nov 5 08

 
Well, citizenship here I come.

To say that these have been dark & debilitating years--with no end in sight--is an understatement.
In 1999, on the streets of WTO Seattle, there was global populism and optimism about worldwide social and economic justice that would bring everybody up above the waterline. It was all put to rest by 9/11 and the politics of terror.

This morning, with the people in this country claiming both Obama and the future, as their own, i woke up as thrilled as i was despairing on the morning of 9/11. All the doors that closed on that dreadful day are opening. Truth is on the rise. There's a long way to go but the path is illuminated.

I've lived in the U.S. for more than forty years. The reasons I haven't become a citizen are simple and complicated. I was married to an Army officer & stationed at Fort Dix 1966-68. I didn't want my newborn son to face the draft. That set the stage for many years of resistance. Then I became a resister, marching on the streets and organizing for civil rights, anti-war activism, anti-nuke activism, environmental causes, homelessness and lobal economic and social justice that landed me on the streets of WTO Seattle. Not being a citizen ever got in the way of acting like a citizen. Then the closed-door, closed minds, closed system, and closed hearts of post 9/11 silenced me, immobilized me, frightened me and depressed me. Then I went to Columbus, Ohio in 2004 with Election Protection and saw first-hand the election being stolen. For the first time ever, I felt as though I neither belonged, nor was welcome. I didn't know how to write about it, what to write, or whether I had a right to write. So I wrote a memoir. But all the issues that called out to be addressed sat on the shelf in my mind, making me sad beyond language and utterly unsure of what it meant to not be a citizen in a country that I'd always felt was my home. 

This morning, I woke up in great and expansive gratitude to a system and a people that have risen out of the ashes of these past eight years and taken back their country.

Wow.

What a thrilling thing. It goes way beyond Obama, even if it is because of Obama...
   
And we have a new generation to thank. In November, 1999, the young people took to the streets of Seattle, hijacked the intersections and shut down the devouring greed of the WTO Organization. It has never been the same since. At the time, the young activists were unappreciated, unsupported and profoundly underreported. Now, in November 2008, young people pulled off two years of organizational discipline, committment to a cause far bigger than themselves, unyielding belief in the potential of this country, and a great abiding faith in the future. They are to be profoundly congratulated. They saw the future when all the tired old pundits and politicians assumed they themselves had long ago put everything to rest in the pockets of the few at the expense of the many.

We owe the young people who worked on this campaign everything. It was a spiritual and political army of youth who gave it all over these many months, waking us up, keeping us awake, rubbing our collective noses in the truth of both loss and possibility, to whom we owe our lives as well as our thanks.

I know one of them---Kiana Scott, a young college grad whose first job started with the Obama campain way back in primary Iowa. Thank you, Kiana. Please pass it on to your compatriots in the cause.

My friend Ben White, who put the turtles on the streets of WTO Seattle, made a decision after that event to dedicate the rest of his life to working with young people. His life wasn't long enough for him to be here today. But I know he's everywhere. Taking it all in. Turtles live a long time. We might, too.

jt