A Day Like No Other!
Well, here it is at last, finally -- A DAY LIKE NO OTHER! -- in my lifetime, and I was around during the Great Depression and Pearl Harbor, as well as during thousands of other indignities imposed on the human spirit.
I am writing this early in the morning of Tuesday, November 6, of the year 2012, and it is incredible that in just a few more hours many millions of people throughout these United States of Ours will learn -- ALL AT THE SAME MOMENT!, thanks to the wonders of modern communication -- whether their intense labors of the past couple of years in a political cause all went for naught, or whether their efforts prevailed. And a great deal more millions who stood by or sat pat and watched while their votes were so urgently being sought, will learn how what they took to be just a big horse race came out.
In just hours all Americans, along with the rest of the world -- which is holding its breath, and with good reason -- will learn how things will go with the United States, especially in the next four years but also for much longer. Will the American voters choose to let the Republicans resume their drive to push the country deeper into the religio-fascism favored by past administrations and Congresses put into place by their party and that has already been painfully sloshing around the soles and heels of the country's feet for a good little while? Or will the country gain a four-year respite and hopefully even a start of a reversal of that push, by choosing Democrats all the way down the line, or at least most of the way, headed by allowing B. Obama to serve a second term?
Or, on the third hand, will the results today end up temporarily hung up on the shenanigans of that same rogue party, the Republicans, to steal what they know they can't get legitimately, simply because their stands on every single issue are born solely out of ignorance and evil intentions instead of out of the charitable and sensible points of view held by the Democrats? If so, the true results, centered around just a few states or just one, with the main possibility being Ohio but also including other so-called "swing" states like Florida and Virginia, may not be known for several weeks, which will give the Republicans time to wheel up the many conservative judges so as to render the kind of verdicts that resulted in the so-called "winner" 12 years ago, and we know how that all came out. Not good. Not good at all. In fact disastrous for all except for racists, rapists, war criminals, and those big money holders of the insidious and impenetrable side bets with names like "credit default swaps," whose implications are still not well understood by the great majority of people today.
But perhaps there have been enough people of good will and a sense of decency among Americans of all hues to go for Obama regardless of his several, hard to understand miscues every once in a while, and to vote for him in such numbers as to avoid all such skullduggery. My wife, who has worked hard knocking on people's doors and doing all that kind of stuff, thinks there is no doubt whatsoever that that will happen, and I can't see how there can be any other choice, short of a scene dominated by insanity and criminality.
One thing is certain. Not in my lifetime of over eight decades has so much been at stake on a single election day.
I am writing this early in the morning of Tuesday, November 6, of the year 2012, and it is incredible that in just a few more hours many millions of people throughout these United States of Ours will learn -- ALL AT THE SAME MOMENT!, thanks to the wonders of modern communication -- whether their intense labors of the past couple of years in a political cause all went for naught, or whether their efforts prevailed. And a great deal more millions who stood by or sat pat and watched while their votes were so urgently being sought, will learn how what they took to be just a big horse race came out.
In just hours all Americans, along with the rest of the world -- which is holding its breath, and with good reason -- will learn how things will go with the United States, especially in the next four years but also for much longer. Will the American voters choose to let the Republicans resume their drive to push the country deeper into the religio-fascism favored by past administrations and Congresses put into place by their party and that has already been painfully sloshing around the soles and heels of the country's feet for a good little while? Or will the country gain a four-year respite and hopefully even a start of a reversal of that push, by choosing Democrats all the way down the line, or at least most of the way, headed by allowing B. Obama to serve a second term?
Or, on the third hand, will the results today end up temporarily hung up on the shenanigans of that same rogue party, the Republicans, to steal what they know they can't get legitimately, simply because their stands on every single issue are born solely out of ignorance and evil intentions instead of out of the charitable and sensible points of view held by the Democrats? If so, the true results, centered around just a few states or just one, with the main possibility being Ohio but also including other so-called "swing" states like Florida and Virginia, may not be known for several weeks, which will give the Republicans time to wheel up the many conservative judges so as to render the kind of verdicts that resulted in the so-called "winner" 12 years ago, and we know how that all came out. Not good. Not good at all. In fact disastrous for all except for racists, rapists, war criminals, and those big money holders of the insidious and impenetrable side bets with names like "credit default swaps," whose implications are still not well understood by the great majority of people today.
But perhaps there have been enough people of good will and a sense of decency among Americans of all hues to go for Obama regardless of his several, hard to understand miscues every once in a while, and to vote for him in such numbers as to avoid all such skullduggery. My wife, who has worked hard knocking on people's doors and doing all that kind of stuff, thinks there is no doubt whatsoever that that will happen, and I can't see how there can be any other choice, short of a scene dominated by insanity and criminality.
One thing is certain. Not in my lifetime of over eight decades has so much been at stake on a single election day.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 9:03 AM
3 Comments:
Obama won by a whisker, which only accents the increasing polarity and chasm widening in the country. I truly don't expect any major changes in the next four years. Obama, like Clinton lacks the stuff of greatness required of times like these.
karmanot, I tend to disagree. Obama is a bright fellow and a capable politician, and I think that during his first term he may have learned some lessons about how to confront the GOP. As someone pointed out earlier, even FDR wasn't FDR until he was forced by public opinion into taking right action.
OTOH, Carl, there are policy aspects on which I simply cannot agree with Mr. Obama: punishment of whistle-blowers, targeted assassinations of American citizens overseas, a measure of hawkishness leading him to resort too readily to the military, and a willingness to compromise any part of the social safety net in the interest of "reducing the deficit." (The deficit is not caused by Social Security, which is at present solvent and can be kept that way by modest revenue increases, which I believe in his second term will be available with appropriate leverage he need not hesitate to use now; Medicare and Medicaid... harder nuts to crack, but they can be fixed without destroying their much-needed functionality. And, of course, jobs, jobs, jobs...) I plan to work on the good gentleman regularly in letters, petitions etc., in hopes that he can be brought to see not only reason but also compassion in these matters: unlike Romney, Obama at least has that element in his personality.
Oh, and BTW... Obama won by a solid majority both popular and electoral. A majority big enough that the eventual Florida result does not matter is far more than winning "by a whisker."
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