Our Eight-Year National Nightmare is Over...

As the dust settles on a remarkable week here in the United States of America, we all pause to say good riddance to an eight-year reign of terror that was visited on the people of this country and, more to the point, the people of this world. The image that will stay with me for the rest of my life from that amazing election night is this one: as CNN announced that Obama had garnered enough electoral votes to secure the presidency the Transportation Workers Union Hall where I was watching the returns exploded in an earthshattering roar. I turned around and saw behind me an African-American woman with tears running down her cheeks and I took a few steps toward her and gave her an immense, hard, long hug that she returned in kind. We had never met before, but in that moment we expressed the heartfelt emotion that filled the Union Hall and watch parties across the country. We had done it, we as a nation had elected the first person of color to the highest office in the land and we were all estatic about what we had just achieved.

I owe an apology to a fellow blogger (Roxie of Roxie's world) who challenged me several months ago about a claim that I made that Indiana was more conservative than the state where I reside - Oklahoma. With Indiana turning blue on the night of November 4th (or the morning of November 5th) and with Oklahoma going so overwhelmingly for John McCain at approximately 7:01pm (the polls closed at 7:00pm) I must admit that I was wrong. Oklahoma turned out to be the only state in the country in which not one single county voted for Obama - I am so ashamed. So in spite of all of my relatives and their "In God We Trust," license plates, Indiana turned out to be much bluer than Oklahoma is red. As I've said in the past, I gotta get outta here... I have an open invitation to head to Madison, Wisconsin, or back to to true blue New Mexico, but I love my job and have managed to surround myself with fellow progressives/liberals who make this blogger forget that she lives smack dab in the middle of the reddest of red(neck) America. What's a grrrl to do? I think I'll stay put for awhile longer, and see what I can do about bringing this backwater around to civilized thought.

Although I must question the wisdom of Roxie's mother, Moose, directing readers to the "ratemyprofessor" site which contains some none-too-favorable reviews of Roxie's mom, er, typist. Oh, what were you thinking?

Yes We Can & Yes We Did !!!

I sat teary eyed and speechless at the Transportation Workers Union Hall in Tulsa, OK as the then Senator Barack Obama (now President-elect Barack Obama) addressed the crowd of over 125,000 in Grant Park in Chicago, IL as the next president of the United States of America! I feel so proud to be an American tonight - so proud to be a small part of the history that was made tonight, and so proud to be a small part of the progress that this country demonstrated it is committed to make tonight. I love the reality that we, as a nation, have rejected the status quo, that we, as a nation, have rejected the regressive, bigoted past, that we have embraced tomorrow, a future that includes all of us, and will take each and every one of us to make that tomorrow a better place in which we all may live. We will all need to live together, in a better world, in a world that we all inhabit and in a world in which we all have a say, that we all have a stake in. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER, and I love that that is our new collective reality. There is an exciting sense that filled the air tonight - from the liberal, progressive East coast, a wind that blew through even the most conservative, staid mid-western part of this country all the way to the West coast where Obama won handily.

I look at my nieces and my nephew and I am so glad that I don't see any prejudice in their eyes - no bias against someone whose skin is another shade than theirs, or no bias against their Uncle Eric and Uncle Brian or any two people who love each other. In other words, the bigotry of the past - both racial and sexual - is almost over and will begin to less frequently rear its ugly head in our public life. I have faith in our future again. I have faith that tomorrow will be better than today. I believe that tomorrow anything is possible, that anyone can achieve whatever he/she sets her/his mind to do. I don't mean to sound too righteous, but I am so glad that I lived to see this day in this country, my country.

Congratulations President Obama and congratulations to your wonderful family - we love you, we elected you as our leader and we are here to support you. Please carry on and lead us - we are ready to walk with you!

Today IS THE DAY!!!

“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.”

Alice Paul, (American Lawyer, Author, Founder, and Social Reformer, 1885-1977)

Today is the culmination of almost two years of seemingly non-stop campaigning. Today is the day that America chooses their next president. I remain cautiously optimistic that Barack Obama, by virtue of his intelligence, his steadiness, his demeanor, his leadership, and his so-well-run campaign, will be our next president. It makes me so very proud of our country, proud that the essential decency of the American people came shining through the fear-mongering, the hate, the bigotry and all the other reasons why some people are giving for not joining this movement forward. Today the progressives will beat back the regressives, the future will overcome the status quo, the past will be dealt with as it must be, but our eight year Bush/Cheney nightmare will finally be put to rest. Thank goodness, thank creator, thank the hard-working people of this country that never gave up.

