Which pisses me off!
Due to my nature…I would have preferred a more John Edwards “take the bastards down” type of Revolution. Or a Kucinich Department of Peace Revolution. Or a French or American Revolution. (But with better hygiene standards, can you imagine what those mobs smelled like?) Of course with my cultural background….my favorite would have been a successful 1960’s type of Revolution….before the violence turned deadly.
But…at least we get a Revolution. A quiet unannounced, relative Revolution.
But a Revolution nonetheless, in comparison to the coup by the proto-fascists in 2000 that has led this country and the world down the slippery slopes of savagery. Hell just normalcy and a touch of sanity would be ….is… a Revolution. And the best part, as far as I can see looking into my little crystal ball, as we are all doing to some extent right now…is that the leader of this Revolution is saying the right things. Starting with not claiming that he is a Revolutionary leader. Starting with saying it is mostly up to us.
The person of Barack Obama is not what excites me…I am not a fanboy. The policies of Barack Obama do not excite me….they are crafted to get him elected. What excites me is what he represents….and what he will allow US to do.
There will be no dramatic changes, (I hope I am wrong, but that is what we must expect, so as not to be disappointed and give up) the main change will simply be this: We will be allowed to create change.
Think about it. For the last decade, we have had to fight tooth and nail to just preserve democracy and some sort of moral standard. Against massive resistance, against the derogation of ourselves and everything we hold dear, against the forces of a type of dark thought that would have dragged us back to the dark ages. That is now over.
Not all the way over by any means…but over as the overriding gestalt of our society.
They don’t know it yet…hell WE don’t know it yet! But their time is through, they have lost. They have lost the culture war and they have lost the political war. In November we will cut off their metaphorical head. The body will flop around for a while and the mouth will still emit their pusillanimous bleating for some time….but that doesn’t matter now. The opening has appeared, it is now up to us to pass through. And if WE want it to be a true Revolution, to bring as many folks with us as we can, as we pass through that opening. Both to keep it open …..and to widen it for the future.
The revolution is here….not the one our anger and outrage would have chosen…but one that has a real chance of succeeding in stopping the damage, of allowing us to regroup, and allowing us to start to make the changes needed to turn this world around. I had never thought of the mere act of a pendulum stopping its swing and starting to change direction as a Revolution before.
Today I do.
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Any excuse for a party…right?
I was sort of hoping for something Sartrean.
There have been people all along who have worked hard to preserve what is good in our culture. I hope that they begin to get some recognition.
Because I think those folks are the ones who will “bring as many folks with” them as they can.
I watched the videos in NL’s essay on the media conference. Activists have never stopped fighting the good fight. They have done this with no significant press coverage, with people deriding them at every turn, and even supposedly “progressive” bloggers refusing to support them.
As a blogger, those are the people I will honor, always. I hope all of us will remember that there have been many who have walked alone to do the right thing. It’ll keep us humble! Heh.
returns this nation to the rule of law and staves off a major depression. And gets us out of Iraq (which will help with points one and two). Our wish list beyond that can wait; because without those two things, we are doomed.
are the things we take for granted.
A bug that flies by. A chipmunk that scurries. The air we breathe. The fact our planet sustains intelligent and other life.
My take: Obama gets this. And gets political reality.
If Obama is on our side and is going to do his job, we have to do ours.
If we are going to be allowed to make change, let’s make it.
But I am feeling excluded. No handsome men passing out revolutionary beverages to us ladies????
i can be quite dramatic when i want to.
humrph.
great insight Budhy; well said.
poetry????
i’d’ve thought hope
I feel like a consensus can be achieved here.
the idea was to create change in spite of (and to hell with) anyone who thought they had the power to “allow” it.
I’ve heard the odd person in my life say I have a problem with “authority”. To them I reply “I have no problem with authority… here’s how it’s going to be… so lead, follow, or get the hell out of my way”.