A wonderful speech from Barack Obama's 06 Senatorial race on religion in America.
Full text at : http://obama.senate.gov/speech/060628-call_to_renewal/
It's so wonderful to hear a politician speaking about religious faith in terms that are unifying rather than divisive. Much of the Us vs. Them garbage spouted by Moral Majority shills this past decade has done nothing but divide America in a way that is completely unnecessary, and solely done in an effort to fracture the electorate for selfish gain. It's nice to think that maybe Americans finally saw through the trick this time. And I'd like to tip my hat to John McCain for not trotting out that tired old pony in this past election. Say what you will about him. He at least had enough honor not to sully the most precious beliefs of those he would lead so as to enrage them into voting for him. If there ever was a man who deserved to almost be president, that point of honor qualifies John McCain. I cannot say as much for his Republican brethren.
Fortunately, the sun has very nearly set on that obscene political strategy. Jerry Falwell is, thankfully, dead and it looks as though he has taken the real teeth of the Moral Majority with him. Bush's Neocronyism is fast fading from this earth, along with the careers of his fellow gang members. Reagan's voodoo economics are whirling down the drain, along with our floundering economy. The Preemptive Doctrine has been revealed as the hopeless rantings of a deranged paranoid lunatic in the blood soaked sands of that quagmire that is Iraq.
I believe President-Elect Obama. Change is coming. Like it or not, change is coming. And it has precious little to do with the election of a new president or senate. Change is coming because the ideology that we've operated under for the past three decades has been utterly discredited, and good riddance. The work of repairing our nation will be arduous and largely thankless, but in rebuilding this country I hope we never forget the lessons of our own history. A house divided against itself cannot stand. We have nothing to gain by demonizing our own people beyond poverty, war, hatred, and paranoia. We are better than that. We must be.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
My Hope. My Fear. The day before the election.
It's the day before Election Day, and I am filled with hope for my country. I am, and have always been, a staunch liberal. The odds are good that my party of choice, The Democrats, will do quite well tomorrow. The odds are better than even that my party of choice will also inhabit the White House. One would think I would be ecstatic at this long-awaited opporunity. I am happy about this election, but I have my doubts.
My first doubt is whether Obama will actually win. No matter what the polling says, I still have a hard time believing that he might actually win. It's simply too unlikely. This is a pro-choice, pro Social Medicine, black man with a funny name and a Muslim father. His middle name's Hussein, for crying out loud! I simply can't believe that we might elect this guy, even though I know we need to. Call this my pessimism of the public in general. I hope to be wrong.
My second doubt is whether our political system will allow even a huge majority of Democratic seats and a Democratic presidency to accomplish anything at all. I feel as though our government has been hobbled by free-market right-wingers and well-heeled moneyed interests for the last 3-4 decades, and I'm not sure it's up to the task of repairing itself that quickly. The last 3 Republican administrations have left this country looted to the tune of 10 TRILLION dollars. Can there be any room in any budget to do anything but try to repair this damage? I hope to be wrong here as well.
My third and final doubt is whether Obama is the man he appears to be. I will break an unspoken liberal rule, and criticize Clinton about this. I think Bill Clinton was a far better politician than he was a Democrat or a president. We liberals aren't really allowed to talk bad about Clinton in public, just like conservatives aren't allowed to trash Reagan in public. That said, Bill Clinton helped gut the US Welfare system, signed off on NAFTA, and was working on privatizing Social Security before he spooged on that lady's dress (Thank God for premature ejaculation). He was (apparently) anti-Union, involved us in several foreign wars, and slept at the wheel on the widening gap between The Rich and Everybody Else. In short, he was a TERRIBLE Democrat! I fear a similar occurrence with Obama. I have no good reasons for this, but it is a pessimism with politics in general.
I think this lack of hope in the foundation of our democracy is a symptom of the slow dismantling of what made our country great. If everyone on television is screaming that "Government IS the problem" then you start to wonder if they're right. This demonizing of government is so puzzling in a country such as this one, because it is outside the very nature of our culture. We have no system of hereditary rule (excepting our sitting Moron in Chief). We have no system of iron-clad castes. We have no system of intractable aristocracy, or even slavery anymore. We ARE the government. So, if "Government is the problem" then by extension, WE are the problem. Shills and salesmen told us that taxes were unjust, and we bought it. They told us that income inequality was irrelevant, and we bought it. They told us that providing a safety net simply encourages laziness, and we bought it. And by they, I mean us. These slimebags go to our schools and churches. They used to shop at our grocery stores before they got too rich to need to. They used to work with us before we bought their faux-philosophy of "Rules are Bad (unless you're poor)."
