out are definitely full of hope. But mostly they just grind through the routine work of contacting voters, giving of their time and their enthusiasm in an organized process that can dredge out a winning margin.

The county we're working in has always been a Republican place. Looking at the addresses of the people I'm calling, I note that some developer thought to name one of its suburban boulevards "Quemoy," presumably after the Chinese offshore island claimed by Taiwan. In the 1950s this dispute that threatened to draw the U.S. into a war with China. Supporting China/Taiwan's right to the island was a rightwing obsession of the period.

Recently the county's Democratic registration has overtaken the Republican total, but the county is still very much up for grabs with a large unaffiliated registration. Obama's supporters are a racially mixed middle-income group who've acquired many campaign skills over the long campaign. They phone possible Obama supporters looking for their votes, knock on doors, and at this late moment are shepherding thousands of voters through the maze of early voting and mail balloting that Colorado makes available.

Over the last two days, this office has implemented a tactic that vividly illustrates both how hard it is to squeeze out every last potential vote -- and the possibilities open to a campaign with huge resources in money and volunteer energy.

The office had a list of some 600 voters who fit the profile of the undecided but persuadable -- but who they had never been able to reach on the phone or by doorknocking. So -- staff organizers decided that these people should get personalized letters. Volunteers hand addressed envelopes, wrote in salutations to the recipients on a photocopied persuasion letter, and many signed their own names and gave their own local phone numbers as contacts. (Some letters went out in the name of an organizer with a local phone number.) The body of the letter, which came down from somewhere much higher in the campaign, struck me as quite well targeted to voters who might be undecided. Some excerpts:

I live here in ____ county and I am writing my neighbors because I want you to know the truth about Barack Obama and tell you why I support him.

With the economy in a shambles, prices for everything going up, and people losing their jobs and their homes, I feel deeply that our country has to change direction. ...

First, you should know that Barack is a Christian, a patriot, and a loving husband and father. He believes that as Americans we are all connected -- that we are our brothers' keeper, our sisters' keeper. ...

You get the idea. But the photocopied text is not the heart of the letter.

The heart of the letter -- as a persuasion device -- is the handwritten P.S. added by a volunteer saying why s/he supports Obama. Nobody is telling the volunteers what to say in these. I've watched people sit around and figure out what they want to communicate, what they care about and are willing to handwrite, over and over, to their neighbors. Some I've seen:

"I support Barack Obama because my brother is a soldier in Iraq and he'll take better care for veterans."

"I trust Barack Obama to get our economy moving again. Something has to change."

"As someone who graduated from high school this year, I think Barack Obama will put more money into education."

So do I think this letter will win votes? Certainly it has its drawbacks. It is not flashy, eye-grabbing. Lots of the handwriting is pretty funky -- few of us have very good penmanship these days. Some of the P.S. phrases are a little inarticulate.

As a consumer of the considerable research about what constitutes effective voter contact, I have my doubts. But the letters do have strong authenticity and come from close neighbors, factors that do raise turnout in other kinds of contact. I'm willing to guess that one or two percent of recipients may find a contact like this enough to confirm a choice where a leaning existed and perhaps encourage a vote which had not been certain without this contact. That is -- a project that probably took something like 24 volunteer hours and the cost of paper and stamps, might yield 6-12 votes.*

That's an enormous amount of human labor for a very few votes. But that's what winning an election through popular mobilization looks like. Repeated over and over in many locales with many tactics, the result is enormous. The Obama campaign is an amazing experiment on an unprecedented scale in what might be achieved through such mobilization. All this field organizing may end up looking like icing on the cake in an Obama victory -- but for the millions who've worked in the heart of it, this is what victory is all about, working together in an organized way for broad empowerment that changes people and communities.

* My assessment might be wrong and this letter writing tactic might not even win the few votes I project -- to my knowledge, no experimental research has been done on this, though I could be wrong about that too. But I am certain the number of votes won is not larger than 6-12.