Waiting with Baited Breath
It comes to this moment, this day.
When Bush took office 8 years ago, I said that America had not yet awakened enough to its own laziness. We didn’t want any more ‘Old Boy’ networking, but it was all we knew and we didn’t collectively have the guts to HOPE for something more. When Bush used fear to get elected 4 years later, I saw a deep, deep melancholy. Chagrin. Head shaking. Last gasps of hope slipping away. Such a huge, gaping difference between what we said we want, freedom and justice for all, and who we were willing to be.
Ah, so this is how we, as a country, want to be: the bully in the sandbox. Can’t speak to foreign leaders we don’t agree with. That would show ‘weakness’. Can’t ask Americans to sacrifice after the death of 4,000 citizens. Instead they should ‘shop’. It broke my heart to see the US step out in the world, but in a for-the-rich, profit-driven way with weapons blazing, trillions of dollars going to death instead of life.
Now, 8 years later, I wonder if the pendulum has swung far enough in the other direction for us to step out for HOPE? Will we have the courage to get back to our ideals?
Can my kids grow up in a world within which they are asked to be global citizens, to show empathy for those that need help or are injured or dying unjustly? Can we stop locking up our young people and instead give them jobs? Can we stop the money hemorraghing to East Hampton mega-mansions (or Rush Limbaugh’s Florida estate, where drugs just might be delivered, without prescriptions but with no attendant jail-time?) Can we stop giving bailouts to those who’ve destroyed us? Can we break our co-dependence with the cowboy politics championed by Ronald Reagan and badly mimicked by GWB?
Today I wait.
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