Congratulations America; this seems like the first baby-step towards a more tolerant future. I’m proud for the first time in a long while, because not only was the majority of the popular vote firmly entrenched in the Obama camp, but so was that antiquated spectre of anti-democracy; the Electorate College. We now have the majority of Republicans out of office, where they definitely deserve to be.
I don’t want to get sentimental, because in the end our government is still fatally flawed no matter who is in office really, so while this election comes as a pleasant surprise, it still represents a bitter-sweet victory to me. Also, my overwhelming urge to be cynical and paranoid leaves me thinking this was all allowed by the GOP; leave the largest political cluster-fuck in decades behind for the first Democratic president who happens to be black. He’ll have constant, complex struggles inherently present at all times while trying to clean things up, he is left holding such a disaster that it seems almost impossible and futile for him to accomplish much of anything. So when he does, inevitably, fail at “fixing” some things, the republicans will point and blame and say “we told you so, democrats don’t work, etc” and sadly, people will probably buy it, hook line and sinker. They’ll believe it is because he’s a Democrat, because he’s a minority.
But maybe not, perhaps I’m just being overly dramatic and fatalistic. The nightmare still hasn’t come to a close, and I’m still nervous. The Bush administration is in the process of committing their final mad-dash to grab and pervert as much as they can before their criminal asses are thrown out for at least the next four years. I sincerely hope that Barack Obama does decide to pursue legal action against them and take them to high court for their crimes, which deliriously range everywhere from grand larceny to genocide. They deserve to hang for their crimes against humanity and I for one will be watching closely, hoping and praying that a small glimmer of justice does appear out of the seemingly corrupt and unjust contemporary delirium we all find ourselves trudging through.
I’m also not ready to celebrate yet, because while it does stand a a great step that we’ve voted a minority into office, we’ve also managed to vote that homosexuals should not be allowed the same equal rights that heterosexuals are granted(California, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, etc.). Not only that but our ‘liberal’, minority president is still basically against gay marriage as well. It is sad that we still consider someone’s sexuality to trump their humanity and important enough to dictate their basic civil rights. This is despicable and sad to me, yet it seems the majority of Americans are not ready to let go, or at the very least, loosen their grip on of all their bigotries yet.
So I’m proud, happy and somewhat (perhaps naively) hopeful, yet still reticent to truly celebrate anything at this point. There is still much wrong and much to do in order to make this a country worthy of its original ideals.
Let’s just hope Palin doesn’t run in 2012… or maybe that’d be good for a laugh, who knows.
