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Since we live just outside DC, we of course watched the Inauguration on our big fucking TV from the warmth of our living room. Only crazy people from far away or folks who actually lived near the mall were silly enough to watch it on a big ass TV while freezing their asses off outside on the Mall in JANUARY. It was twenty something out there yesterday. The people who were close enough to actually see and hear the thing with out needing the benefit of the jumbo trons didn't have tickets. They didn't need them. The next closest people had tickets. There were only two hundred and forty thousand of them and I'm pretty sure even most of them couldn't see or hear shit.
The Mall was packed from the steps of the Capitol to the Washington Monument. The area around the Reflecting pool looked mostly empty (you can't see anything from there and there isn't anywhere to put the big TVs), and then the Lincoln Memorial was packed. Those people were two miles from the steps of the Capitol. I hope they brought their binoculars.
Okay, some actual thoughts on the event instead of on the crazy peepsicles.
When the VIPs were being brought out from the Rotunda/Crypt and I saw Michelle Obama's mom coming down those steps, I could only wonder what was going through her head. The year her daughter was born, the Civil Rights Act would be passed, but at the time a black man could still find himself swinging from a tree for just trying to register to vote. And here she was, watching her daughter about to become First Lady. The parents of her son in law, you know, the one about to take the oath of office to become President of the US, wouldn't have been considered legally married in quite a few states when he was born (Full Faith and Credit? What's that? Never heard of it...).
I know some of you may not think so, but it IS a big thing, if for no other reason than it shows how far we've come in the 44 years since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law. All those older black men and women who had fire hoses and dogs trained on them, or watched it on the evening news? I think they had every right to be moved seeing the culmination of decades of activism come to fruition.
Obama wasn't elected because he's black, he was elected DESPITE that fact (because racism is not dead in America. It has gone underground or put on a suit and tie to be more appealing, but kids, it's still here).
Now, on to the speechifying.
A lot of the talking heads didn't think much of Obama's speech yesterday. Fuck them. He already won. He doesn't need to sway us to vote for him anymore. His speech yesterday was still pretty damn good. After eight years of watching Bush fumble just trying to get a coherent sentence out of his mouth, watching a President who could give a speech off a teleprompter without fucking it up would be an improvement, but Obama goes far beyond that. The man doesn't even use note cards. He has that shit memorized, practiced, and knows how to give a solid delivery of even the most mundane topics.
I was glad to hear what he had to say.
That whole bit about not sacrificing our founding principles for political expediency or security? Very welcome bit of rhetoric, after the last eight years of fear mongering.
Us nonbelievers actually got a shout out!
It was a veiled threat, but hey, guess what Wall Street, the regulators are coming back!
We're actually going to use some diplomacy in dealing with foreign nations. Even the ones we don't necessarily like!
There was more, but the big message was that guess what, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and if we want to get out of the messes we're in, it's going to require actually taking some responsibility and doing some work.
It was no 'The only thing we have to fear...' or 'Ask not what your country can do for you...' speech, but contrary to talking head opinion, it didn't suck either.
Now, Mr. President, the only real Hope I have attached to this is that you actually meant what you said, and can carry through on at least some of it. I've posted previously on Congress making you their bitch if you annoy them too much.
The Mall was packed from the steps of the Capitol to the Washington Monument. The area around the Reflecting pool looked mostly empty (you can't see anything from there and there isn't anywhere to put the big TVs), and then the Lincoln Memorial was packed. Those people were two miles from the steps of the Capitol. I hope they brought their binoculars.
Okay, some actual thoughts on the event instead of on the crazy peepsicles.
When the VIPs were being brought out from the Rotunda/Crypt and I saw Michelle Obama's mom coming down those steps, I could only wonder what was going through her head. The year her daughter was born, the Civil Rights Act would be passed, but at the time a black man could still find himself swinging from a tree for just trying to register to vote. And here she was, watching her daughter about to become First Lady. The parents of her son in law, you know, the one about to take the oath of office to become President of the US, wouldn't have been considered legally married in quite a few states when he was born (Full Faith and Credit? What's that? Never heard of it...).
I know some of you may not think so, but it IS a big thing, if for no other reason than it shows how far we've come in the 44 years since LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law. All those older black men and women who had fire hoses and dogs trained on them, or watched it on the evening news? I think they had every right to be moved seeing the culmination of decades of activism come to fruition.
Obama wasn't elected because he's black, he was elected DESPITE that fact (because racism is not dead in America. It has gone underground or put on a suit and tie to be more appealing, but kids, it's still here).
Now, on to the speechifying.
A lot of the talking heads didn't think much of Obama's speech yesterday. Fuck them. He already won. He doesn't need to sway us to vote for him anymore. His speech yesterday was still pretty damn good. After eight years of watching Bush fumble just trying to get a coherent sentence out of his mouth, watching a President who could give a speech off a teleprompter without fucking it up would be an improvement, but Obama goes far beyond that. The man doesn't even use note cards. He has that shit memorized, practiced, and knows how to give a solid delivery of even the most mundane topics.
I was glad to hear what he had to say.
That whole bit about not sacrificing our founding principles for political expediency or security? Very welcome bit of rhetoric, after the last eight years of fear mongering.
Us nonbelievers actually got a shout out!
It was a veiled threat, but hey, guess what Wall Street, the regulators are coming back!
We're actually going to use some diplomacy in dealing with foreign nations. Even the ones we don't necessarily like!
There was more, but the big message was that guess what, there's no such thing as a free lunch, and if we want to get out of the messes we're in, it's going to require actually taking some responsibility and doing some work.
It was no 'The only thing we have to fear...' or 'Ask not what your country can do for you...' speech, but contrary to talking head opinion, it didn't suck either.
Now, Mr. President, the only real Hope I have attached to this is that you actually meant what you said, and can carry through on at least some of it. I've posted previously on Congress making you their bitch if you annoy them too much.
