The Righteous Indignation Playlist

Well, we're almost at the finish of this historically historic race. While a large part of the notability surrounding this election is due to the candidates on the ticket, it is also the unprecedented election coverage. If you so choose, or are uncontrollably compelled, you can be tracking this election all day, every day. Personally, I've read the books, kept up with the papers, stayed abreast of the TV punditry, tracked the blogs, and watched the Youtube movement. I've craved every single facet and nuance of this battle for the big seat, and I got it.

And I am fucking exhausted.

I guess it's called "campaign fatigue." It is really just emotionally draining to be so thoroughly invested in something too large to really control. It is a lot like watching a sports team in the playoffs, only there is no looming offseason. Instead, there is an era we will enter, either to move forward or to stay firmly entrenched in where we already stand.

In an effort to calm my nerves, I decided I needed a playlist. It would have to be the kind of playlist you would play in a locker room in the hours leading up to a season-defining game. It would need to cover the gamut of associated emotions, emphasizing the broad stroke, large beats that led to our arrival at this extraordinary juncture. It's time to get psyched.


Start with Nas' latest power processional, Hero. As a nation, we are clearly struggling to nail down our own identity, and if I've learned anything in a lifetime of reading comics, it is that heroes arise from situations of need. The powerful drumbeat of this track pretty much pulls my puppet string, righteously raising my fist to the air. This song is a call to action, inspiring the listener to quit the surrender of apathy, and take control. If I were Captain America, this is the song I would listen to as I pulled the cowl over my head.


Public Enemy pretty much invented political hip-hop, and their track Son of a Bush is a great example of how finely they can articulate a point. What John McCain fails to realize when he says "I'm not George Bush," is that the need for a Democratic president is not solely about the person who has lived in the White House these last 8 years, but also the ideology that drove his administration. Besides, Chuck D. was battling George H.W. Bush on policy twenty years ago, and he was no less pissed at this Bush.

Because what has W. done for us? He inherited a surplus, and squandered it. September 11th earned America, and Bush's White House by extension, an unprecedented amount of international goodwill. However, our reckless approach to the War on Terror, and our bull-headed, independent, uncompromising charge into Iraq, and the travesties of Guantanamo Bay have robbed our nation of the hard-earned reputation of benevolence, replaced with the specter of an unchecked superpower gone mad.

International man-at-large David Bowie understands this, which probably explains,"I'm afraid of Americans."

Our century-long persona as the world's benign protector is forever sullied. We are exposed as being just as petty as any less influential nation, but with bigger guns.

At home, we all felt a huge swell of nationalism and pride in our home when the towers fell. Over time, though, as that fervent passion was turned from a defense mechanism to an offense mechanism, a chasm began to grow within the country. Complex issues were boiled down to bumper sticker slogans, and those who challenged our mutual direction as a country were discounted as an unpatriotic radical. As Green Day put it, we no longer lionized intelligence and insight. Instead, the American Ideal was an American Idiot.


Green Day's "American Idiot," album captured that growing divide, reminding us that it wasn't always like this.

We were powerful, we were angry, and we were on the hunt. But were we right? Were our actions justified? Was this new America built on trust, or had we been mislead and manipulated to whatever ends best suited our leaders? Were there WMDs? Was there an imminent danger? Did we take for granted, maybe, that our Best and Brightest would
Tell the Truth?



Immortal Technique, without a doubt, is a radical. But much of what he says rings true. Too often in the cultural consciousness, we lumped Iraqi nationalists with religious extremists. Further inspection proves this to be a fallacy, however, as Technique explains, "Cuz if another country invaded the hood tonight/ It'd be warfare through Harlem, and Washington Heights/ I wouldn't be fightin' for Bush or White America's dream/ I'd be fightin' for my people's survival and self-esteem/ I wouldn't fight for racist churches from the south/ I'd be fightin' to keep the occupation out." Once again, we oversimplified an issue to put our own minds at ease.

We had a chance to tilt the boards, though. In 2000, it could be said, that the American people were robbed. Ultimately, the Supreme Court decided our Chief Executive. Hey, whatever, it happened. In 2004, though, the American people got exactly what we asked for. Probably due to the slogan of the "Wag the Dog," campaign, you don't change horses midstream, especially in wartime.



