Letters from a Young Radical

I have little to compare this inauguration to as I don't think I've ever watched an inauguration before. I imagine it was quite a bit different in rhetoric from previous inaugurations, although there was still a LOT of god talk, an overuse of the word "freedom" and the overall feeling that America is in the right even if we're a little broken right now.

There are a few things that made me twitch:

• Dianne Feinstein spent a lot of time talking about the importance of nonvoilence and then mentioned the people who are dying for our right to be nonviolent.
• Why is there an anti-gay bigot offering up a prayer for Obama's family?
• Why is there a prayer?
• Aretha Franklin's singing! Cue emotional montage!
• Find the cutest little Kenyan girl and focus on her.
• For that matter, get as many shots of black people crying as you can find. I know, I know it's an important moment, it's just that the presentation is so transparent!
• Even as Barack Obama seemed to burn bridges and talk about a new America, and getting rid of the old ways of doing things, he still spoke in grand generalizations which portrayed America as broken, but still the best damn country in the world. A friend to everyone, unless you do the same things that we do, like finance genocide or silence dissent, and then we will defeat you.
• "...for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." So does that mean he'll stop being pro-Israel and stop the genocide in Gaza?
• "To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history;" Sooooooooo, does that mean I have no fear of being beat up by riot cops the next time I go to a protest?
• What's with the "we will not apologize for our way of life" thing?
• I don't think I've ever been called a "non-believer". Isn't that usually used in the derrogatory sense? Or most commonly used when yelling about how all the non-believers are going to hell? The term is religion-centric rather than objective. It's kind of like calling religious people non-atheists or black people non-whites. Anyway I just thought it was weird.
• I still don't get America's obsession with "freedom". It's such an abstract concept. How is it defined? People just cling to it without questioning what it really means. And I get that we don't live under an oppressive dictatorship exactly, but there are a lot of insidious ways to control people in this country and they're put to good use.

Hm, I wonder what David Cross would have to say?