I love all my children. They are all magnificent and brilliant and talented beyond words to convey. But there is one who is a little more like me, the one who has ranted with me about politics since he was four, who has been with me since our Mother's Day at the first Million Mom March in DC years ago. When there's only one chicken wing left, he's the one who gets it.

This election has been an education for all my kids. I don't think they were aware Mom even knew all those words. But for this kid in particular, let's call him Alice, it's been a roller coaster ride. He was Bernie all the way, went door to door with me, talking to people of all stripes. We posted signs, printed information sheets, decorated the car, clinked the Bernie mugs after a hard day's work, told the rest of the family about the wild, woolly, wonderful people we'd met.

But how do you get him over the lies and violence and smears? How do you get past the election theft? He wants to storm the WH gates, as does half the family. The other half is telling us to keep our heads down and just wait for next time. Dreamers versus pragmatists? Pushers vs settlers? Pains-in-the-butt vs socialized 'normal' people? What IS normal anyway, who gets to say? What a pity we can't find a common vision instead of settling for a common limit.

So Alice plunges, big time. Wants nothing to do with any of it. Returns to all things software. I talk about the Greens and they sound nice but he thinks Jill is boring and he wants a leader to be inspirational. I can't argue with him, though I do.

Then he finds, as most of us do in our youth, the Libertarians. What a great idea -- total freedom! say the Libertarians, say the oppressed teens of the world. Ugh, say the parents, rolling their eyes .. where to begin? I watch the light go out again, an ember lit up on discovering the Libertarians won't fund the schools, but I throw cold water on that too, and see this common bond between us fade.

Yesterday I did the place up for Halloween, watching Jimmy Dore on my ipad and listening to Pink Floyd. Every damn Pink Floyd I have, over and over, on shuffle. Alice wanders in and listens for a while. 'I like this music,' he says, 'but I never listened to the words before.'

So you know what comes next. Welcome to the Machine. Another Brick in the Wall. He likes that one. Us and Them. Dogs. Pigs. Sheep. We decide who goes where. Great Gig in the Sky for dessert. And we talk about what to expect, what we're going to do.

We play air guitar to Shine On You Crazy Diamond. 'Can you believe these are 40 years old?' I ask. It's as if I'd said they came from aliens. I wish I'd had my camera.

'Are they still alive?' he asks. Thanks a lot, kid! Oh man -- I was in college when Pink Floyd albums were coming out. How awesome was that? And Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac and Foreigner and ...

'Yes,' I say, 'most of them.' And I put on Wish You Were Here and tell him about Syd Barrett and tell him not to do hard drugs and he asks me about different drugs and what they do and I tell him because I grew up when these albums came out and I know and it seems really appropriate to talk about it as Comfortably Numb permeates the air like incense and smoke, the good and the bad, the very good and the very bad. How could I have imagined, when I went to the record store those decades ago and got Dark Side of the Moon and ate pizza and brownies with my roommates as we listened to it the first twenty times, high as kites and falling in love .. who knew some day I'd be listening to it with the greatest kid in the world, telling him not to fry his brains, not to take sh!t from strangers .. and talk to me any time?

We talk about Pink Floyd's ideas and about Hillary Clinton, what she will do as president and how her presidency would affect the country. I don't reiterate my familiar concerns about our own Empress Palpatine. I don't have to. rsn is not the only place I rant.

Instead we talk about Clinton and Floyd, about the establishment, the Man, the machine -- about greed without limit, or pity or kindness .. about where individuals fit into the big picture. Welcome, my son. Welcome to the machine. What are the duties of the individual to the state, and vice versa? What are the responsibilities of a citizen, and how does one survive opposing the system?

Each kid read 1984 in 6th grade and gets a 'Question Authority' t-shirt -- which has come back to bite me more than once -- but what can you do except tell them the truth as you see it, and teach them to find their own?

The political establishment has betrayed the citizens in every way imaginable and the people, on both sides of the ideological aisle, finally rose up against it. THAT is the great good news. The people rose up. We didn't do what we were told. We voted for Sanders and Trump and we scared the hell out of TPTB and good on us. I'd been expecting it for a while on the right, but the left? Be still, my racing heart. The soundtrack back then was upbeat and loud, proud and kicking ass. It was Foo Fighters and Dandy Warhols and Ministry.

Now it's Pink Floyd and the down-but-not-out intellectual anger that will fuel me through the next few years. There are few things to be grateful for this election season but the rising up of the progressives is one of them, the identification of the true believers another. My wonderful, brilliant, magnificent sisters and brothers.

The people rose up and, astonishingly, the GOP let their's through. Man were they flat-footed! (Now THAT is one of the weaknesses of conservatives. They're not nearly as agile as the left. It takes them a few days to comprehend noncompliance and another few to react.) But the Dems were not. Flat-footed, that is. They were ready and willing, you bet. Populism? Never heard of it! Progressives? Sorry, can't hear you .. the dryer's running .. let us all you back.

And now here we all are: Donald Trump, who was mad at Obama, thought running would be a lark and will find solace if it's a moneymaker; Bernie, who doesn't care what you call him as long as he gets Citizens United repealed, breaks up the big banks, eliminates student debt .. well you know the rest; Hillary, who decided she would be president AND make the speeches AND delete the emails AND take the money AND start the wars. Here we all are, with Floyd's echoes of George Orwell floating through the air, fueling our disbelief and simultaneous lack of surprise at how it's all gone down, proof that the human mind can indeed contain two (or more) opposing thoughts, and life isn't fair and people are rotten.

But life is also beautiful and people can be magnificent and selfless and unimaginably heroic. Look at the water protectors. Look at Bernie. There are still forests to protect and a few elephants left. There are moonlit starry nights and chocolate chip cookies and sometimes there is truth. Sometimes there is justice. Sometimes there is even peace.

it's foolish to lie down in the face of corruption and crime. We cannot afford to accept it or even ignore it. We must fight, even when we're tired and disillusioned. Like rsn, John Kiriakou and Edward Snowden. Like BLM and OWS and Greeenpeace. We must stand up against tyranny .. and friends, we must be willing to open our eyes and see it, wherever it lies.

This is my advice, worth exactly as much as my opinion: Vote for whoever you want to next week. Then have a rest in November and enjoy the holidays. Love your family and your friends. Be kind to your neighbors, and good to strangers. Decompress after this horrific ordeal and pamper yourself. Get rested. Use the new year to commit to the greater cause that confronts us, our battle against the machine, the fight for peace. Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending.

And then it's back to NIN and Eminem, time to gird the ol' loins, strap on the armor and face the establishment .. hold their feet to the fire, as it were -- and I'd better see you Hillary supporters beside my beautiful son and me. You'd better be there with us, demanding peace.

Another gift from Pink Floyd -- a crisp afternoon in the autumn of my life, the soundtrack of my youth wafting across this conversation with my younger self, the disillusioned adult and the bitter kid, strategizing with the rebellious youth and the energetic activist, all of us one, all of us alive, willing and able to do battle for a worthy cause, and no cause more worthy than peace.