Gentleman, personally speaking, I would have been happy if this thread had ended with richpo's comments here:
Every once in a while Brass. Every once in a while...
In all my days in 3DHS, I can't recall ever reading the slightest of agreement from Richpo towards anything that I've ever said. While this comment is glowing endorsement or implicit agreement, it is
something.
My comment here is not to put him on the spot or give him grief; I would much rather address my fellow travelers XO and Michael Tee. Please just take a minute and think about where we are.
We are potentially two weeks away from an historic turning point in US history. Our "team", the Democrats is about to "win". The GOP had 6-8 years of unfettered application of their ideologies and core principles. By nearly all accounts, it has been a resounding and utter failure. Two
wars quagmires that have no real goals or end in sight under GOP control. Katrina. Worst economic crisis since the Great Depression mostly due to total de-regulation. 9.11 and the unbelievably wasted opportunity to bring the world closer to total peace. Halliburton. And on and on...
No doubt that an Obama administration will have its share of failures but I would hope that those of us who support Barack Obama might not start out in the mindset that the supporters of the Bush "administration" are ending in. I am saying that I am (perhaps overly) hopeful for the near future and that I fear that by spending our time to try and tear down McCain, Palin and their supporters.
Yes, I know that they won't stop trying to tear down Obama, Biden, those of us here who support that ticket and all the others who support him but that is their cross to bear. I heard Stephen Colbert toss out a line one night when asking a guest how the McCain ticket was going to bounce back. "How are they going to attack Obama and Biden," he asked, "because you can't win a footrace without a handgun, right?" And that is exactly how the right is going about this thing.
They can't outrun Obama in an honest footrace, so they have to take shots at him in hopes of slowing him down and for the last few years, I have held a memory in my head of something that John McCain said that made me respect him more than most in our federal government.
He was giving a speech on banning torture. He is an excerpt:
"America stands for a moral mission, one of freedom and democracy and human rights at home and abroad. We are better than these terrorists, and we will we win. I have said it before but it bears repeating: The enemy we fight has no respect for human life or human rights. They don't deserve our sympathy. But this isn't about who they are. This is about who we are. These are the values that distinguish us from our enemies, and we can never, never allow our enemies to take those values away."
Though I have made rash comparisons in the past between those on the right and any number of horrible people or types of people or groups in the past, I am in no way meaning to compare our right-wing compatriots with terrorists or torturers but the intent and construction of his statement is what applies.
Those on the right are in what they perceive as the fight of their lives, the fight for the fate of the nation and what they want it to be like. Especially in these last two weeks, those in charge of this fight, the higher-ups, will have to sink even lower and lower to depths yet unplumbed. And most of those here will support those lower depth stances and actions. They will follow their higher-ups by choice, some not by choice and some will not follow.
But for those of us supporting Obama and Biden, this is not about who they are, it is about who we are. There can be no mistake that we have followed them into the ditches and also led and/or dragged them into those same ditches. Our only thin defense is that we ourselves felt the same hopelessness that is now befalling them and struck like children trying to affect some kind of power or control.
While you may or may not agree with any of this or none of this or even some of this, it is my hope that you will, at the very least, hopefully agree with me when I say, I don't want to spend the next (hopefully) 8 years arguing with the right about every little sniggly thing that they find fault with.
Obviously there is going to be disagreement and discord but, god dammit, do we have to spend 8 more years arguing over the minutiae of every statement that Obama makes and defending every statement Obama makes with equivocation and splitting the hairs of the meanings of words?
What has frustrated me over these last 8 years has been the total denial of any and all wrong-doing on the part of this out-going "administration" by its supporters and the absolute wills of steel regarding our perceptions of the situations and the validity of those perceptions. I, for one, don't want to be like that.
The analogies and metaphors could be poured forth in how we've treated each other over the last 8 years but I'm not going to do that. Let me state it plainly: For all our yelling, cursing, pivoting, finger-pointing and differences in opinion, as Americans and more importantly, we on the left are no better than they are on the right.
It's their country, too. If they vote, they have a right to complain and redress. We can talk about everything that happens and mix it up, of course, but as the supporters of the Obama administration, we should take it upon ourselves to at least TRY to understand, defend if we must but not constantly hammer on each other without mercy. Let's not blow our opportunity to be magnanimous in triumph.
I'm just sayin'.
Brass.
