It's official. Obama is Prez!
As exciting as that is, I must say that seeing Bush fly off in a helicopter was one of the more remarkable scenes I've ever witnessed. This dude was as Big Brother as they come, but even he and his cronies couldn't beat out democracy. During the last eight years, there were times, especially when most of our country fanatically supported an invasion of Iraq, that I truly thought our country was heading down an ignorance-infested path of no return.
To me, U.S. democracy had become a big lie, just another marketing slogan in a country already watered down by corporate interests and big money. If our country's citizens were uneducated enough to support an Iraq war, Guantanamo Bay, and the Patriot Act, how in the world were we ever going to right this ship? I thought there was a very good chance the dumb would get dumber, the rich would get richer, and right-wing, neo-conservatives would continue to use these two principles plus fear-invoking propaganda to run our country in the same fashion for the next 40-50 years. Heck, I even wondered if George W. might, in the name of the "War on Terror", extend his term limits to become a 50-year ruler (see Mayor Bloomberg of New York).
In the end, Obama is in, Bush out. Up to this point in my life, today offered the most clear-cut picture of democracy at work. As Sachin said to me, "Peaceful transfer of power. Pretty amazing concept."
Now, let's get these next eight years right...
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and on the flip side, the neo-conservatives are being forced to recreate themselves. there are some great pieces to conservative thought (see barry goldwater and fiscal conservatism), that will hopefully reemerge.
ReplyDeletehere's an interesting review of bush by the economist (who ironically endorsed him in 2000): http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12931660