It has been a point of unrelenting irony and pain for me that our country was founded by a bunch of Liberal, Elitist, Atheistic, Epicurean, Academics of moderate wealth. And now Americans in general HATE those people! Our founders were intellectuals to a man, and now we (self-included) have trouble trusting Barack Obama because he's the same kind of man. What have we done to our America? That we would even consider giving the reigns of our nation to an ignorant hawk like McCain and his more ignorant wing-nut of a VP pick Palin is tragicomedy at it's most absurd. And so, I will vote for Barack Obama tomorrow. And I will hope that he does right by all of us. And I will hope that the new Democratic congressmen and representatives will do the same. It might be a fool's hope. But I hope to be wrong.
My first doubt is whether Obama will actually win. No matter what the polling says, I still have a hard time believing that he might actually win. It's simply too unlikely. This is a pro-choice, pro Social Medicine, black man with a funny name and a Muslim father. His middle name's Hussein, for crying out loud! I simply can't believe that we might elect this guy, even though I know we need to. Call this my pessimism of the public in general. I hope to be wrong.
My second doubt is whether our political system will allow even a huge majority of Democratic seats and a Democratic presidency to accomplish anything at all. I feel as though our government has been hobbled by free-market right-wingers and well-heeled moneyed interests for the last 3-4 decades, and I'm not sure it's up to the task of repairing itself that quickly. The last 3 Republican administrations have left this country looted to the tune of 10 TRILLION dollars. Can there be any room in any budget to do anything but try to repair this damage? I hope to be wrong here as well.
My third and final doubt is whether Obama is the man he appears to be. I will break an unspoken liberal rule, and criticize Clinton about this. I think Bill Clinton was a far better politician than he was a Democrat or a president. We liberals aren't really allowed to talk bad about Clinton in public, just like conservatives aren't allowed to trash Reagan in public. That said, Bill Clinton helped gut the US Welfare system, signed off on NAFTA, and was working on privatizing Social Security before he spooged on that lady's dress (Thank God for premature ejaculation). He was (apparently) anti-Union, involved us in several foreign wars, and slept at the wheel on the widening gap between The Rich and Everybody Else. In short, he was a TERRIBLE Democrat! I fear a similar occurrence with Obama. I have no good reasons for this, but it is a pessimism with politics in general.
I think this lack of hope in the foundation of our democracy is a symptom of the slow dismantling of what made our country great. If everyone on television is screaming that "Government IS the problem" then you start to wonder if they're right. This demonizing of government is so puzzling in a country such as this one, because it is outside the very nature of our culture. We have no system of hereditary rule (excepting our sitting Moron in Chief). We have no system of iron-clad castes. We have no system of intractable aristocracy, or even slavery anymore. We ARE the government. So, if "Government is the problem" then by extension, WE are the problem. Shills and salesmen told us that taxes were unjust, and we bought it. They told us that income inequality was irrelevant, and we bought it. They told us that providing a safety net simply encourages laziness, and we bought it. And by they, I mean us. These slimebags go to our schools and churches. They used to shop at our grocery stores before they got too rich to need to. They used to work with us before we bought their faux-philosophy of "Rules are Bad (unless you're poor)."
It has been a point of unrelenting irony and pain for me that our country was founded by a bunch of Liberal, Elitist, Atheistic, Epicurean, Academics of moderate wealth. And now Americans in general HATE those people! Our founders were intellectuals to a man, and now we (self-included) have trouble trusting Barack Obama because he's the same kind of man. What have we done to our America? That we would even consider giving the reigns of our nation to an ignorant hawk like McCain and his more ignorant wing-nut of a VP pick Palin is tragicomedy at it's most absurd. And so, I will vote for Barack Obama tomorrow. And I will hope that he does right by all of us. And I will hope that the new Democratic congressmen and representatives will do the same. It might be a fool's hope. But I hope to be wrong.
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