I've been coming in and out of this forum for the last few days, unsure of exactly what to say or how to say it.
I'll be honest, I felt a little hurt that the forum was closed right after the election. Although I respected that it was Mac's choice to make, I didn't know what to make of it, or of the rebranding. I'm not sure how it's quite different here.
I'll also add my voice to those who didn't like that certain names were called out personally. Yeah, they have a pattern. Everyone does, myself included. Some may find my particular pattern annoying or disruptive, while others fine me thoughtful and funny. Same goes with everyone else.
I hold great respect for the people I've met in this forum, even and in some cases especially, when their ones I disagree with.
Like Gregg, sometimes I also feel like the odd one out, since I'm not center left, but that's okay. I never wanted an echo chamber, but perhaps what the place needs is a greater variety of voices.
I don't pretend to have the answers. I am glad the forum is back, and of course it needs to be said that AW has so much more to offer than just political discussion. So I guess we'll see what happens from here.
I'm going to second most of Vince's sentiments.
Something happened last week that not only was a seismic shock to the country, but to Absolute Write's Politics and Current Events forum. It was like being in the middle of your dinner at a restaurant and the manager busts in telling everybody to leave and the waitresses start clearing the table and turning out the lights. I was equal parts confused by the shutdown and pissed off by it.
It's nice to have even a modified version of P&CE, but I don't quite know what to do with it. Everybody needed a place to express their feelings about the election, but they needed it last week. People wanted to vent, to rage, to cry a little, to express their fear and confusion and sadness or even their happiness, and they did not have that outlet.
What I would have liked to see is an announcement that went something like, "Hey folks, it's been a long, bruising election and now would be a good time to repurpose this forum so we're going to shut it down and relaunch it in a few weeks." I believe that would have gone a long way in dispelling some of the tentativeness of how best to proceed in Trump Nation.
Maybe it's the hangover from the ugly after effects of a horrid election, but I'm not feeling too comfortable about the current state of Absolute Write. We have a spanking new forum where everybody is walking around on eggshells trying to figure out what is in bounds and what's not.
I also agree with Vince on the naming of names. It made me uncomfortable, and I'm sure it had the same effect on those named.
Going forward, I'm not sure of this new direction or how exactly to get there, but I do know something was
broken last week. It wasn't simply another presidential election where we congratulate the winner and forget the loser.
This felt different. This felt like the ground had shifted under our feet in a seismic event and while everything looked normal, you could feel it wasn't. It was like going to bed in your home and waking up thousands of miles away in another time and place.
If you supported Donald Trump and you're having a hard time figuring outd so many others refuse to acknowledge him as my president, all I can tell you is Trump spent the past eight years defaming and denying Barack Obama's legitimacy.
Perhaps as time and the rage dissipates because anger like fire, feeds on itself if there's nothing left to burn. Eventually I will make my way to begrudging acceptance of a reality I cannot change, but even then I'll remain committed to being part of the resistance to Trumpism in hopes it fuel a revolt against it.
When President Obama says we have to accept the president-elect and Thomas Friedman to Oprah to Dave Chapelle say give the guy a chance, I reply, I'd like to but I can't because I roll with Brother Frederick Douglass when he said:
“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.”
We've been conditioned to fear challenging the status quo and to look askance at the dissident for their defiance. We've been led to believe if we sit down, shut up and don't speak up, we'll be safe. Silence will not save you. Speaking up for what you believe won't keep you safe, but it will keep you free.
What could be more American than that?
Or to put it another way,
I'm not ready to make nice.