current-events
Election Night 2012 – Break the Fever
We at The CG Project got to witness history on Election Night in Chicago. The Patio Gardeners, Arlen Parsa and Tiffany Wilson, brought us along on their reward for going to Janesville, WI to turn out the vote in Paul Ryan’s home district. Others in the crowd that we saw there, or on Facebook photos afterward, include Camille Whitworth, Alheli Herrera, Evan Smith and Andre Duncan.
Election results were bleak leading up to the Victory Rally in McCormick Place. The last numbers I’d heard before jumping on a bus from the south loop was Romney 33, Obama 3 but I didn’t share that with Diana because she’d just fought through nasty traffic to get to the spot where we met up. After the bus ride, serpentine line and security check the candidates were tied at around 100 electoral votes.
Tiffany and Arlen had a head start on getting into the room and were already packed in, shoulder-to-shoulder, by the time we arrived. Finding them was near impossible until we were swept into a swarm that was allowed to move up to the bleachers on the opposite end of the room. That’s when we caught a momentary glimpse of them as we shuffled past their spot in the crowd.
Our new vantage point gave us a unique perspective of the event as a whole, but it was a long night of waiting for President Re-Elect Obama to come in and speak to us. There was jubilation in the crowd as news came in that he’d taken Ohio and reached 275 electoral votes. Spurts of euphoria would erupt with the victories by Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth. Loses by the Rape Caucus were also celebrated but it would be a long wait for Gov. Mitt Romney to concede the election.
We didn’t get to witness the, now famous, Karl Rove meltdown the way the rest of America did but Romney’s concession speech gave us a chance to witness the cultural and political divide in our country first hand. Before hearing his speech, I had completely forgotten that there was a room of people who felt the exact opposite of the way we did on one fundamental issue… that Barack Obama would be President of the United States for four more years. As we wondered what took him so long to give it up, they likely wondered how he could give up without knowing who won Florida.
What struck me about this moment was the disconnect between what I saw and what I heard. When our cheering and flag waving died down and the applause continued, I had to look around before realizing that it was applause from his own crowd. Moments like this stress the fact that America exists in multiple realities by exposing the fact that we experience common moments through different prisms. Our echo chambers are so strong that we can completely forget the other side exists. It was a sobering thought that emphasized the importance of the work that’s ahead of us.
The fever’s broken. Now that the most expensive campaign in U.S. history is behind us, we need to find some common ground for the healing to begin.
What’s a Jubilee?
Jubilee comes from an ancient Hebrew tradition of clearing debts and returning land to the people after 49 year intervals. They observed The Jubilee Year, where they let the lands go without sowing or harvesting. Part of this tradition that’s hard to understand comes from the fact that the Promised Land belonged to God. Since it was given to the people, it could only be borrowed, never owned. That’s why there’s an impression that the land goes back to the people, and families can to return to their home every fifty years. Hattip – Good News About God.
At this year of jubilee all Israelites who had sold themselves into slavery were set free, and all land that had been sold reverted to its original owner. This meant that no Israelite could ever be in permanent slavery; nor could any Israelite permanently lose his inheritance. – Growth in God
Either through coincidence, divine intervention or fuzzy math, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ fell on the 80th Jubilee, about 4,000 years into the story. Growth in God claims that Christ was aware of this and that the following passage intends to bring about a new Jubilee:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. – Isaiah 61: 1,2 and Luke 4: 18,19
Many more Jubilees have passed. The Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee earlier this year, even though England is in a period of austerity and she’d celebrated her Golden Jubilee 10 years earlier. I don’t live in England but I didn’t hear much about debt reduction, just stories of a spinning boat.
What Jubilee Means to Me
The Patio Gardeners, Tiffany Wilson and Arlen Parsa, had the first confirmed sighting of a Jubilee tomato in this video.
I first learned of Jubilee because of some tomato seeds that I planted this year but the more I hear about it, the more I believe there could be some cosmic alarm clock ticking away. I’ve mentioned the Mayans before in this blog. The concept behind the calendar that people fear is much more about rejuvenation or turning over a new leaf than a cataclysmic end to the word.
What Jubilee means to me is a re-assessment of value and a fresh start. The CG Jubilee takes place right when our tomatoes start to ripen, Diana’s producing amazing work and I’m starting a new documentary project. Around us, there are also great people making positive change toward a new, local economy which inspired us to create La Buena Espalda, the community outreach arm of The CG Project. We’re proud to announce our first official sponsors, Mimi’s Garden and Season Produce and Specialty Market! You’ll hear more about this in another post. For now, I leave you with this:
The Jubilee Tomato ripens at the end of an 80 day cycle that’s tied to the 4 season cycle that we pretend to observe in Chicago. The tomato’s cycle ends with the beginning of a 12 month academic calendar that rules the lives of teachers, students and parents. This year we’re also in the midst of a presidential election cycle that will change the course of our nation. The reason this election is so pivotal is that we’re also experiencing the transition into a generational cycle where baby boomers retire and while millennials wait to take over, which effects a larger, supply and demand economic cycle. This is the part where I remind you of the 394 year Mayan baktun, which ends in December, before hoping that this isn’t all part of a larger ecological calendar that we can’t fully read yet.
I’ll ask again. Coincidence, divine intervention or just fuzzy math?
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