Hope Has Changed

I did not vote for President Obama but did not have a lot of faith that McCain would have been a good choice either. I didn’t vote for Obama because I did not think that his political and life experience was sufficient preparation for the highest office in the nation. I was also concerned about some of his associations and the basis for his ideology. I didn’t want to vote for McCain because I thought that he had been rather inconsistent on some key issues in the past and was aligning himself with some views that I thought were simply ideologically driven. If he had not chosen someone to run with him with integrity and the ability to go against the party grain in Sarah Palin, I would have left that section blank.

Thus, when Obama won the election, rather than be dispirited, I was hopeful and optimistic that this choice of president, with the historical and potentially socially healing aspects of the election, would be the boost that our country needed to become more united and accepting and to move forward with regard to everyone’s dreams and ideas and views. I, with the whole world, held the election of the first president of color as a leap toward the eradication of race as a dividing issue in our country. As the most influential nation in the world, that effect could have carried outward, effecting the whole world in a positive way.

A year and a half later, I have to say that my fears have been fanned and my hopes have not been fueled by the heavy-handed and secretive way in which Obama does his business. While declaring that the age of racism and intolerance had ended, he has used a racial shield to deflect any criticism, whether or not legitimate and then to demonize the critic. Republicans, and shockingly after this long in office, George W. Bush, are brushed aside like so many spent peanut shells and blamed for any and all of the delays quite often caused by infighting by the democrats. They call secret meetings to offer bribes and threats and push through anything that they want, ignoring even the voice of many who elected him. They hold staged press conferences with predetermined questions and select questioners.  Our debt is skyrocketing, (Bush’s fault) people are angry, (Rush’s fault), and President Obama, who apparently cannot read a new law, is bringing in foreign dignitaries from dysfunctional nations (Mexico) to gang up on our own citizens for trying to get the federal government to pause in their rush for radical social change long enough to enforce the laws already on the books and protect our borders and our citizens from the onslaught of new welfare recipients along with the drug dealers and their thugs.

What a country. Our once proud nation is reduced to being scolded by communist dictators and extremist theocracies for our human rights violations. Greece wants to sue us for our inept financial acumen, and Obama just agrees with them and apologizes and asks for their help in turning our dysfunctional society into something more resembling of the euro-Asian model of social engineering. And all the while we wag our tails and sing WE ARE THE WORLD while the world treats us with scorn. We were once the most respected and attractive nation in the world. “The shining light on the hill” that was a beacon of hope to the rest of the world. The decline has been long and has encompassed many leaders of both parties, but this administration seems hell-bent on dousing the light and moving us down off that hill as fast as they can. The scary thing is that they would seem to be succeeding. Chicago style politics has become the rule of the land, and the chickens seem to have indeed come home to roost.

I had high hopes that this administration could do some real good, regardless of whether or not we agreed on everything. Now all I have left is prayer.