I a 58-year-old American, and have voted in every national, state and local election I could in my lifetime (I even voted for JFK, though it was in a grade school election that didn't count).
In my life, I have experienced the assassination of critical political figures, far too many wars, at least two "official" recessions (and now, possibly, the kind of depression my parents talked about when I was growing up), two impeachments, and terrorist attacks throughout the world and in the city I call home.
I have seen citizens gunned down, penned up, beaten, arrested and jailed for using their Constitutional rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech. I have watched candidates for office be mocked, humiliated, lied about, and denied the votes cast for them. I have listened to the foulest epithets that ever sullied the airwaves, even from the mouths of elected officials. I have fought, and voted against, those who have lied, cheated, smeared, gorged themselves on the public's gullibility -- and, time and again, been silenced by the lies and dishonesty of the powerful, even those in the Supreme Court.
For two generations, I have endured, waiting for a politician to stand up and inspire the American people to fulfill their destiny, as embodied in the Founders' immortal words beginning with "We the People." For two generations, I have wandered in the desert of the United States' soul, mourning for the loss of education, for the loss of leadership, the loss of honor, the loss of citizen involvement, and the loss of common decency. I have waited to hear a solitary voice that would echo the promises of my youth -- compassion, humanity, citizen empowerment, hope, logic, reason, freedom... the right to dream of a better world and of the justice and freedom that are the inalienable rights of human beings.
For four years, since I first heard that voice, I feel as though I've been holding my breath. And I feel as though I won't be able to breathe again until I see these words in print: "President-Elect Barack Obama."
- - -
A week and a day to go, and I'm as tightly wound as a fast watch. My pulse rockets between galloping and skipping a beat, because I can't stop contemplating the worst-case-scenarios of this election:
- the "fix" is already in, in electronic machines across battleground states, and this is why John McCain and Sarah Palin seem so convinced they are going to win despite overwhelming polls to the contrary.
- somewhere a zealot already has in motion a plan to rob the U.S. electorate of its legitimate voice through an act of violence that will shatter our country.
- there are still sufficient numbers of people who don't read, can't think, won't understand how they are being "gamed" by the powerbrokers, and will vote their racial and social fears once again.
- Nov. 4 will come and go, and the results of the election will tear our country apart - no matter what the outcome - because the schism between rich and poor, rural and urban, black and white, Democrat and Republican, are so raw, and run so deep, as a consequence of this election's tone and tenor.
- And always in the back of my mind, I know that Bush and Cheney still have more than two months in which to make so many things worse for us all. More signing statements, more military options, more raping of the earth and poisoning of the water, more deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, more looting of the till.
Please bear with me; I know I'm focusing on the negative. Please understand that, for two generations, my hopes have been shattered, over and over. I'm a child of the Kennedy assassination, a teen of Bobby's run, of Kent State, of Chicago. These were my formative years, and they were powerful. So I'm afraid to love and trust and believe openly again because I know intimately the invasion of that numbness, that ice in the heart and brain, that comes from too many years of witnessing the death of hope in places like Dallas, Memphis, Los Angeles, and of seeing for decades the abuse of power in Vietnam, Iraq, Guantanamo, Sudan......
Even as I know that the fate of our nation rests with the results of this election - and it's the sole focus of most of the people here - I also know that the fate of my relationship, of my standing as a first-class citizen, of my rights under the Constitution, rests with the results of another vote in California, a whole continent away; a vote that's probably a lot more important to me, and to a lot of people I know, than it is to you.... and I can only trust and hope that millions of people like you, and those even less enlightened, will simply refuse to deny me full citizenship.
So please bear with my momentary desolation, and believe that there is still a small flicker of hope that I hold securely at the core of my being. If there weren't, I couldn't still be fighting, two generations later.
A week and a day to go, and then the rest of our lives. I can't wait to breathe free again.
Wed Oct 03, 2012 at 2:34 PM PT: Just recovered this 4-year-old entry... it's interesting to note how much, and how little, have changed since I wrote it.
The world teetered on the brink of financial ruin.... and very carefully, very cautiously, stepped back just far enough to be able to peek down over the edge to see how far we could fall.
The US people elected a President by a decisive margin, then found ourselves the victims of FOUR YEARS of obstruction by the same political party responsible for the near-ruin; FOUR YEARS of hard-won job growth (offset by the (R) governors' lay-off plans); FOUR YEARS of unrelenting coded hate, codified by powerful people who should know better.
Tonight's the first debate. May each candidate's message ring out loud and clear... if it does, no one should have trouble deciding how to vote.