Last night I went to the Circle Cinema to see for free (courtesy of the League of Women Voters) the film Iron Jawed Angels. The film chronicles the story of Quaker, Alice Paul, and other women who fought for the 19th Amendment (passed just over 88 years ago) that granted the right to vote to all women in this country. It was an inspirational and remarkable tale of the power of a handful of women who refused to accept the status quo and fought like hell until their goal was achieved. It gave me hope and helped me off this ledge that I have been perched on for most of this week. Today, I will sit by the phone and wait for calls from the Democratic Headquarters with names, addresses and precinct information to give other Democrats rides to the polls.
Viva Obama/Biden! Yes, We Can! Si, Se Puede!

A Worrywart Charts Her Future Course

Back in late August of this year Eugene Robinson penned an op-ed piece for the Washington Post entitled The Worrywart Party. In this column, Mr. Robinson admonished the Democratic Party to "snap out of it," and essentially quit worrying and second-guessing all the possible ways that we, as Democrats, may still manage to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. As either of my sisters would be quick to tell you, I have always been the cockeyed pessimist of the family. So as I sit here in my cozy little home in Tulsa, Oklahoma watching Tom Brokaw grilling John Kerry and giving Fred Thompson many free passes on Meet the Press, I can't shake that sinking feeling that in a few days I will be debating whether to sit in my running car in my garage and say good-bye to a world that is just too broken and ignorant to continue to live in, or put that same car in gear and head north to Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA, where I and my boyz will make a fresh start, having sold the house and disposed of most of my possessions.

Here are the things that give me hope:
--The fact that Obama is up in the polls and that those polls likely have not taken into account the legions of mostly young voters who have abandoned their land lines and communicate almost exclusively by cell phones and who do not carry with them the prejudices of their parents and grandparents. So I am expecting that the turn-out among young voters will offset or even surpass the dreaded Bradley Effect. This hope is personified in the views of my nieces and my nephew who are all too young to vote but who are solidly behind Obama and are aghast that their grandparents are supporting McPalin.
--The fact that 8 of 10 people admit that this country is going down the crapper and we must change direction lest we end up permanently languishing in a crap stew of our own making.
--Barack Obama, the person, gives me hope. As I survey the long campaign, I have witnessed a steady course, an eloquent orator, sound judgment and a reluctance to give back in slime the disgusting charges that have been levelled against him by an opposing camp that has sunk to new lows in their campaign, despite McCain's earlier promise to run a clean and high-minded campaign.
--The web site (it is so much more than a blog) FiveThirtyEight.com and pieces like the following: Brett Marty's Ten Predictions - From the Gut give me hope (and yes, I do check it early and often each and every day).

Here are the things that have me worried:
--The polls that have Obama up by double-digits in the national poll and up by anywhere from over 100 points and down by a mere 5 or 6 points in the Electoral College.
--The Republican denizens (of which many members of my immediate and extended family are a part) who continue to believe that Obama may not have been born in Hawa'ii and that his record at Harvard University may have been fabricated - I find this to be an odd criticism given that the same people who are questioning Obama's academic credentials put so little value on an ivy league education.
--Probably the thing that keeps me up most nights is the nightmare of 2000 recurring in 2008. I remember so clearly election night of 2000 when I went to bed smiling as the major networks had called Florida for Al Gore, only to wake up the next morning to a horrible scenario that would keep me upset and physically ill for the next month when finally the Supreme Court overrode the will of American voters and selected George W. Bush as the 43rd president of the United States. This same horrible scenario was repeated in 2004 - only the location and subtlety of the subterfuge had changed. And what a price we have paid as a nation and have imposed on the rest of the planet who had no say in the leader of the free world.

Creator, if you are there and if you care at all about this world you have made, please let the voices of hope and change reign on this world. As Studs Terkel titled his last work "Hope Dies Last," a phrase that was coined for him by Jesse Del La Cruz, a farm worker. When times are bleak, they say in Spanish - Esparanza muera al ultimo, “Hopes Dies Last.” Let's all hope that this time hope stays alive.

This post is dedicated to a very special friend who shared this thought with me last night - F.E.A.R. equals "False Events Appearing Real." Here's to a fearless election day, and with many thanks, here's to you, ADB :)