Outrageous Vandalism!

Anarchists put fake newspapers in USA Today newsboxes, with a banner headline reading "Capitalism Wins at the Polls," topping a photo of a bonfire, and followed by another headline reading "Anarchy Brewing in the Streets." A clip of a TV report from another blog: the report says that police are reviewing surveillance tapes in hopes of catching the culprits.

Now this is silly. Who was hurt by this action? Did anyone buying a newspaper suffer from assault or fraud? Were newsbox sales disrupted by this? More likely, the novelty encouraged sales, and after all the fake front was wrapped around the standard edition, which was not defaced or diminished in value by it.

But newspapers succeeded in getting laws passed years ago that impose stiff penalties on newsbox vandals, and this apparently will be treated like a big deal. I'll try to follow it.....

I Spent the Night in Chicago Tuesday

and felt all the same things that everyone else felt. Euphoria, community, buzz, even rapture. The people around me at the event (I got in by slipping $20 to a ticket taker) were so into it that you could have walked up to them and taken their wallets and they wouldn't have known til the next day. Yeah. You could've had a sack full of wallets.

At the same time, I recognize that that was a cultural event and not a political event. The governing process is a whole nother thing, and my expectations are modest in that regard. Realistically, I don't expect big movement on key issues. I don't expect, for instance, policies that would revitalize the labor movement. I don't expect universal health care, at least not in the next two years. I don't expect the US to become truly multilateral. But I do expect Gitmo to close, the War in Iraq to end, and the economy to stabilize.

The big difference, though, will be the change of momentum. My friend Owen worked for the Canadian Tories at the time when they suffered the worst electoral defeat in the history of elections. His line the next day was this: "What else did I have to do, other than to lie in the sidewalk and wait for them to draw a chalk outline around me?" He's bounced back, but only after many years of Liberal rule. The Republican Party will likely rebound more quickly, but it's still hard to think of who will lead the party. In the meantime, the right will be on defense, and the left on offense. And that's a serious political change.

Wednesday morning I woke up early and watched tv for an hour or two, then showered and headed out. Already by 8:30 all the newspapers in downtown Chicago had been snapped up. I took the Metra south to where I'd parked my car, sans prophylactic reading material. Everyone on the train was talking about the night before, in little groups of two and four. When we got to the end of the line, and gathered by the exit to disembark, the riders clumped up and the conversation became kind of general. At that point, an older woman, who had been silent, spoke up. She had a bit of an accent that I couldn't locate. She said, "I crossed the ocean to be there." Everyone murmured their recognition. Then she said "God bless America" and got off the train. So this was in my head when I got back into the car and turned on the radio to listen to Rush Limbaugh ranting about the persecution of conservatives. The next few years will be cheerful ones for Rush, who nevertheless cannot diminish, and can only enhance, the glow of the moment.