Finally! At Last! I just can't hold off any more!
Besides, my son finally got a babysitter for the grandson for 2 weeks!
Yes, we are going off for 2 weeks. Abandoning our responsibilities to bask in the glorious enlightenment of the old world, of "old Europe", if you will.
I know it will be difficult.
No American(Chicago) pizza(?)
No politics(?)
No internets(tubes?)
No potting(?)
No English!!!!!!
We are taking the plunge. Going to the Czech Republic for two weeks.
We haven't been there since Bush was elected. Since January of '01.
Our relatives asked us what we thought of Bush...and so we told them.
"lharat"(lazhat), "hovna" and a few other things that I can't spell. I don't speak Czech.
It was disrespectful but, we were devastated that he had won. It broke our hearts. (Don't tell me that that election wasn't stolen by a charletan, a cheat, and a liar!)
I thought maybe I was too harsh, at the time, and a little unpatriotic. After all, I was an American from way, way back, even more American than the Bushes!
What is the man who becomes President able to do? Really.....I rationalized, he is only one man and there is Congress to keep him in check. He probably won't be able to affect any lasting change. He'll be out in four years after the country sees what a loser he is.
Was I ever mistaken. He has ruined this country to almost irrepairability (new word). I am thoroughly convinced that he stole the next one too. And got Dan Rather fired over the truth. And got that author murdered who was writing a book about him. and suckered the whole nation into thinking he was "strong" and a "fighter" when he really was neither.
So we worked for Kerry, hard, gave money, became political and couldn't believe it when Kerry, a real hero, lost to a bum!
It made us angry that such a "moran" would be representing our country. Didn't anyone notice his smirks? Didn't anyone notice what a phoney he was? Didn't anyone notice he couldn't string two words together and make sense? He wasn't a "cowboy", he wasn't a "rancher", he was "East-coast", pampered, legacy, alcoholic, twit who thought he was cute and funny!
I wished I were living in some other country. A country that really was founded on "Christian" principles, not a "wearing religion on a sleeve" country that takes about its religiocity and beats its chest about the heathens and apostates that are "all against us"!!! I wanted a return to sanity, a respite... from war, torture and ignominy.
So I voted for Obama.
Change doesn't happen overnight. It will take a long time.
Bill Moyers said it best on Bill Maher. "There was a Conservative Revolution". Yes....that is exactly it! They took over and deified Reagan. Crazy became OK. Religious extremism became desirable. They took over the Congress, and the media and got their voices heard 24/7 across the country while stifling and eliminating moderation and opposition. They changed the educational system, the standards, the textbooks. They flew the flag, yelled patriotism, and demonized other religions. The "good Christians" spoke about how they hated illegal aliens(most of whom are very Christian) and "wouldn't help one if he were dying in the street!"(actually said to me by a person who attends church every Sunday!!!!)
This is not my country.
But it is. And I will work to restore the beliefs this great nation embodies. Hope, Freedom, Promise, and Respect.
I am going to tell my relatives that I am proud of Obama. That it will take a long time to correct the abuses of over 40 years of "Murder, Inc., Death Squads, political assassination, Preemptive War, Greed, Avarice, and so many more failings.
I am bringing Obama t-shirts, buttons and other memorabilia and I will speak to them in my Russian-accented Czech ( a legacy of having taken Russian in high school) and tell them that I come in mir, nadeje, milenku, lyubit or whatever....I keep mixing it all up....(but I can count in Spanish and I know all the really good words!!!)
Then I will return and keep working for "Health care for all, everybody in...nobody out!" because it is the right thing to do, the only thing to do. It is the "Christian" thing to do and, because I am an atheist, the human thing to do.
I just hope I survive...the Czech Republic is also the land of greasy cholesterol and really, really great, cheap beer! Nadzdrovye!