Hope

As shitty as things have been on planet Earth of late, it's really quite a magnificent time to be alive in America right now. The crushing lows and the sweeping highs that roll, dip, and wash over us in waves (of amber grain - I swear, it's amber fucking grain!), gives one a sense of what living with manic depression might be like.

Many of us are in in a full-blown manic state this morning.

Being at best sarcastic, and at worst, curmudgeonly, I rarely begin sentences with the words "I am bursting". But there's just no better way to put it. I am simply bursting with faith and pride in America today. Once again, we have hope.

As I type this, C-SPAN is drifting in from another room, and I can vaguely hear a press conference featuring a conservative group who are angrily expressing their disappointment in the Bush administration. I just padded over to the TV and saw their faces all pinched and bitter. They are seriously pissed off.

I guess it's now A-OK to come out and lay the fuck right into George W. Bush. It's funny how that works, ain't it? Even Rush Limbaugh has turned on Bush. He said on his show today that he feels liberated by the trouncing because he no longer has to "carry the water" of those who he feels don't deserve to have their water carried. My my my!

There will, in the coming days, no doubt, be many more attacks on Bush for betraying the cause of conservatism. But it's all just self-serving snivel by people who've put all their eggs in one philosophical basket.

George W. Bush betrayed America. And the people and groups coming out in droves to denounce him now should be held accountable for their dishonesty and their patriotism should, as happened to so many who dared speak out against Bush from the start, be questioned!

September 11th was the defining moment of America's future. But Bush only saw it as the defining moment in his life; his God-given destiny to become the next Lincoln. There was hope for positive change and renewal after the attack and the chance to make us better. But he wasn't smart enough to see it, nor humble enough to imagine that bringing about a quiet revolution could be just as glorious as trying to achieve it through tanks and guns and force.

So instead, he made us ever aware of our fear, and pitted us against each other. And we voted for him again. And Iraq became the problem it was destined to become. And hope dwindled.

And last week, Dick Cheney said that it didn't matter what the public thought about the administration's plan to continue "full speed ahead" in Iraq because they weren't running for office.

Such astonishingly naked arrogance from a charmless, malignant prick. But the American public have stood up to it.

Conservatives in high numbers, people who voted Republican their entire lives, either abstained or voted Democrat or Libertarian. Young people, also in high numbers, sensed the importance and came out to the polls. In Michigan, it was the highest voter turnout in a non-presidential election ever.

We The People are paying attention and the Democratic process worked. And again, we have blissful strands of hope to cling to. Unfortunately, we also have two more years of Bush.

I have no illusions that he'll learn any lessons from this and that he will put America's needs over his own need for political surival. But at least we've got some brakes on the locomotive. It says a lot about the state of this country that that alone is worthy of wild celebration.