To the progressives: Don't surrender to cynicism

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The faded post 9/11 bumper stickers on cars proclaim "United We Stand!" but America this morning wakes up divided, with a substantial percentage dreading the cost in blood and red ink to be paid during "Four More Years!"

George W. Bush promised in 2000 that he would infuse Washington, D.C., with a new spirit. Where is it?

If the past four years are any indication, the presumed victors will claim the spoils and rule with no sense of compromise or comity -- until and unless the American people act to curb the excesses of power.

With fear of such a future, I wiped three decades' dust off an old college textbook yesterday, and turned to a ballad called "Johnnie Armstrong's Last Goodnight" by the 17th century poet Dryden. Its words carry a message to those despairing of what happened yesterday.

"Fight on, my merry men all/ I'm a little wounded, but I am not slain; /I will lay me down for to bleed a while,/ Then I'll rise and fight with you again."

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/connelly/197951_joel03.html