Election 2012...
All I can say is "whew!" I know there have been elections that were devastating, prop 109 (was that the number?), prop 22, comes to mind... or the stolen re-election of George Bush. Anyways, relieved at the outcome... I started checking my computer at work about an hour before I left the office, and when I saw the early returns, I couldn't breathe. Stress, worry, fear...
I almost went with Jill Stein, of the Green Party, who I think I was aligned with on 99% of issues with her, and something like 84% Obama and 2% Romney. But as they said on KPFK, I did like many progressives, and voted with the politics of fear. Anyways, I was happy to see that Tony and Maiya together voted for Jill Stein, but then I had to explain to Maiya when she didn't win, about corporate media, the debates, and how most people have never even heard of Jill Stein. I joked on FB, that if Roseanne Barr had stepped aside and backed Dr. Stein, then she would have gotten a whole 1% of the California vote.
Once I realized that Obama had won, I could scarcely believe it. People were so excited on FB, but mostly I was just able to breathe again. Then I remembered, oh the propositions. I didn't have a good feeling about anything I had supported. Over the past few months, we have been meeting at work regularly on Prop 30 outreach for our residents, families and clients. In my own programs in child development, we were doing voter registration awareness, education on Prop 30 and 38, and had been following both very closely from many angles, for both parents and staff. On its own, Prop 38 was so positive and would have reversed 5 years of budget cuts to child development and provided so much benefit to children and families, but I knew it couldn't beat Prop 30. I talked to so many people who went to sleep not knowing whether Prop 30 had passed. I was on refresh on my computer for hours, checking in every 5 minutes on the state's election returns. I finally realized I needed to take a break, and went to work on my blog. Anyways, I hope there is a next time for some proactive support for early childhood education, and that the 2 1/2 million people who voted for it will consider it again next time around. It just shows that the field needs to keep at the message of how important early learning is, and how it impacts future learning, success in school, in college, and as the next generation's leaders.
Another race that was really important to me was Prop 37, but with $45 million spent by Monsanto, Pepsi, Dupont and others, including many health food companies that started out as alternative foods, but have since been bought out by corporate food giants, it wasn't a complete surprise.
This morning, Maiya was asking me about the propositions. I knew that she knew what 37 was about because she said that daddy had told her about it, but I was kind of floored when she said, "what happened with 34?" and I said, "do you know what 34 is?" and she said, "yeah, isn't that the dealth, I mean the death penalty one?" I was surprised, but then I remembered a conversation we had about the kinds of people that are sometimes on death row and it turns out that they weren't really guilty and that many times they are people of color. Anyways, trying to keep it age appropriate and in simple terms, but sometimes, my kid seems older and wiser than her 7 years on this planet.
Big congrats to Al Muratsuchi, who I have known for 15-18 years, back when he was fighting the JACL to support the New Otani hotel workers' efforts to unionize, and to Eric Mar in San Francisco, who was battling against known and unknown real estate developers who poured massive amounts of money in attack ads against him. And also to the new and surprising firsts... new APIs to Congress and the Senate.
Anyways, I know most people will be happy not to see any more political commercials, but because I haven't watched much TV and chose to keep the radio off, I haven't been inundated with political ads, but I am glad it's over. In all, with the election of my new friend Meghan Sahli-Wells to the local city council in April, who is the breath of fresh air that makes me happy, politically speaking, it has been a pretty good year.
Peace. Out.
NaBloPoMo12 #6
(Posted on 11/7/12)
We have gone to rallies, marched from Echo Park to downtown over the years, and in April this year, 55 people from LTSC, parents, children, teachers, directors and friends joined us at the march and rally to save Childcare from budget cuts with another 3,000 people who attended. My programs were cut $200,000 last year, and this year they were cut an additional $100,000 so when they say that budgets are balanced on the backs of poor families, immigrants, and children, these are the babies, toddlers and preschoolers we work with every day. 
