A New National Holiday

I have an idea about how to increase voter turnout for future elections because, let’s face it, we will never see what we saw in 2008 again. This year was unprecedented in the number of reasons it gave voters to get off their couch and out to the polls: An unpopular presidency fresh in voters’ minds. A terrible economic crisis. Glass ceilings to be broken. Charismatic populist figures. Tooth and nail competition in the primaries. And a cornucopia of silly stories invading pop-culture. No, never will we see another one quite like this.

But wouldn't it be wonderful to see voter turnout and citizen participation surpass the precedent set by 2008? Imagine a country where, even on humdrum midterm election years, people swarm the polling places excited and informed on the issues.

I heard a touching story after this year’s election. It was a father describing his experience voting for Obama in Virginia. He said he went into the voting booth with his son and, after he made his initial selections and the machine switched to the confirmation screen, he turned to his son and said, “You go ahead and push it. I want you to see what it feels like to vote.” For that boy, his first vote was a profound moment between father and son that he will probably never forget. When he comes of age, he will be a lifetime voter.

There’s only one way to promote that kind of enthusiasm on a national level? We must have a voter’s day off. We could call it “Voting Day” or “Democracy Day” or very simply “Election Day,” but, instead of people rushing to the polls after work or negotiating their lunch schedule to vote, they would just be off and free to go to the polls.

Now, there is a risk that having an Election Day holiday would just encourage people to sleep all day or turn it into an excuse for heavy drinking like most other holidays, but not if it's packaged correctly.

Election Day would not just be a day off to vote. It would be a celebration of Democracy. Weeks before the event, we would build it up in the schools and on network and public television by reviewing all the various sacrifices people made in America and abroad for that simple right to vote. We would promote informed voting by publishing and broadcasting objective information on the issues and candidates. (Frontline’s quadrennial program “The Choice” is a good model for this). Finally, there would be no “Election Day Sales.” Instead businesses would close like on Christmas or Thanksgiving to allow their employees to do their own voting and celebration of democracy.

On Election Day, we would put on our best clothes. We would attend solemn ceremonies and reflect quietly on the importance and legacy of that day. We would take our kids to parades and see old veterans, girlscouts, boyscouts, and civil rights and other activists marching together in solidarity. But mostly we would vote.

Lines of people would form at the polling places. People would smile and chat and try to convince their neighbors as they stood with their family in the sun, the rain and the snow waiting for their chance to enter the booth.

In the evening, people would gather with neighbors, friends, and family and enjoy potluck dinners and block parties while they waited for the results. As the night wore on, some would be happy, some sad, but all would feel privileged to live in a country where all the people are encouraged and enthusiastic to participate in their governmental system.

When I was in Nevada last January helping with their Caucus, I met a Clinton volunteer from Iowa and began chatting with him about the problems our precinct was having with the voting. “Do you guys have these kinds of problems,” I asked. “No” he responded. “We’re Iowans. We caucus. That’s what we do.”

Imagine one Election Day, in the not so distant future, meeting a citizen from another country who comes to you and asks you why so many Americans are dressed up, in line, waiting to vote and you can turn to him and say, “We’re Americans. We vote. That’s what we do.”

Only in Turkey

Each society has something that can only be found in that place. I think it is important to catalog those anomalies because, in doing so, we discover more about that culture and the struggles within. In America, we have things like the Burning Man festival (burningman.com), Fried Coke (wikipedia_friedcoke), and the KKK. Exploring such culturally specific items helps us discover truths about a country that can’t be found in travel guides or in broad discussions of culture. Language is sometimes part of this. For example, in German there is a word schadenfreude which means the feeling of pleasure one takes at the misery of one’s enemies. When we think of the Germany of two generations ago, it seems appropriate for them to have such a word.

Now I will tell you of something that one can only find in Turkey:

In one of my conversation classes, there is a student who usually sits in the back. She always wears a long black skirt and a black long sleeve top. She sits quietly with a dour expression and, upon first glance, I thought she was one of those quiet brooding goth chicks who emulates Emily Dickinson and visits grave yards on Saturday nights. Upon closer examination, I discovered I was wrong. One day, while sitting next to this student during an activity, I looked closer at her face and noticed that under her hair ran some black cloth. It ran under her left ear, around her chin and back up the other side disappearing again under her unkempt short hair. This short hair turned out to be a wig.

