Folks in my community have wondered why I gave up hours and hours of my time organizing for Obama in terms of creating and hosting events, blogging, participating in events, participating in many Saturdays of October and Tuesdays of October phonebanking in a union office, in someone's home, in a condo, in a real estate office, in Century City Plaza hotel, in doorknocking, in dialoguing with folks. Most of my activities were self-driven by my imagination, but mostly my zeal for the candidate. Why did I do what I did?
Creating Events. Most of my events were either done at my home or a nearby bakery. The preparations to host an event include not just cleaning my house, but also making sure that folks have something to eat. And they are eating not popcorn and coke, but something substantial. And each event is created with a them in mind. Why for goodness's sake, no one is grading me? No one is supervising me.
Ah, but my conscience is. All along I wanted my own brand of Obama events to reflect the wholesome goodness that I see in President Elect Obama, the way he respects the crowds, the way he shows his delight at receiving their handshakes and their hugs.
While he is not with me, I am very conscious that I represent him, displaying a full measure of his goodwill and enthusiasm.
Why: Because ever since I have been a citizen of the United States, born and raised in the Philippines for 18 years, my island birthplace has never left my heart. Its people, my people have always exuded their warmths, their affectionate hearts stay open to strangers, friends, and family. That is what I missed the most of my island homeplace and I try to recreate that with every event I had organized for Obama. To some that are not used to seeing that done usually and repeatedly, it left them suspicious, perhaps she herself is running for office, and even taken aback when I introduce myself as a volunteer commissioner. Their suspicion now becomes fullblown, and no longer restrained in others, they approach me and articulate their own inner suspicions " Are you running for office? " And when I say it did not cross my mind as I have no patience for it, they are just left incredulous. Why would that be? Because, we as a nation has been taught and conditioned to be cynical, to be abrupt, to show our darkest selves, to be cold as if James Bond in Quantum of Solace, coldblooded, icequeens and icekings. But, it is not our true selves. It is not who America truly is.
It is why Senator Barack Obama became a shining light for me. I saw his goodness, his goodwill and wherein he regarded folks not as " fat assed consumers of politics, who can be squeezed for every juice of a dollar ", but as smart, thoughtful citizens who he can dialogue with, who he has to earn their respect, who can be educated, who can understand complex issues, as long as all the elements of those political issues are made transparent to the citizens.
I know I am just describing the atmosphere of an event, how did I manage to discuss my origins, my expectations of my political leaders? Because I am not unipolar, nor a unidimensional person. When you consider island folks, we are truly a complex web of intricacies, we are a network of many dimensions, we are a complex array of friendships, family and togetherness, and when we get excited about one thing, we bring in the entire community with that excitement, we talk to them daily, non-stop until they are with us. When we hold a belief, we not only consider ourselves, but each member of our family, each member of our community, where each one is a leader, where each one is a learner, where each one is a teacher, a true full circle and collection of smarts, talents and abilities.
Intellectual Content and Democratic Process. That is what I painstakingly tried to create during the campaign, as soon as I started January 2008. I have not quite stopped doing it. I also wanted the intellectual content to reflect the views of folks who took the time to attend, and more importantly that the process was inclusive and accountable, that each one was thanked for their participation, large or small as contributing to a change in the energy not just in the room, but also in our everyday lives. That we now can smile at each other in the playgrounds, in the parks, in the grocery stores, in the churches, in the movie houses and take the time to talk to our Fedex guy, to our cable guy or even offer a drink to our postman or a banana to our sweating gardener who mows our lawn and we see folks just take the time to be a role model, imitating the goodness they see in the First Family.
So my zeal in the campaign has been transferred to writing daily for a community newspaper, harvesting my fellow community folks' goodness, goodwill and generosity, hoping to immortalize and memorialize them, the unsung, everyday heroes who are rhizomes, whose roots are spread to the thickness of the soil, who stay rooted, yet grow new nodes and stalks that bloom into new flowers, some with fragrance for all of us community folks to enjoy. And my community is becoming larger, no longer just Filpinos, but also amongst my extended family: Chinese, Honduran, Japanese, Blacks and French. Yes, our family is growing since the elections.
Website Shadowed Some, But not ALL. In October, when the website no longer can track my phone banking activities in different field places in Los Angeles, while I searched for who has the best method on the ground floor, I stopped logging as much into the website. And as intense as I got into the campaign, covering even TV programs to explain why Obama, which is not covered in the website, and writing more community newspaper stories, which is also not covered in the website, the irony of all ironies, that is when my ranking of 10 on the mybarackobama.com website declined to 9, one day, and when i asked the basis of that ranking score going down, my score was again diminished to 8. As my ground activities intensified, my website score diminished, which only tells me that scoring kept in the website is no longer reliable and credible. But my conscience reminds me to keep going for my ideals.
Well, guess what folks, my motivation still stayed strong. After all, I did not organize for Obama because of my ego, I self-organized for Obama because I sensed his luminous human spirit, the shine in his character, the shine in how he delights in seeing his family, how he is a very decent person who loves people, how he treats everyone with respect. Of course, he gets testy, and the media writes up about it, particularly when suddenly the children are being included in his media interviews, when he and his wife have not quite precleared and prepared the children. To me, he and his wife are decent parents who do not commercialize their children for their own purposes and respect their privacy and right to say no to public events.
Zeal for Obama not the Democratic Party. And by the way, let it be known to the Obama HQ staff, that Obama inspired me to self-organize, not the Democratic Party who has been recruiting me to get involved for years now, who has yet to have me convinced that the Democratic Party is a genuine, service-oriented party, and it is a party that is beyond multiple selfish agendas of making a candidate win, as that will never be why I will never give up my nights, weekends, days, to simply get someone elected.
I gave up my family time so my family can have a better future, I can now enjoy our holidays this thanksgiving because I know I have installed into office, as 68,900,000 more, a decent man who will put the interests of the American people, the majority of the people first, before his pocketbooks or his future or his legacy, I gave up my precious time to elect a decent MAN OF PRINCIPLES, and let it be known, I am not going to be deceived by pundits, nor taken by decisive instructionns from the top of party leaders who want to use me like I was a piece of merchandise.
You just don't get it, my allegiance and love for this country to reach its American ideals and potentials for inclusive union, and my zeal for principles will not be for sale! For in selling it, I will betray my deepest self and my conscience, who I have to live by and exist with 24/7 all days and all years of my life.
Yes, there are many of us, in fact, perhaps a lot of the more than 68,900,000 voters who pledged them for Obama, you just have to take pause that folks will sacrifice their TIME, TALENTs and TREASUREs to attain an America that has a HEART!!
Yes, it is the heart of a Nation that we are fighting for, not the DEMOCRATIC PARTY and President Elect Barack Obama got it right the first time he ran and because he got it right, we are there for him!
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