My last political post for a while, I swear.

[katallison]

Yesterday afternoon, while waiting for the bus, it struck me that my vacation is over. Dammit.



I was raised to be politically engaged, in a spirited and yet genteel way, by my League-of-Women-Voters-local-president mother. Vote, write your congressman, maybe compose the occasional civil letter to the editor. All well and good.

In the late 60s/early 70s, I was ungenteely activist in the ways many of us were back then, with the signs and the chanting and the getting pepper-fogged and all. Which was fun, though exhausting, and also sometimes ow.

In the 80s, I got heavily into politics, on a number of levels. I went to grad school in public affairs, I attended precinct caucuses and got elected as delegate to district conventions, I went to more community-group meetings than I care to recall, I went to endless City Council meetings, I was on a first-name basis with most of the City Council (and was drinking buddies with one or two of them, as well as with the director of the city Redevelopment Agency, and some heavyweight bankers and private developers). I fundraised, I networked, I wrote a couple of policy documents for mayoral review, I brokered loans for minority-owned nail salons and record shops, I broke up fistfights between drunken old-lefties at scummy bars.

Around 1990, I said, Enough. I have had it. I wash my hands of this. I'm passing the fucking torch, and from this day forth, as god is my witness, I'll never sit through a neighborhood meeting again, from where the sun now stands, I shall fight no more forever.

And for fourteen years, I was pretty much at peace with that decision. I figured I'd done my time, that dues had by god been paid, y'know?

So understand if I am lacking the vim that some of my younger and fresher friends are bringing to the prospect of renewed political engagement. I feel tired, and creaky, and distinctly lacking in much optimism about the innate gratifications of grassroots activism.

But the line that's been going through my head the last few days is one from some old poem of Allen Ginsberg's--America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel...

Fuck. This was not how I wanted to spend my declining years, but events have made it clear that what I want is not on the menu this decade, and so--yeah, wheel, shoulder putting to, got it. Though I'll be just as glad to give the pepper fog a pass this time, thx.

Comments

[lunaris1013.livejournal.com]

Welcome back to the fight, my friend!

[ratcreature]

I just wanted to say that I heart your icon. I've read some quotes from US politicians who won senate races and such, and didn't know whether to laugh or cry over their bizarre positions. Being a European I can never quite believe they are for real (even though sadly I know they are), that those people are really politicians in a major party and not some parody...

[lunaris1013.livejournal.com]

Honey, I live here and can't believe they're taken seriously!

I really just like you a lot.

[qe2.livejournal.com]

That's all.

Except that for my money (so to speak) you can keep posting political stuff all you like. It's vim-inducing - for me, at least. I find your voice heartening, and I need that right now.

[twistedchick]

So you get to be Leo McGarry now, the voice of wisdom and experience. Not a bad place to be -- especially when we need both so much.

::offers tea and cookies::

[tracy-rowan.livejournal.com]

I hear you. Though not quite as active, and burned out well before you, I was there, did that. And I am tired on so many levels right now, I can't even count them. But I'm giving this country four more years of whatever fight I've got left. If it comes to the worst, maybe I'll be ready to let the Evil Monkey Brigade have the place in '09. But right now, no. I'll work where I can in in what time I have. Because the alternative sucks.

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

You inspire me. (:

so when *does* what we want get put on the menu?

[nagasvoice.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's just my local impression, but it seems to me that people are a lot more riled up and aware than they ever were during the Reagan era, when a lot of this stuff has its evil roots. There's sure a lot more alternative sources of information--though it's hard to persude people who don't trust any of it except really lousy, simple, impoverished propaganda like Fox news.

[elke-tanzer.livejournal.com]

*adores you*

[namastenancy.livejournal.com]

I adore you and have added a Kat Allison statue to my Goddess shelf. I did get more involved in this last election and have been very active in my neighborhood groups for the last year or so.. ..Sigh. The boooooring meeings, etc. But what's the alternative? Thank heavens I live in liberal SF because I'm afraid that I would be in deep shit if I lived in the hinterland because I tend to have a big mouth. However, not so much with the marching this time because age of 60 plus bad knees - not good. I struggle to find a balance between my political beliefs and my need to have time to make art. Sometimes I even manage to succeed. But you and your posts and blogland in general are a real life saver. What a wonderful community we have and I pray that it continues.
namaste SF Nancy