Journal

Another year has gone by and it is the holiday season again. We all had a great time this weekend, with Grandma and the family, at the Cedarville Community Center. This was a brilliant idea from my aunt Heather and my cousin Nate. We had space to spread out, or to watch the game, to cook, eat and most importantly: to wear the kids out.

November 4th, 2008

IMAGES AND VIDEOS ARE BELOW

What today means to me cannot be fully expressed.

But I’ll try…

The Republican administration of the past eight years echoed many sinister missteps that have marred the history of countries, both those which survive today and those which perished as a result of hubris, evil vision, greed and ignorance. Throughout the Bush administration, we stood by and did nothing as an American president systematically dismantled the spirit of our Constitution, used fear to accomplish hidden agendas and allowed truth, justice and the American way to fade into unprecedented corruption.

America, it seemed, had lost it’s founding principles–a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” As neglected, underfunded public schools continue to generate citizens who are wholly unaware of the underlying meaning of essential documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution of the United States of America, our country was brought to the precipice of serious, almost irrevocable peril.

For the disturbed factions within the U.S. that provided the votes for two terms of George W. Bush, it should be pointed out that your president did not end abortion for pro-lifers, while he IS responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Middle East–many of them pregnant women and children. George W. Bush did not protect us from 9-11, even when a memo entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” crossed Condoleezza Rice’s desk. George W. Bush did not keep “government out of people’s lives” when he took away many of our rights to privacy, had innocent people investigated, coerced companies like AT & T to turn over customer phone records to government agencies and pulled thousands of citizen soldiers away from their families to fight a war, based on a succession of lies. George W. Bush did not reduce the size of government when he created Homeland Security–the largest, costliest government agency in U.S. history. George W. Bush did not exercise fiscal conservatism when he raised the national debt to the largest level in U.S. history. George W. Bush may have lined a few pockets, in his close inner circle, but contrary to Republican ideology, his lack of economic oversight revealed once and for all that the myth of “trickle-down economics” and deregulation only destroys free markets, while redistributing wealth from the working poor and middle classes, to the absurdly rich.

Bridges failed, New Orleans was abandoned and left out to dry (literally), oil companies laughed all the way to the bank, while at the same time, Americans saw their wages erode, their enslavement to credit grow, their houses get auctioned off and their health insurance companies gouge them and deny more and more of their claims.

Sadly, millions of us knew this would be the outcome of George W. Bush’s time as president, well before his first “election.” Tragically, even though we knew better, we were forced to endure the worst eight years of government this country has ever known. For the past eight years, the ignorance of a large population of Americans and their lack of appreciation for our hard-fought, Constitutional rights, won their president on the irresolvable platforms of gay-hating, abortion, terrorism, war lust and a frightening contempt for intellectualism, which cost Kerry and Gore their elections.

While widespread ignorance of the sort who believed Obama was a Muslim flourished, the rest of us stood in horror, as a wave of unenlightenment swept the land. America took on the hue of the Dark Ages, as the threat of religious superstition strengthened the movement to remove scientific teachings from schools–replacing it with biblical conjecture, to criminalize stem cell research, to demand that God be mentioned in every thought, to laughingly assert that marriage has sanctity in a land of divorce and to ignorantly dismiss the fact that we have a separation of church and state clause in America BECAUSE, throughout the colonial period, European church authority created the oppressive conditions of intolerance, which caused America to fight for independence and religious freedom in the first place.

Other absurd notions were borne out of America’s foray into authoritarianism:

• That trading your right to privacy for increased security was patriotic
• That not wearing a flag pin was unpatriotic
• That America has a free market
• That redistributing wealth by correcting tax policies which have fleeced the middle class for 20 years is socialism

Today represents for me the possibility that progress of a 21st century grade, might be within our reach. Today represents the elevation of intellect, of ideas, of thought. Today represents the restoration of America’s image and stature around the world. Today represents the reaffirmation of the ideals of our founding fathers and a new ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Today represents hope that our country’s vast resources will again be directed towards futuristic infrastructure projects, education initiatives, health care for everyone and a shift towards a dependence on renewable energy. Today represents an America that will become a wise role model of peace and fair prosperity around the world.

Yes we did!

Walk to Rally

Waiting at Rally

Waiting for Obama

Triumph! After the Announcement of Barack Obama as President Elect