"Do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands." - Eomer, The Two Towers
Chicken Little that I am, I've thus far refrained from buying any Obama t-shirts or brandishing any Obama bumper-stickers on my car, for fear that they would soon become obsolete if he lost the nomination battle. Despite being an ardent supporter for well over a year, and despite the fact that we've known Obama would be the nominee for quite some time, I just couldn't bring myself to hop onto the Obama schwag-wagon. I guess you could say that was lacking in the intestinal fortitude department. Thankfully, ladies and gentleman, I am here to tell you that I have finally overcome my fear and have taken the plunge.
Have a gander at the stylish sticker adorning my car at this very moment:
Even today, as I was about to slap that sucker on my car, I almost chickened out, thinking, "Hope? Geez, nobody believes in hope anymore. Everybody who sees this is going to think I'm a [insert you're favorite Obama-cult insult here]! It's just too cheesy!"
And then it struck me--the reason the concept of hoping for a better (political) future is so often met with derision is that, for far too long now, we've had few reasons to believe that our political leaders had our interests at heart. Put a different way, Bush's presidency has been for cynics what all-you-can-eat buffets are for chronic over-eaters--we've gorged ourselves on lie after outrage after tragedy, until we couldn't take anymore.
Well, I'm here today to say that I'm fed up (pun absolutely intended) with cynicism. In Bush's America, to have hope has been, far too often, to be foolish, naive, or ignorant. In Obama's America, I have no reason to think that the same must be true. So, cynical though I might have been, I am ready to hope for a better future. I don't care if other people think that makes me a naif or a raving lunatic! I am ready to embrace a new message, and I am ready to shout that message to the world--with a shiny new bumper-sticker.