Hello Pike County Pennsylvanians

The message from the sign I carried on Inauguration Day--"Dear World, We're Back! Love, USA"--continues to spread across the Interwebs, various tubes, portals, and social media sites. Here it is in the Pike County Dispatch, a newspaper in rural, northeast Pennsylvania:

The article is written by Eric Langberg, who took a picture of the sign at the Inauguration and posted it on Twitpic, where it's now been viewed nearly 200,000 times. Only part of the article is accessible online. To see the rest you have to get an actual copy of the Dispatch. 

Some fun facts about Pike County: 

• In 2007, Pike County had 42,493 registered voters: 19,653 Republicans, 14,692 Democrats, and 8,148 "others."
• Pike County voted for McCain over Obama, 12,456 (52%) to 11,448 (47%). 
• Pike County county is part of Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District, which just re-elected Democratic Representative Chris Carney, 56% to 44%, over his Republican challenger. When Carney was first elected in 2006, he became the first Democrat to represent the district since 1961.
• Pike County is considered the westernmost edge of the Greater New York area surrounding New York City and is the fastest-growing county in Pennsylvania.

If you are visiting Better Than Machines after seeing the yellow "Dear World" sign...

• Check out these three posts for the story behind the sign and an explanation of what it really means.
• Join the discussion in the comments sections about how exactly we're back...and how we still have a long way to go.

Dear World, Welcome to Better Than Machines. Love, BTM

The Twitpic of "Dear World, We're Back! Love, U.S.A." now has over 170,000 views. Stemming from that and the other social media sites that picked up the picture, at its peak, Better Than Machines' traffic reached about 35 times its normal levels. Over the last few days, people from 21 countries have visited BTM.

To all of you who've found your way here through Twitter, Digg, Stumbleupon, and other sites:  

Welcome. I hope you'll stick around. There's a lot going on and a lot to talk about. 

While the inauguration of President Obama marked a major victory for the people of the United States and the world, it by no means marked the end of a struggle. If anything, it's a beginning. "We're back" doesn't mean everyone can stop paying attention now. "We're back" means we just removed one of the single biggest obstacles to our progress as a people.  

Now it's time to bring on some of that progress. We now have a presidential administration that is not actively hostile to ordinary working Americans. But that doesn't mean that this administration will just give us what we want. Once you're actually in the Oval Office, suddenly all the money men are whispering in your ear, suddenly it's a lot easier just to give the Chamber of Commerce whatever it wants. 

After Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932, a group of labor leaders and reformers met him with a number of specific plans they wanted the president to implement. Roosevelt responded: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it."

We are in the same position today: We just elected a progressive Democrat for president, after witnessing the utter failure of a political and economic philosophy built on greed. Back then, FDR did good things because the American Left was fired up and engaged. 

President Obama believes a lot of the right things. Now it's time for us to make President Obama do the right things. Stay tuned as BTM does its small part. 

What My Sign Means

Here's the picture from Twitpic of me holding my homemade sign on Inauguration Day:

The photo was taken by a Twitter user who goes by infernoenigma.  

He posted it on Twitpic on Wednesday.  

From there it was put on Digg by bianconeri4ever.

As of 7:03 pm EST today, the picutre has been viewed over 160,000 times, "Digg'd" over 3,800 times, and received over 700 comments on Digg.

It's been cool to see the response from people around the world, including American expats.

On Twitpic... 

montpetitviolon writes:

This is great! :-) Love, Italy!

Netzreisender writes:

yeah - welcome back! love, germany

armoty writes:

I think we'll love America again, Egypt

fireashes writes:

We love you back.

On Digg... 

Nboy514 writes:

Dear USA, Welcome Back. Love Canada

Raphae1 writes:

Dear USA, Welcome Back. Love Austria

superandreas writes:

Dear USA. This brings not only hope to your nation, but to nations worldwide. together we can CHANGE to the better! Love from Norway

What My Sign Does Not Mean 

Now, before we get carried away, there have been plenty of good critical comment about this sign.  (You can sample them on the Digg page.)  These comments deserve a response, because they raise important caveats.  

I am a lot of things, but a mindless flag-waiver is not one of them.

"Dear World, We're Back! Love, U.S.A." does not mean that everything is better now, everything is fixed, no need for reform, no need for progressivism, end of story.

It does not mean that all the people of the world look only to America for sustenance and guidance.

It does not mean that America has committed atrocities only under the Bush Administration.

It does not mean that world "popularity" should be America's chief concern.

It does not mean that everything good about America ceased to exist during the Bush Era.

It does not mean a lot of silly things.  

