The Birth of Hope

Last night Americans were witness to history. Last night I got to witness history, a history I believed would not happen in my lifetime. Last night my pride in the United States and in my fellow Americans soared as high as when I was a child and got goose bumps singing patriotic songs.

And John McCain. Have you heard him speak the past two days? This is the John McCain that I loved. Where has he been? This is the John McCain who betrayed me. This is the John McCain that could have been elected if he had not relied on the xenophobic forces of the Religious Right. Who could have been elected had he not chosen an ignorant, mean spirited prom queen for his running mate. Who could have been elected had he not pitched himself into the sewer of the excrement of fear and prejudice peddled by the Right. George Bush, Sarah Palin, and the Carl Rove mentality lost the race for McCain. His own greed for being willing to do or say anything to win—and maybe a certain amount of dementia—lost the race for John McCain. Had John McCain switched parties in 2004 he might have won based on the same ideals as Barak Obama. John, I’m sorry you lost your way.

Republican Party, do you hear the ringing? This is your wakeup call. Americans are tired of your culture of fear and exclusion. You never did find Obama’s Willie Horton did you? God knows you tried. And all the time Barak Obama presided over a beautiful campaign in the midst of fear mongering and prejudice, you betcha.

Last night hope was born that the nightmare of the past eight years is coming to an end. To be sure, we still face challenges. Barak Obama is inheriting a nation at war. A financially and democratically bankrupt nation. The road he faces is littered with the shreds of our rights and foreign policy and with the pot holes of the breakdown of the American economy at the hands of greedy financial institutions.

The gulf between rich and poor Americans is wider than ever before as the entrenched old guard has increased their wealth and power on the backs of the middle class. Yesterday Americans stood up and said “no more.” Fear and hatred were trampled by inclusion and Democracy last night.

Is Barak Obama going to ride in on a white horse and slay the dragon of hate and fear that has been the pet of those fanatical right winged interest groups entrenched in the joke of American foreign and domestic policy? No. He has won the trust of the overwhelming majority of Americans and he will have to prove his worthiness of our trust. And we must prove ourselves worthy of his trust in us.

The road to repairing our economy, our constitution, and our standing in the world will be long and it will take our coming together as a people, working together, to keep the ideals of our founding fathers alive for our grandchildren. The work of repairing our economy and environment will be hard. Freeing ourselves from the bonds of the tyranny of oil that bind us to those who hate us, will take creativity and paradigm shifts, but we are a nation of will who can come together and lift each other and the country up to be that gleaming city on a hill.

The fight will be difficult to convince the world that we are what we believe ourselves to be, the land of the free and the home of the brave where we are not ruled by the tyranny of the few, but where the “we the people” have the power, but we’ve taken the first step in repairing America’s standing in the world of nations. A nation of Democracy loving individuals where the citizens are united in the belief that we can achieve a culture that embraces all human beings regardless of their color, their religion, or their gender. Once again Lady Liberty will lift the lamp beside the golden door.