And I want to share this, from my neighbor Ruth's blog, The Brewer's Wife (it's getting spread around, Ruth--I just saw it on another blog I read!). It was written by a friend of a friend of hers, I believe:
"I've been meaning to ask, just haven't gotten around to it, plus I'm worried that the question is premature. But you know, I think I'm finally at the point where I believe it will happen. Now there's less than a month to go. Now it's just a matter of days. Days until America does something which, I'll be honest, I would have bet America would never do. At least not any time soon. Just days until in one swift moment, the entire world will do a double-take. Days until Americans of all stripes will come together to reaffirm America'spromise to its own people. Days until MLK's dream, and the dreams of all people who love this country's founding PRINCIPLES more than life itself, finally come true. I want to know: Where's the party? On the evening of November 4th, when this moment is finally announced, where do I go to celebrate? Where can I be to experience this historical moment with my brothers and sisters in humanity, with those who truly understand what it may mean for us all? I'm not going to be at some Democratic party balloon fest. I am not going to be at a bar. I am not going to be in a gym. I am going to be at home, watching the TV with the volume turned down so I don't wake my kids. And when the time comes, when the moment is announced, I will walk out my front door into the street, and I will look up at the sky and shed tears of joy. That'll be my victory party. To look up at the stars and hope that this means a better future for my little ones. If I'm lucky, some of you reading this will come outside right then too, and maybe we can smile at each other in silence. Either way, when you finally hear it announced, on the evening of November 4th, that Americans came together and took their country back, and you're sitting at home celebrating the moment quietly alone or as a family, spare a second would you and join me out in the street, and look up at the sky and feel the smiles, hopes and joy of millions of people like you and me reflecting down from the stars."
We'll be attending an "end of an error" election party with some friends tonight. And maybe we should all go outside tonight and thank the lucky stars!
No, I don't think Barack Obama is going to save us because I think we as a people need to do that ourselves. But I do think he is the one who can inspire and lead us to take the necessary steps. For sure today, when I cast my vote for the first black man in America who has ever been even close to being our President, I did a silent cheer for the positive direction that possibility has already brought to our country. It's time to MOVE FORWARD, AMERICA. In more ways than one.
Comments
But today, I checked. And I was stunned.
I had thought, maybe, but when you actually SEE it happen.
I'm too cynical - a politician is a politician - to think this will be the dream that so Americans hope for. But you know, I'm an optimist, and I have to believe for the rest of the globe, that at the very least, it will be a change for the better.
As you say, you must rescue yourselves, but perhaps for thousands of Americans, just having Obama in is motivation. When we believe things will be better, we often act as if this were a truism. And in doing so, we make it better anyways.
Well, said! I feel pretty much the same way!