Our President, now available!

 

 

Our President by Jack M Silverstein, available now!

Jack M Silverstein and Keylog Books are proud to announce the release of Our President, on sale now! (See below for locations.)

With a foreword from ESPN’s Scoop Jackson, Our President is a non-fiction compilation that includes Obama-related selections of Silverstein’s award-winning column from 2006 to 2009; an interview with political activist Michael Swiryn (excerpted below); and narrative essays chronicling the author’s trip to Grant Park on election day and D.C. for the historic inauguration.

Proceeds going to feedingamerica.org. Don’t miss out on the debut release from this exciting, young talent!

EXCERPT FROM…

Interview with an American activist

(Swiryn is detailing his experience protesting at George W. Bush’s first inauguration, January 20, 2001. All photos from carolmoore.net)

Everybody’s in the street, and this van pulls through the crowd. 15-passenger van, white, unmarked—the march is going this way, and the van crosses in front and pulls up on this corner. The doors open and fifteen riot cops pile out. These guys take off in a jog down this side street, so us being angry and stupid and young, we’re like “Let’s follow them!” 

We were probably a half block behind, running after fifteen riot police. Full gear—beating sticks, facemasks, armor, dressed in black, serious. They come up to these police barricades, the “You can’t come in here. This is the parade route” or whatever. The police move these barricades, run through, don’t put ‘em back, and go around the corner. You can tell there is the din of something going on around that corner. So we looked at each other and ran through the barricades. You turn the corner and BOOM! You’re on the scene.

This is the parade after the inauguration. We came out right by this statue of this dude on a horse. There’s limos going by. There’s a float or two. There’s people lined up along the street, pressed against the fences. Democrats and Republicans mixed together, but just regular folk. It was probably four or five people deep, all the way down the street. There were kids up on shoulders, waving American flags. There were people climbing up streetlights. That horse statue, there were people all over that thing. You could see up on top of the buildings there were snipers everywhere.

There are people yelling and screaming and hollering and having a good time. There are way more riot cops now. There’s the street, and then three rows of riot police, and then the fence, and then a bunch of people looking at the street. And then behind that there’s the statue, and behind that there’s us.

The three rows of riot cops went a while in either direction. There were probably 1000 police officers right there in that spot. We looked around for “why,” and it didn’t take long to realize: there were small groups of people gathered near the statue, in between us and the crowd, and they were all dressed in black, all in small groups, all hush-hush. This was “The Protesters!”

I didn’t know at the time, but they dress in black because it’s a tactic. It’s scary, but also it’s like an army. One of them can run out and steal the barricade, and when the police report it, they’re like “Uh…it was the guy in black.” They’re known as “black bloc” protesters. They gather in small groups because the FBI can’t infiltrate them as easily.

So the cops are there because these protesters are scaring the crap out of them. There were probably about 200, in maybe 25 groups of eight people, Doing Something.

Five minutes later we’re looking around going, “Where’d all the protesters go?” They’d gone 300 yards upstream, up Pennsylvania towards the White House, right by this Navy memorial. This is famous territory, right across from the National Archives. The Navy memorial has these two flagpoles, and there’s a main flagpole, and at the bottom there’s this eight-foot cement cylinder. The flagpole goes up, and on top is an American flag, and then strung out on diagonals are these Navy signal flags. It’s how they communicate on ships. We’re maybe forty feet from this flagpole, the center of things. And all the protesters have gathered into one big group now.

At this point, the energy totally picks up, because everybody knows these are “the anarchists.” The Republicans are jeering the Democrats, the Democrats are booing the anarchists, and the anarchists are going off on everybody. And everybody’s yelling. Everybody’s pissed off. Everybody’s excited.

Where’s Bush at this point?

In a limo on Pennsylvania…somewhere else. Who knows. I never knew. Bush played no role in my day. It was beyond that at this point. It was just anger and frustration and feeling totally helpless and having all this energy happen. It was the best thing ever.

All of a sudden these four kids get boosted onto the cement cylinder, above everybody’s heads, and they’re surrounded by this sea of black bloc protesters. And you’re thinking to yourself, “Holy shit! They’re gonna tear the flag down.” And sure enough, they start wheeling down one of the Navy flags, and all the flags come down, and they hoist up an Anarchy flag. In the middle of the inaugural parade of the U.S. President, someone has just hoisted an Anarchy flag over the Navy memorial outside the National Archives. The Constitution’s in there, ya know?

Everybody’s going crazy, and right at this moment me and Jess have another “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” moment. And we decide, because we’re idiots, that we could probably get one of those flags that got knocked down. So we start squeezing through the black bloc protesters.

It’s me, four people, and then the cement cylinder. And I’m looking around for a flag, and cheering, and everybody’s going crazy. I’m getting my rocks off here. This is good. Because I was pissed off! I really was.

At what?

I think at the fact that in 3rd grade somebody told me that our country worked a certain way, and I just found out they were lying. They said, “You have a democracy. You vote for a president.” And that was total bull. That’s not how it works. We voted, and it didn’t matter. They just snuck in behind the lines and stole the election.

But it works in most cases. If Gore had won 60-40, would they have been able to pull this off?

No. (pauses) But who knows? Maybe he did win 60-40 and they doctored 10% of the results. I don’t know. If somebody came to me in 50 years and said, “Did you know that in 2004, Kerry really did win in Ohio?” I’d be like, “I’m not surprised.” If I were a betting man I would not bet against that. So “who knows” on democracy. The jury’s out.

copyright 2010, jm silverstein

YOU CAN FIND Our President AT THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS:

Online…

Amazon.com

In the city…

Harold’s Chicken in Wicker Park, 1361 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Quimby’s Bookstore in Wicker Park, 1854 W. North Ave.

Santullo’s Eatery in Wicker Park, 1943 W. North Ave.

In the Burbs…

C.J. Arthur’s in Wilmette, 1168 Wilmette Ave.

Herms Palace in Skokie, 3406 Dempster Ave.

Elsewhere in this nation of ours…

Howard’s Bookstore in Bloomington, IN, 111 W. Kirkwood Ave.