We were at war with an idea, we were at war with a fragmented nation that was largely rebelling against our occupation, and, due to the deep seeded differences in governing methodologies that bred into hostility during our election, we were warring with ourselves. Eminem's Mosh was a call to arms for those who felt we had strayed too far from our path. It captured the resentment commanded by the actions of our leaders. As a young man, it seemed to distill the singular idea that old men were fucking our world up.

I won't try and speak for all Americans, but after the decision made by our population at large in the 2004 election, I personally felt a disconnect between myself and the national identity at large. It just didn't seem like we shared ideals anymore. And what is America if not a shared ideal?



Then Katrina hit. Perhaps 9/11 was a loss of innocence because we were stuck at home. Outsiders violated our cultural capital, the very stronghold where we felt most invulnerable. Katrina was something worse, though, because in this conflict the only villains were nature, furious and indiscriminate, and the incompetence of those we trusted to protected our own.

If 9/11 was an airborne disease, an outside stimulus that disrupted us to our core, then Katrina was a cancer. It was proof positive of the skewed priorities of our leadership.



Maybe it wasn't true that George W. Bush didn't care at all about black people, but he clearly didn't care enough about the sanctity of American lives. There was a deficit of willingness to take care of our own. And why export freedom and democracy abroad when it was so flawed at home? If ever there was a cause to Riot.



Wyclef Jean taps into the fabricated divisions of our country when he talks about the "rock and roll boys," "hip hop boys," and "reggae boys." We have so much more in common than we have differences, and we need to remember that again. After what we've been through, we need to be the reUnited States of America.

And isn't hopeless. For one thing, for now, the world still looks to us for guidance. Our hold on this cache is loosening, but for now it is still good to be an American Boy.



But we can't afford to take this stature for granted. We have to earn it. It isn't good enough to simply rhapsodize about our own greatness, we need to show it. We can show it through empathy and equality in international policy. We can show it by electing someone that the world has already accepted as an agent of change, and an emblem of a new America.

The international community is aware of our nation's history. While it isn't fair to say that American is a more racist nation than the rest of the world, we are differently racist. A European nation may begrudge its neighbors for age-old digressions. America has to face the fact that all the most prominent, eloquent agents of social and civil change have been struck down by internal advocates of hate. We have to live with that, and it isn't as far back in our history as we might like to believe.



But from the ashes of the failed Democratic campaign of 2004 arose a seemingly impossible figure. He had paid his dues trying to right the wrongs of American domestic policy in urban communities. He had learned the law at our finest institutions, and practiced it capably. He expressed foresight with regards to the war in Iraq. His story was uniquely American, but with international flair. He had seen the effect America had on the world abroad, both because his father had emigrated here to chase the American Dream, and because he was raised in a part of the world separate from it. He knew how to speak to Americans, and he knew how to mobilize him. He was just what we needed.



The political pendulum swung as far right as it could in 2004. Common sense dictated that it would swing back left. Still, no one could predict .

The inspirational message sent by a President Obama is not simply that, hey, look, a black man can be president, too. The message resonates for all those who have been disenfranchised. For individuals, that may mean your experience as a minority. It also might be for those who felt too poor to stand a chance. It may be an immigrant's struggle to feel included in the idea of America. Or a restless American from a small town who dreams of more. The beauty of this campaign is that without specifying any one of these things, it has become about all of them. It is about, in the face of the impossible, saying, "Yes We Can."



I don't know, maybe we can't. Maybe this mountain is too big to climb. If the democrats lose this presidential election, it will be evident that theirs was an impossible task. Obama has run a damn near watertight campaign, and ran against one that seems to mystically stay afloat despite leak after leak. But the status quo is like a heavyweight champ; you won't win by decision, you've got to knock him the fuck out. No matter what, this race has come farther than anyone could have expected two, three, or four years ago. It has come to mean more. It has proven we are much closer to the future than we ever had right to believe.

Personally, I would just like to put this embarrassing era of our history to bed. I would like a loud statement that punctuates our new chapter. I need the breathe of fresh air this election could elicit. I want this period Dead and Gone, and near as I can tell, Obama is the only way.



But any playlist needs a killer finale. I'm not sure what it is yet. I know what I want it to be, but it isn't for me to decide. It comes down to-



or



And you all decide.

Pumped yet?