Going to the Polls Smelling Sweet
When I step into the voting booth tomorrow, I will be voting for Barack Obama, grateful for having the opportunity to help elect a person I have enormous respect for. For me, it will be like elevating Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King at the same time to the highest office in America. In other words, I am placing huge expectations on one man's shoulders, but, you know what, I think he can handle it.
When my boss's boss, the President of the Board of Directors, said recently, "I'm voting for Obama. I know they say he is very inexperienced, but we need a change in this country," he was stating for the record that though he'd been a Republican all of his life, enough was enough. He'd seen enough of the cronyism, corruption, and shere meanness of his Republican bretheren to know it could not go on. It was bad for him, bad for business, and certainly very bad for the country, which was (and is) an economic shambles. The only people who really are not hurting in this country are those who have gained the most by producing the least, that 1% or so who in the last 10 years have managed to garner 95% of the wealth in this nation into their own greedy hands, while urging the citizenry of the nation to cut taxes so they could continue to amass their own wealth without care or regard for the nation's remaining citizens who saw their real income shrink, their own debt baloon, and the nation as a whole rolled toward the brink of bankruptcy.
Values got turned on their heads thanks to the Republican propaganda that kept telling the working man not to worry, keep cutting taxes, and you will see the wealth trickle down to you in the form of more and more high paying jobs and better and better schools for your children. Instead, for most Americans, it became harder and harder to feed themselves and their children, harder and harder to keep a roof over their heads, harder and harder to pay for the medical care they needed. And the kids? The kids were reduced to going out on the streets begging their fellow citizens to donate to them so they could have a sports or arts program in their school system. Some people would call this a character building exercise. I call it a degrading way to treat children or their parants.
I hope Obama is elected by such an overwhelming landslide that absolutely no one will doubt the extent of his appeal, and the faith people have placed, not in him, but in his ability to handle the many messes he is going to inherit from our boy president, who, if he had any sense at all (and I do not believe he does), would have resigned from office long ago, or never run for office in the first place.
People question Obama's ability. No one seems to have looked very carefully at what he has accomplished in a very short time. He did not get where he is today all by himself, but he himself had to have some wonderful organizing skills to pull off this great upset of conventional wisdom that will soon result in his becoming the president of the United States. He had to work at it, believe in it, find the right people to help him, and then go out and accomplish all that he intended. And he did it by being himself, by not looking for the lowest means of characterizing his opponent, by walking with his head up and staying on the high road where he began his quest. He refused to lower himself, or his supporters, all citizens of this nation, into the mud and slime of Rovian puke that has for too long been the nature of Americn electoral politics. We hope that tomorrow will put an end to a practice that won a few electoral votes but all but ruined a nation.
Thank you, Obama. We appreciate the chance to go to the polls smelling sweet. May your election bring real change to this nation.
When my boss's boss, the President of the Board of Directors, said recently, "I'm voting for Obama. I know they say he is very inexperienced, but we need a change in this country," he was stating for the record that though he'd been a Republican all of his life, enough was enough. He'd seen enough of the cronyism, corruption, and shere meanness of his Republican bretheren to know it could not go on. It was bad for him, bad for business, and certainly very bad for the country, which was (and is) an economic shambles. The only people who really are not hurting in this country are those who have gained the most by producing the least, that 1% or so who in the last 10 years have managed to garner 95% of the wealth in this nation into their own greedy hands, while urging the citizenry of the nation to cut taxes so they could continue to amass their own wealth without care or regard for the nation's remaining citizens who saw their real income shrink, their own debt baloon, and the nation as a whole rolled toward the brink of bankruptcy.
Values got turned on their heads thanks to the Republican propaganda that kept telling the working man not to worry, keep cutting taxes, and you will see the wealth trickle down to you in the form of more and more high paying jobs and better and better schools for your children. Instead, for most Americans, it became harder and harder to feed themselves and their children, harder and harder to keep a roof over their heads, harder and harder to pay for the medical care they needed. And the kids? The kids were reduced to going out on the streets begging their fellow citizens to donate to them so they could have a sports or arts program in their school system. Some people would call this a character building exercise. I call it a degrading way to treat children or their parants.
I hope Obama is elected by such an overwhelming landslide that absolutely no one will doubt the extent of his appeal, and the faith people have placed, not in him, but in his ability to handle the many messes he is going to inherit from our boy president, who, if he had any sense at all (and I do not believe he does), would have resigned from office long ago, or never run for office in the first place.
People question Obama's ability. No one seems to have looked very carefully at what he has accomplished in a very short time. He did not get where he is today all by himself, but he himself had to have some wonderful organizing skills to pull off this great upset of conventional wisdom that will soon result in his becoming the president of the United States. He had to work at it, believe in it, find the right people to help him, and then go out and accomplish all that he intended. And he did it by being himself, by not looking for the lowest means of characterizing his opponent, by walking with his head up and staying on the high road where he began his quest. He refused to lower himself, or his supporters, all citizens of this nation, into the mud and slime of Rovian puke that has for too long been the nature of Americn electoral politics. We hope that tomorrow will put an end to a practice that won a few electoral votes but all but ruined a nation.
Thank you, Obama. We appreciate the chance to go to the polls smelling sweet. May your election bring real change to this nation.
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