Turkey has a law that students at schools and universities are not allowed to wear the traditional head scarf. The idea is to push Turkey toward a more secular modern society. Those who support this law believe that women who wear head scarves drive Turkey backwards. This is a similar argument to those proffered by women in the early nineties about stay-at-home moms.

Those who wear head scarves have a choice. They can either wear them up to the gate of the school where they must then remove them; they can not go to school at all, which often happens; or they can do as my student does and don a wig so that teachers and administrators can see “hair” and everyone wins. An annoying solution but a solution nonetheless.

So a student wearing a wig over a head scarf is something one will only see in Turkey. In Iran, women have to wear the head scarf. In Malaysia, there may be some societal pressure to wear it, but many do not and the choice is theirs. But Turkey is the only country that mandates not wearing it and that causes students to put on wigs or stand at school entrances and exits putting on or taking off the garment.

One day walking out the gate with my students on our way to eat and see the sites, they asked me to wait a moment. I stood where I was as they went behind a nearby building where 10 or 15 of their schoolmates had gathered to change. As I looked at their talkative smiling faces combing and wrapping and pinning themselves and all of them in different phases of dressing, one of my students waved her hand and said “teacher, don’t look.” After they were done, that student came and stood before me, looking prouder than I normally see her and with a broad smile asked me what I thought. I admired her new look and said, “I think it’s cool.” I then asked her why she had told me to look away, “Is it like I’m watching you change clothes or something?” I asked. She nodded a yes.

What I find interesting about all of this is that in America, we are sometimes nervous about people in head scarves. We associate it with Islam and oppressive societies and might even sometimes make the mistake of associating that simple cloth with terrorism and 9/11. But, ironically, if one of these young women wanted to study in the U.S., we would never tell her to take it off to do so.

Turkey, in its attempt to be secular, has developed a sort of secular fundamentalism. Their intention is to separate church and state, but this mandate, even though it seems to separate the two, ends up doing the opposite because it is mandating that a people not practice their religion or culture. The fear of lifting such a mandate is that social pressure would cause students who wouldn’t normally wear the scarf to feel compelled to do so. These arguments are similar to American arguments for and against prayer in school.

Ideally, the mandate would be lifted and students would feel truly free to dress as they wished, but for now it stays and the issue increases in political fervor by the year. One thing worth noting is that the popularity of head scarves is growing...(ahh...rebellious teenagers)...and more and more the head scarf is becoming a symbol on both sides of the debate. Stay tuned.

So think of your country or a country you’ve been to and an issue, a word, or a cultural phenomenon that only occurs there. For therein lies the heart of the place.

For more on the headscarf issue, watch this:
headscarf_newyorktimesvideo

...and although I didn't include a link to the aforementioned KKK, I am including this video which pretty well sums that group up:

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Unfortuantely, due to the closemindedness of the average citizen, I must preface this post by saying that I'm not homosexual. I must also note that, while I do have gay friends, they don't influence my view on this issue.

Gay marriage should be legal. This is a civil rights issue. I repeat: This is a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE.

November 4th, 2008 will go down as one of the most positive days in our country's history, but it will always have an asterix, for, while we shattered civil rights barriers on one front we callously shored them up on another.

Here are the exit poll stats by race:
White --- 49% Yes 51% No (63% of the vote)
Black---- 70% Yes 30% No (10% of the vote)
Latino -- 53% Yes 47% No (18% of the vote)
Asian --- 49% Yes 51% No (6% of the vote)
Other---- 51% Yes 49% No (3% of the vote)

Now by Age:
18-29--- 39% Yes 61% No (20% of the vote)
30-44 -- 55% Yes 45% No (28% of the vote)
45-64 -- 54% Yes 46% No (36% of the vote)
65+ ---- 61% Yes 39% No (15% of the vote)


America, we still have a long way to go.

