Counting down the days...
Well, I'm fairly settled into my new home in chilly, rainy Seattle (well, Greater Seattle, anyway -- I'm in the 'burbs and that's the biggest adjustment for this city boy); very glad to be with my beautiful girlz but missing my friends back home.
Saw bits of Bush's 'farewell address' that I prefer to call the 'good riddance asshole obstinately clueless concession speech'. Didn't bother seeing the whole thing, as I'm so sick of looking at that bastard's smirking face that I really don't ever want to see it again unless it's blinking beady-eyed at a war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
Lest I sound as disgusted as I've been for a long time now, make no mistake -- I'm celebrating. Less than three more days and the Neocon Reign of Terror will be OVER. Yes, they leave behind smoldering wreckage from which we can only hope in desperation to slowly recover, if we somehow manage to dig out of the deep multifaceted crater that 8 years of unbridled destruction have wrought upon the world at large and our place in it. Not to mention the tattered economy, the blame for which can easily be spread around in a fairly bipartisan manner, but nobody can convince me that a gazillion-dollar war and rampant robber-baronism didn't break the proverbial camel's back -- the direct cause-and-effect of which can be laid squarely at the feet of the BushCheney Korporate brownshirts.
But enough negativity (did you ever think you'd hear that from the likes of moi?); Tuesday is Morning in America (to steal one of the few good lines from that overwrought and mistakenly idolized bastard Reagan). Oops -- guess that was still a little negative. Sorry. Anyway, Obama's historic transition is underway and I feel like I've waited a thousand years in the tenth circle of Hell for this moment; the man is a year older than me and ten times the man I will ever be -- which is what I look for in a leader, as opposed to the morons who want a president they'd have a beer with (and they got one, didn't they? Worked out well, didn't it?). Am I one of the Disciples? The 'Obamabots' so derisively labeled by desperate right-wing fascists as the hour of their demise approached? Nobody who knows me would say so. I'm a born skeptic, cynical to the core, and I know that any politician who could actually make it to office in our corrupt system is bound to break my heart by definition.
Still, after 8 years of being revolted and ashamed of being an American; of waking every day expecting more of the same evil bullshit and media complicity in the worst and most devastating Ponzi scheme this once-great nation had ever seen, I am for the moment basking in the promise of the new; the possibilities of some sort of homecoming. It's been a long time; exiled in my own country by a so-called 'uniter' who thought 51% constituted a mandate, even assuming he'd won it fair and square (which he didn't). Exiled by an absurd winner-take-all system that marginalizes half the country as 'outsiders' and has devolved to permit tyrannical authority never granted in the Founding Documents.
For the first time in many years (many more than 8), we have a gifted orator and statesman who has won the admiration and respect of much of the world before even taking office. An educated writer with a story that is international in scope and understanding yet uniquely American in its poignancy and staggering success against considerable odds. A man who believes in Science, logic, pragmatism and diplomacy; who doesn't dismiss or oversimplify the complex geopolitical realities that will take more than the sublimely short-sighted and morally bankrupt brute force we've been using in vain to address.
In short: for the first time in a long time, we have a President.
Mister Obama -- soon to be President Obama -- I salute you, sir. No one man may be capable of carrying the burdens you inherit, and I don't expect you to be faster than a speeding bullet or able to leap tall bureaucracies in a single bound. You will no doubt have to compromise a thousand times to get things done, even if those things are but a symbolic shadow of what you intended. I know how politics works. But if you are half the leader you seemed when I voted for you, you will still be ten times the leader your predecessor could even aspire to be. And despite my long-ago abandoned belief in the system; despite my waning belief in even the possibility of solving the massive crises that have enveloped the world -- despite all my cynicism and disbelief in general, Sir, I believe in you.
* * *
Saw bits of Bush's 'farewell address' that I prefer to call the 'good riddance asshole obstinately clueless concession speech'. Didn't bother seeing the whole thing, as I'm so sick of looking at that bastard's smirking face that I really don't ever want to see it again unless it's blinking beady-eyed at a war crimes tribunal at The Hague.
Lest I sound as disgusted as I've been for a long time now, make no mistake -- I'm celebrating. Less than three more days and the Neocon Reign of Terror will be OVER. Yes, they leave behind smoldering wreckage from which we can only hope in desperation to slowly recover, if we somehow manage to dig out of the deep multifaceted crater that 8 years of unbridled destruction have wrought upon the world at large and our place in it. Not to mention the tattered economy, the blame for which can easily be spread around in a fairly bipartisan manner, but nobody can convince me that a gazillion-dollar war and rampant robber-baronism didn't break the proverbial camel's back -- the direct cause-and-effect of which can be laid squarely at the feet of the BushCheney Korporate brownshirts.
But enough negativity (did you ever think you'd hear that from the likes of moi?); Tuesday is Morning in America (to steal one of the few good lines from that overwrought and mistakenly idolized bastard Reagan). Oops -- guess that was still a little negative. Sorry. Anyway, Obama's historic transition is underway and I feel like I've waited a thousand years in the tenth circle of Hell for this moment; the man is a year older than me and ten times the man I will ever be -- which is what I look for in a leader, as opposed to the morons who want a president they'd have a beer with (and they got one, didn't they? Worked out well, didn't it?). Am I one of the Disciples? The 'Obamabots' so derisively labeled by desperate right-wing fascists as the hour of their demise approached? Nobody who knows me would say so. I'm a born skeptic, cynical to the core, and I know that any politician who could actually make it to office in our corrupt system is bound to break my heart by definition.
Still, after 8 years of being revolted and ashamed of being an American; of waking every day expecting more of the same evil bullshit and media complicity in the worst and most devastating Ponzi scheme this once-great nation had ever seen, I am for the moment basking in the promise of the new; the possibilities of some sort of homecoming. It's been a long time; exiled in my own country by a so-called 'uniter' who thought 51% constituted a mandate, even assuming he'd won it fair and square (which he didn't). Exiled by an absurd winner-take-all system that marginalizes half the country as 'outsiders' and has devolved to permit tyrannical authority never granted in the Founding Documents.
For the first time in many years (many more than 8), we have a gifted orator and statesman who has won the admiration and respect of much of the world before even taking office. An educated writer with a story that is international in scope and understanding yet uniquely American in its poignancy and staggering success against considerable odds. A man who believes in Science, logic, pragmatism and diplomacy; who doesn't dismiss or oversimplify the complex geopolitical realities that will take more than the sublimely short-sighted and morally bankrupt brute force we've been using in vain to address.
In short: for the first time in a long time, we have a President.
Mister Obama -- soon to be President Obama -- I salute you, sir. No one man may be capable of carrying the burdens you inherit, and I don't expect you to be faster than a speeding bullet or able to leap tall bureaucracies in a single bound. You will no doubt have to compromise a thousand times to get things done, even if those things are but a symbolic shadow of what you intended. I know how politics works. But if you are half the leader you seemed when I voted for you, you will still be ten times the leader your predecessor could even aspire to be. And despite my long-ago abandoned belief in the system; despite my waning belief in even the possibility of solving the massive crises that have enveloped the world -- despite all my cynicism and disbelief in general, Sir, I believe in you.
* * *
posted by brioSphere at 3:19 PM
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