Hope.

[sepdet]

I know a few friends reading my LJ are feeling anxious about what the future holds. Hugs to you. I know the guy I voted for won't be able to accomplish everything he's hoping to do -- which is both good and bad from your perspective, eh? -- but I hope that in the end the next few years will turn out better for you and for our country.

For folks who are celebrating like I am, here's one more for the road. I'm sure most of you have probably seen it, but ironically I only ran across it this weekend while revising my dissertation outline on the power of language. I played this video several times over the last few days to steady pre-election jitters.

When FiveThirtyEight called it and McCain started his concession speech (which was gracious-- there's the McCain I remembered admiring in 2000, le sigh) I realized I needed to get the heck out of my hermit cave and party somewhere. I scurried over to the Democratic field office set up across from UCI, where there was a delightful mix of folks young and old (mostly students and faculty) of many backgrounds, so we could cheer and cry and hug random people together during Obama's speech.

Final aside: I can't believe I had stopped thinking about what "sepdet" means, and who Sepdet with a capital S is. I think I'll say goodnight to her now and turn in. I guess she's somewhere out there with her little moon-smile and a twinkle in her eye: "told ya so!" She'd be 27 now... gah, where have the years gone!?

Comments

[katrinb.livejournal.com]

Sorry about Proposition Hate, though. Wish I could've voted against it. (I did vote against Virginia's anti-gay proposition last time, fat lot of good THAT did, but I did, and I still have the bumper sticker on my car.)
Here's to getting it overturned ASAP, as America continues to grow up.

[aerynvale.livejournal.com]

I can only hope that if Prop 8 does pass in the end, it'll serve as a rallying point for gay rights. Human beings aren't known for being reasonable a lot of the time, but hopefully we can get some high profile reason shone on the issue, maybe change a few minds.

Also, Tatt has shown up on GarouMUSH again and Rook has been hanging out with us online. It's good to see her again.

I hope Sepdet is doing well, wherever she is. I'm glad I got to know her. :)

I hope you're doing well, too. *hugs*

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

It's a really nice moment in American History. (Though Prop 8 is a fairly large measure of rain on our parade.)

You're of course totally welcome to stop by and say hi on Garou any time - I can reset Seppie's password if you've forgotten. We're in the middle of a server transfer, so the domain name isn't working, but we're 209.157.143.163 7000. A bunch of us dinos are still around and going strong! (Sepdet would be very happy at who is Sept Alpha now!)

[sepdet.livejournal.com]

I'm letting the Obama election cheer me up over the prop 8 mess. The thing is, having heard the over-the-top, distorted radio ads that have blanketing the airwaves for months, I was convinced months ago that it would pass barring a miracle.

I donated my money, debated a bit with some people about prop 8, but because I expected it to pass, I'm simply resigned... for now.

I'm afraid that the way San Francsico's mayor inaugurated gay marriage -- "It's going to happen, whether you like it or not!" was so abrasive that it turned a lot of people off and scared them. It will take a while for the anger from that speech to die down.

We'll try again. We'll get there. Having a saner country-- inspired by a level-headed leader -- will help. The biggest contrast between the McCain/Obama campaign really did come down to "just words" in the end -- McCain and Palin tended to encourage anger and mistrust, Obama tended to encourage an attitude of "we can work this out, even if we disagree."

Four years of that could really push America in a new direction. I didn't realize how much a president can influence or bring out attitudes in the population at large until I saw how much the country seemed to change under Bush.


Tatt-- I keep meaning to check in with her, but it's been so long.