Archive for November, 2008
A victory for hope
Yesterday, we the people of the United States, in order to choose a better future, elected an amazing fellow citizen to be the executive and leader of our great nation. We chose his message of hope and change.
We made history.
It is this choice that will alter our current disastrous course. This choice made the difference among growth, success and expanded possibility, and a future where we continue our downward spiral, a future that was full of despair and depression, large and small.
It’s very hard to pull back from my instinctive faith in the good that President-elect Barack Obama will bring. I have been a supporter of Obama since the beginning of his campaign, so I’m a totally biased source. But I know, like you know, that Obama doesn’t have a magic wand. His presence will not automatically fix any of the problems we’re currently mired in: the economy in recession, if not depression, the collection of foreign wars and anti-American sentiment worldwide, the lack of education, health care and jobs…the lack — so impossible to explain in a country that’s known for its excess and plenty — of ability of everyday citizens to supply even their basic needs.
It seems so abstract on paper, but it’s beyond what we can handle. One of the reasons Sen. John McCain’s message about “the fundamentals of our economy are strong” didn’t hit home is because those fundamentals — roughly translated as the willingness and abilities of American workers — are not the point. Of course Americans are willing to work. Most of us work a ridiculous amount, much more than the “socialized” countries we hold in such contempt. I have three part-time jobs, including this one, and I’m going to school full time. I’m at work or at school 90 hours a week. And I’m far from the only person with this type of story; most people are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet.
But even though we work harder and longer, we get less. We can’t pay our medical bills, rent or credit card payments. We can’t afford the gas it takes to get to work and school, the gas that is a basic necessity for transportation. We can’t afford food that’s healthy or medication to treat small conditions before they blow up into emergencies.
This is the situation that Obama has been thrust into, the situation he has promised us he will fix. Let’s be realistic: He won’t. Not all of it. There’s no way that he can make all these problems go away for all the citizens of this massive country.
But he’s the only candidate that made me think this is something we can work past. A mountain we have to climb instead of an endless canyon we’ve fallen into.
The next four years — heck, the next few decades — will be hard, no doubt about it. It took us more than a decade to recover from the Great Depression, and the only reason we managed to make it right was a war economy. We must remember we can’t buy ourselves out of economic crises. We must remember how sick we are of war. We’re going to have to skimp, save and go without. We’re going to have to remember how to deal with unpleasant circumstances.
Obama is the candidate that makes me think my sacrifice will not be in vain. That it will be worth my time and trouble, that I will get something, that we all will get something, from all of us working together for change.
The next four years — hopefully, the next eight — will not be perfect. But they will be memorable, because Obama is someone that inspires us, someone that we’re all willing to work for.
And it is that attitude, more than anything, that will save our world.
Read the original version of this column online here.
