We are going to get through this and we'll be better for it.
I'm not naïve. I know that in many ways America in 2006 doesn't seem like America anymore. The Theocrats, the Brownshirts, the Corporatists, and the Imperialists seem to pretty much own the streets right now. I know that for the past five years everyday people have been getting the shit kicked out of them in ever more creative ways. Amazingly some of them still haven't figured out who owns the boot that's on their neck. It's changing though.
We never really worried much about Fascism before. Couldn't happen here. Now we are finding out that we were mistaken. And it's not just the Dems and the DUers who see this. Republicans, old line Conservatives, and people who were just never really politically involved before are waking up too. The knowledge that it can happen here represents a loss of innocence that is good and is vital to our political development.
Once we have defeated Fascism and exposed the evils and corruption we'll never look at this country in quite the same way again. We'll be less trusting, more vigilant and more engaged. We will realize that America is not a piece of parchment safe in a glass case. It is a living organism that can be good or very evil depending on how it's fed and nurtured.
As far as religion goes, I am not a believer so I speak as an outsider. But it seems to me that while a relatively small number of Fundie theocrats are making all the noise and garnering all the press there is a rebirth of `true' religion and spirituality going on that involves a far greater number of people.
The Christians among them are not happy that their religion has been hijacked and defaced by people who differ little from Taliban thugs. They are turning to their roots and putting the focus on the Gospels where it belongs instead of on the likes of Leviticus and Revelation. This can only be good for all of us, believers and non-believers alike.
Finally, look at the countries around us, especially those other industrialized countries that used to be our friends and allies and will be again. Freedom may be in temporary slow reverse here, but it's in pretty good health and moving forward in places like Canada, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and any number of other countries.
Even China is being forced to improve by its own people and the dictates of economics, while Japan in spite of some rumblings from it's hardcore right wing remains a stable democracy with a strong middle class.
America is the odd one out and we can't stay like that forever. We are no longer able to shape the outside world by brute force if indeed we ever were, and as hard as the Repugs might try they will never be able to create their own reality separate and inviolate within our borders.
What they are succeeding at is creating a weird reality in their own minds that is more and more removed from what most of the rest of us see and experience every day. People like us who have at least one foot firmly planted in the real world have the advantage over those who don't and there are a lot more of us then there are of them