My palms are sweaty and my jitters have gone from being a vague uneasy feeling to a Magic Fingers machine in a cheap motel room. My intuition in these matters fails me and so I get spun, dizzy, nauseous. Back in 2004 I was positive that Bush would go down in flames and ended up spending a week in catatonic depression. Not that I thought Kerry was a spectacular candidate (quite the contrary) but he was a damn sight better than the idiotic bully elected on that dark night two years ago.
As the bumper sticker says, if you're not outraged, you haven't been paying attention. As I see it, tomorrow is mostly about my children and what kind of country they'll have when they are old enough to vote. You can see from my last post the concerns I have are too numerous to ignore.
Check those issues in that post and check your own conscience to see if you honestly think this country is headed in a positive direction, if your own children and grandchildren live with the same promise of America that you grew up with. Ask yourself if this war has made us any safer, if it's cost in dollars and lives has amounted to progress; ask yourself if the balanced budget this country had 6 years ago was better than the tab handed to our children (to the tune of almost 50 grand per citizen).
Even The American Conservative magazine says the GOP must go, that Bush and his rubber-stamp GOP majority has created a mess that will take years to clean up. Naturally, the editorial is hardly complimentary to Democrats but it is candid in its assessment of what wrecakage has resulted in the past few years.
Whatever happens tomorrow night is so far out of my control and all I can do is take some time to cast my vote. Not for my future but for the future of my children. It may be one of the most important gifts I can give them.
I hope you view your vote in the same way.
7 comments:
Here,here. I did, absentee in Michigan. Here's hoping we'll see the beginning of the end tomorrow- and the beginning of change.
As usual, this was quite thought provoking. I too, worry about what my children and grandchildren will inherit, and the more I think about it the more depressed I get. I have asked myself about that promise of America, the promise I heard so much about in my own youth but watched as it slipped away bit by bit. There isn't much promise these days, a sad commentary on our reality. The worst aspect of that is the loss of pride. I felt that pride thirty years ago, I remember it vividly. We were fortunate enough to have the voices of our immediate ancestors to fuel it, the veterans of the depression and world wars 1 & 2, conflicts that changed the world. I'm not claiming that war is a panacea, but our part in them was honorable, what we did mattered and changed life for everyone, the pride was justified. Our children? They have the pride fostered by the Falkland Islands farce and two stints in Iraq. For what? Why? And when will it end? It's embarrassing. Our borders are a joke, our national debt is abhorrent, we have no foreign policy unless "Big Bully" can be considered one, we cannot take care of our own disasters, people are shooting children in schools, there is no health insurance plan to save us, social security is about to disappear and the middle class is almost gone. Add in scandal upon scandal... What is to become of us? This election frightens me. The election two years from now frightens me even more. I'm scared because I think people will make decisions based on change, not on informed opinion. There is no question the republicans need a shake down, but simply voting democrat isn't the answer either. I live in Ohio, one of the most scandalized and corrupt states in the union, it's horrifying. You can bet your ass that it has never been more important to focus on the issues and check and double check the options. I really enjoyed this post, thanks.
I dearly LOVE honesty...
I think voting Democrat IS THE ANSWER. I have not seen a Republican EVER that was concerned with "the greatest good for the greatest number."
And by the way, do you think the White House has acknowledged that global warming actually exists??
I just got back from voting. I have been terribly ill the last two days and can't wait for this to be over.
WE WILL WIN, if the republicans don't cheat.
I don't want my parents America, look where is landed us. Smack dab in the middle of the quagmire we are in now. I want an America that recognizes my ideals are different from the generations before me. I want an America run by visionaries, with laws that don't make me want to move to Paris.
I was so giddy this morning I didn't need coffee!
If it weren't for the hate-filled amendment and referendum that went the wrong way here,I'd be absolutely giddy at the election results.
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