To be fair, I've included info on both sides of the Prop 8 debate:

Wikipedia_Prop8
YesOn8.com
NoOn8.com

Now, I'll let Oberman take it from here:

An Image Worth Contemplating

Below is the montage Keith Oberman put together that I hope stays on MSNBC's site forever. If you are feeling as nerdy as I usually feel, watch the video and pause and watch this one particular moment three or four times:

After Ohio is called, and Chuck Todd talks of "blue paint spilling" on the electoral map (Ohio going to Obama basically sealed his victory), there is a second-long shot of the MSNBC newsdesk. In the middle, Eugene Robinson stares ahead in disbelief. On the right, Chris Matthews gently slides a note of solidarity to a good friend. And, on the left, Rachel Maddow gives a subtle knowing nod at what they all hoped would be true and what it must mean for their friend. When you put all those looks together, it encapsualtes the magnitude of that moment in a way cheering crowds can't quite do.

Someone once wrote or said that when we think of the most profound moments of our lives, they are never noisy, but quiet. Many of us may have cheered that night or cried or sang, but I imagine, on November 4th, around 11:oo Eastern Time, all of us took a second to ponder quietly what Barack Obama's victory meant to us personally. So watch the video. I've obviously pointed out my favorite moment of the night. Check it out or find your own favorite moment to pause on and tell me about it.



IF YOU WANT TO SEE THIS LARGER GO TO:
www.msnbc.com/electionnight

On Election Night

I was living in Taiwan in 2004 and on election night I spent what, in Taiwan, was the early afternoon kneeling on my white tiled floor coloring in red and blue states as returns came in. When Ohio was called for Bush, I had already finished coloring in all the blue states but still had a large swath of red to finish. My roommate Peter Lang didn’t understand my masochism over the next two days as I sat slowly filling in Texas and Alaska and the voluminous plain states, but I like things thorough and I wanted to see what we were up against. When the map was done I placed it on my white wall. Two strips of blue separated by a contiguous sea of red that seemed insurmountable. Next to it, I placed a poster of Eminem shooting himself with a “bang” sign coming out of the gun. I still don’t know what argument I was making. I didn’t understand the map either. Did it mean that democrats, liberals, progressives or very simply people who didn’t like war and wanted better health care and education were being pushed into the ocean? Or was it that we were simply establishing a beach head before we made our slow march to the center?
A few days later I saw a speech that made me realize that I was asking the wrong questions. I had heard about Barack Obama. I first saw him on this flash video game on Comedy Central’s website. It was a game of Caddyshackesque groundhog bopping where different political figures popped out of holes and your job was to whack em with a golf club. Howard Dean would come out of his hole and you guessed it: scream. Kerry would say something …I forget. And there was this other guy: this Obama character who would yell out “The Audacity of Hope” right before I whacked him with the golf club.
I, after a hundred or so tries, got bored with the game and decided that I wanted to find out what had warranted this man’s prestigious position in the game. So I did a search for Barack Obama and found his 2004 Democratic convention speech. For the record, if you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s mind blowing.

