No more waiting

I never understood the lyrics to John Mayer's song "Waiting on the world to change". He starts by saying that he stands for change and that he wants to rise above everything that is going wrong in the world, but then the refrain just repeats his lame mantra "So we keep waiting, Waiting on the world to change".

Well John, I don't know about you, but yesterday the rest of us stood up, and changed the world ourselves.

Every generation has its moment. Victory in WWII, the Civil Rights Act, putting a man on the moon, the fall of the Berlin Wall. The past 7 years however have been nothing but pain and suffering for our country. It seems as though the attacks of 9/11 did more damage to our country than Bin Laden could have ever imagined. With a terrible President at the helm, we ruined our standing in the world, defaced our Constitution, and squandered a chance to unite as one underneath our flag. If 9/11 was going to be the defining moment of our generation, we were in for a troubled future.

But today, we start anew. Our moment is now and our time has come. Henry David Thoreau, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President-Elect Barack Obama say it better than any blogger ever could:



"I do not say that John or Jonathan will realize all this; but such is the character of that morrow which mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star."

"I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.......I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.".......And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

"And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope......This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can."

The Final Countdown

So here we are: 2 years, 20 some-odd candidates, 8000 debates, and 900 million dollars later, we have finally reached the end. Barring some terrible election fiasco a la Florida 2000, tomorrow night we will know the outcome of this presidential election.

What is left to blog about? We can measure the drapes and pick out the china pattern!

Or we can discuss the future of the Republican party.

The GOP is like lead and melamine tainted products from China: very toxic and utterly ruined as a brand. How will they ever recover at the national level? The only region of the country they will still be in the majority is the Deep South, and even that support has weakened. This may be the election that kills the GOP and ushers in two new parties: The fiscal conservatives and the social conservatives. They could each form their own alliances with moderate independents, but it could be decades before either was strong enough to compete nationally.

The only other option was for the entire party to move to the center. They tried that with Bush and then McCain, but as we can see, it only alienates both the religious right and the fiscal hawks.

This crisis is bigger than Watergate because it not just about one man or even the national committee. This GOP crisis is at every level and with every republican voter. I expect that the level of anger and hatred (often directed towards the left but always coming back to their own on the right) will reach a point where third parties will be bolstered. Watch 2012 for the Libertarian and Constitution parties to make real in-roads and possibly even win seats in the house or in state government.

I know we still have Election Day ahead of us, but when it is over and the final votes are cast, there won't be any need to pinch me....all my dreams will have come true.