What My Sign Does Mean

If you don't understand that the inauguration of President Barack Obama--and the grassroots movement and electoral rout that made it possible--signals the restoration of some good things about America and the beginning of a restoration of other things, then you haven't been paying attention. You haven't been paying attention to the lies and crimes of Bush Republicanism and modern conservative philosophy. You haven't been paying attention to the growing tide of opposition to those lies and crimes. And you haven't paid attention to history and seen that sometimes there are indeed turning points in history, when people decide that they are sick of being pushed down again and again. We are living in one of those times.

I wrote in my previous post about what a longer version of my sign might have said. It's worth repeating here:

(This has now been amended slightly, per an insightful comment by ActivistGuy from Daily Kos.)

America is undergoing a restoration and reclamation. We are restoring government so that it works for us instead of against us. We humbly seek to earn a position of moral authority and honorable leadership in the world. We want the people of the world to know that we hear them. We want them to know that we as a people are better than these last eight years, that our government has not represented us. Our government has been a vicious and alien thing sitting on top of us instead of a compassionate and democratic thing rising up from us. We're putting those disgraceful years behind us, and we're going to set things right. We're moving forward. We're back.

If you think this is a message the world should hear, let's digg, tweet, and forward it to them.

You can Digg it HERE.  You can view it on Twitpic HERE.  You can share your comments BELOW.

Dear World, We're Back! Love, U.S.A.

UPDATE:  A better picture of this sign was Twitpic'd HERE by Twitter user infernoenigma.  From there it got "Dugg" up the charts. See it on Digg HERE.  All Tweeters and Diggers, I welcome debate and discussion in the comments section. 

:::::

ORIGINAL POST:
In an earlier post, I solicited suggestions for what to write on the homemade sign I would carry around on Inauguration Day. I decided to go with a short and sweet message: Dear World, We're Back! Love, U.S.A.

I was astounded by the reactions this sign received. I held it while I was waiting in the glacial line to get through the security checkpoint. I'm not exaggerating when I say that every person who saw the sign had a positive reaction. So many people stopped and wanted to take a picture that I started to worry that the crowd would further clog up the street, so I took the sign down every now and then. I think it helped keep people in a good mood while we were all wondering if we'd get on to the Mall in time. 

Some people simply wanted to take a picture. Other people wanted to stand by me and have a friend take their picture. Still others wanted to take the sign from me and have their picture taken holding it. People in line started joking that I should be selling photos for $5 a pop.  

I knew that signs weren't allowed at the ceremony, so before we passed through security, I folded it up and stuffed it in the manilla envelope that held our tickets.

Once the ceremony was over, I pulled the sign out again and held it over my head in the crowd. People loved it. Hundreds of people took pictures with their digital cameras and cell phones. Maybe ten people that looked like media photographers snapped shots and a few cameramen zoomed in on it as well.

 

One guy took a picture and said, "This is goin' up on an Irish website!" 

Another guy said, "This is goin' back to Australia!" 

I think I gave an interview to a reporter from a small newspaper in California, but I can't be sure. 

One guy handed me a dollar bill and said, "Here man, you ought to be getting paid." 

A woman gave me a granola bar and said, "This will help you keep up the energy."  

This went on for some time. At one point, I climbed up on a concrete barrier in front of the Capitol and held the sign up in the freezing wind. I thought I was going to get knocked off the wall when people surged forward to take pictures and jump up beside me. I could have stayed out there all day (I kept joking that I would wait there until the Washington Post came by), but it was cold and getting windier and we were tired and hungry and thirsty. (So I guess it's more accurate to say I could not have stayed out there all day.)

It was exciting to see how much everyone wanted to echo the sentiment on my sign. It really did seem to capture what I think was one of the two big themes expressed in the crowd. The first theme was the elation, pride, and everything else that goes along with electing the first African-American president. The second theme--which the sign was a part of--was something like this: 

America is undergoing a restoration and reclamation. We are restoring government so that it works for us instead of against us. We humbly seek to earn a position of moral authority and honorable leadership in the world. We want the people of the world to know that we hear them. We want them to know that we as a people are better than these last eight years, that our government has not represented us. Our government has been a vicious and alien thing sitting on top of us instead of a compassionate and democratic thing rising up from us. We're putting those disgraceful years behind us, and we're going to set things right. We're moving forward. We're back.

I think if my sign had said those words, the reactions would have been the same (although people would have had to spend 30 seconds reading it). I believe the general attitude that we are back is part of why the crowd was so cheerful and hopeful. News reports say there were zero arrests at the inauguration. Two million people and no arrests. I have a feeling that big things are coming and that maybe everyone is underestimating the kind of transformation that is going on in the country.