obamakeynoteaddress2004

Before watching that speech I had been experiencing a growing frustration with America and American politics. I was tired of being scared to tell people who I had voted for. In 2000, I voted for Bush. But I was scared to tell Gore voters because of the ferocity and speed with which they vilified any member or supporter of Bush’s administration. In 2004 I voted for Kerry. But I was scared to tell my Republican friends for fear they would call me a wimp or a traitor.
September 11th only heightened this fear and frustration. When those planes hit those buildings, I knew we were goin g to war and that we were going to have to sacrifice and give much of ourselves, but I wanted my President to offer a new idea, a way to win the war and the hearts of the world at the same time. On September 12th, when our leaders told us that the best way to help our country to heal was to buy stock or go shopping, I was deflated. A few days later, in a national address, Bush spoke the words, “if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists.” On the surface, it was clear that Bush was addressing those words to leaders and citizens of other nations, but my intuition told me otherwise. To me, the essence of that statement was for the American people and its intention was to drive any detractors underground. And underground most of us went. Whenever a political science professor, documentary filmmaker or a country singer objected to Iraq or any other post-911 policy they were shouted down and often boycotted. We, a nation of “free thinkers” were no longer allowed to disagree.
These were the frustrations I held inside as I listened to Obama’s convention speech. He moved away from political simplification and respected us enough to point out the nuance of our political geography. He no longer apologized for being a democrat or believing in democratic ideals. He objected to the war while arguing for the patriotism of not only those who agreed with him but also of those who disagreed. He, for the first time in my political memory, offered a middle ground.
I remember showing the video to Pete who often sat next to me with his head in his hands at the brilliant yet horrifying insights of The Daily Show. I told Pete to “check this out” because he “might like it.” Five minutes into the speech, Pete looked at me and said “I’m sold.” He must have heard what I was hearing: a voice to his frustration and hidden optimism.
I told Pete that Barack should parlay that speech into a run for the presidency. I argued that waiting would only taint his voting record like it did all Senators and that America was primed now for such a candidate. The electricity of that audience was my evidence. I didn’t know if Obama had a real fighting chance, but I knew he should at least try. Most people I told this to would quickly say that it was “too soon” and that Obama was “too young,” and I wondered if maybe they were right and Obama would be practical and lay up for 2012 or 16.
Once Obama announced his run, the next objection was that America wasn’t “ready” for a black president. My argument against that was that America is never ready for the change that comes to it, but change comes anyway and to not try just because of a hunch about latent white racism would be a travesty. So, after moving back to America, I went to Las Vegas to hear Obama speak to see if I wanted to campaign for this guy.
It’s funny to think about 100,000 people at that rally in St. Louis and remember that hot September afternoon and the barely 1000 people at that community center in a poor black neighborhood of Las Vegas. Obama spoke and inspired some, but most listened quietly and many walked out midway through the event to head to their shift at some casino. (Hardly the pop star he was later accused of being.) But he stayed true to my impression of him…offering thoughtful nuanced answers to issues such as racial profiling and predator lending. The crowd appreciated his candor, as far as I could tell.
I went back to Sacramento, now living there, and went to a meeting of the Sacramento for Obama group. I saw a woman named Kim Mack speak about how her son, Bobby, was at that time stationed in Iraq as a combat medic and that her singular mission was to get him home safe and make sure that no more mothers had to lose a son in that war. (Bobby did get home safe). I saw many others there from many different races, occupations and economic levels. I liked the people I met and I decided to work with them.
When I joined the campaign I had no idea the impact one could have getting involved in politics, but I got to do some pretty cool stuff. I helped open a campaign headquarters. I organized a trip to San Francisco to see Obama speak. I served as “advanced party” for John Kerry’s speech two days before Super Tuesday. The coolest thing though was registering my mother to vote.
While driving to work one day, my mom confessed to me that she had never voted in her entire life. She saw the process as complicated and worried that she would be plagued with mail and phone calls if she registered. I suspected she didn’t feel she had the right to vote because she didn’t know enough about the candidates and the issues—an impulse I respect and see as responsible. I reassured her that the process wasn’t too complicated. A few months went by and I continued working on the campaign doing canvasses and voter registration drives. I got to see people light up as they registered to vote and I resolved to register my mom when I could.
On Christmas day, on the way to visiting relatives, I showed my mom the headquarters and she proudly took mom photos. Before I went to close the place up, I pulled out a voter registration form and informed her which candidates were running for which party and which one she should join if she liked one of them. As she tentatively grabbed the pen and began filling out the spaces, she told me she wasn’t sure yet but was leaning toward Hilary or Obama, so she signed as a democrat.
After that my mom started calling more with questions. She would ask me about the ballots and issues literature when they were sent to her. She asked me about caucuses, primaries and superdelgates, and she called me after Obama’s win in Iowa and in other states to congratulate me and tell me her thoughts. One of the best comments I ever heard in support for Obama came from my mom. She said that when she watched Hilary speak in Iowa, she saw older politicians and celebrities behind her, but when she saw Obama speak, she saw people like us.
Obama summed it up best when he said that voters were wrong if we thought the campaign was about him. In the midst of being painted as a celebrity and being criticized for speaking in such a grandiose venue, Obama looked out at the crowd in Denver and to Americans crowded around televisions and said, “it’s about you.” At that moment, I was reminded about why I joined the campaign all those months ago. I remembered the playful ribbing I got from my brother-in-law and coworkers about Obama’s slim chances. I remembered the moment when Jared Anderson and I decided to get that headquarters once and for all. And I remember, on the Saturday before Super Tuesday, telling a black woman who had just argued that “They” won’t let him win, that my mother, a 60-year-old white woman, had just registered to vote and Tuesday would be voting for Obama, she looked at me and said “Really?....I’m voting for Obama, then.”