The Last Eight, the Next Four (and More)

Hello! I am back from Belgium. That, for now, is all I will say. At other times, I would've been happy to get all that news out to you, but first, we have to take a moment to recognize what only those of you who live in deep caves or remote Arctic weather stations have not yet known.

OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!! OBAMA!!!

Was this election a foregone conclusion? No. I was damn scared. But now I will sleep eas(ier) knowing he did it. I don't think John McCain wouldn't have been a bad President - it is hard to be worse than the Thief-in-Chief we have now - but Obama I think will be a GREAT president. He's wicked smart, charismatic, cool as cool gets, and a man of a mold that only occurs rarely in a generation in the WORLD. The French have never had a man like Obama, and honestly I don't think they will any time soon. The British? Naw. The Chinese? How many Americans can name the President of China (trick question)? The Japanese? Indians? Russians? Israelis? South Afric... okay, Mandela. In any case, today the United States gets to put itself back up on that pedestal, not out of arrogance, but because we just accomplished something rather spectacular.

I liken our situation (because it is all of ours, together) to oh, I dunno, climbing a staircase? That's easy to picture. I think the Bush years were us trying to find what room the staircase is in. We got lost all around this floor of the New Millennium, going from door to door, occasionally bombing what was inside, or calling the occupants unpatriotic, terrorists, etc. etc. Last night, we finally opened the right door, thanks to the man who helped show us the way. But that's all he did. If Obama dies tomorrow (Gods forbid), we will still have the United States. There would be much sadness, and much anger, but ultimately, we're never going back. Luckily, Obama is still alive and due to become President in a couple of months.

We are, at this moment and in my opinion, screwed. We were screwed in 1974 when the first oil shock came about, and again in 1980 when Reagan took over. Things got better in the 1990s after the end of the Cold War, and also because I was more, you know, born, during this period than during the aforementioned decades. 9/11 was I think the moment when, while we were looking for that staircase we have to climb now, all the lights on the floor went out. And then someone in the panic shot someone, another guy started a fire, there was hysteria and fear, and really that never went away. Now though, the lights are back on, and I think the US is feeling better. Do you feel better? I feel better.

So what to do about climbing this staircase? Well, it's not a damn escalator, and as miraculous as Obama may seem, he hasn't walked on water, healed the sick or made bread fall from the sky. He can't carry us to the top, and you'd be silly to expect him to. I'd have trouble carrying more than one person, and I imagine three hundred million would wreck hell on his back - or anyones. We're badly in debt, we got these wars going on to deal with, we've got healthcare, welfare, social security and immigration to tackle from the last eight years, and while we're loading up for the hike, we might as well tackle race relations, the plight of the urban poor, segregation, education, the national infrastructure, the plight of the rural poor, our relations with the Native Americans, gay rights, womens rights, the rights of the disabled, the rights of the elderly, the rights of the young - especially the cost of college - and on and on. This is to say nothing of the mule-team-worthy problem of foreign relations. Will we, sometime in the next few years, be able to legally board an airplane to Cuba? Will we actually ask the Iranians what life is like there, instead of assuming they hate us? Will North Korea become a little less foreign? Will Russia seem less scary? Will Europe seem less dry and dreary? Will Africa seem less hopeless? Will South America seem less leftist?

We are the oldest continuing democracy in the world (Iceland and Britain don't count), and every year we get better at what we do, not worse. We were born in revolution, survived political upheaval, civil war, built a world-class economy, welcomed millions of immigrants, won two world wars, and stood as a hope for democracy and freedom when it seemed lost in other parts of the world. We also massacred our indigenous people, upheld slavery and afterwards upheld segregation, we were often reluctant to change the status quo, and we still are, we built fast and furiously and often without consideration of the land we were scarring, and we danced with imperialism that in many ways is still manifest today. We are not a perfect country by any stretch of the imagination. We are not Camelot, we are not Jerusalem, we are not Shangri-la. What we are is the United States.

So sisters and mothers, something and brothers, let us... promise of living... Bernstein... tender... never mind. I don't think anything will change unless we help it to change. No matter who you voted for, and no matter who won where, we are all the people of the United States, and it is up to and in all of us to change the country and our lives for the better. "Yes, we can" was the promise, so let us deliver "Yes, we did". Love you all,