A Necessary Illness

[Tab]

I've been taking some time off from DU to deal with an illness, so I've written very little lately. I hope that when I'm done with treatment that I'll be healthy. Certainly, I'll have a greater respect for the value of health. As is so often the case, you don't know what something is worth until you lose it.

What has encouraged me most about the Obama win is not so much the win within the country (although make no mistake - I am thoroughly happy about that) but the reaction of the world. All over, the world is cheering, for they feel, as I do, that they have their old America back. The world WANTS us to succeed. They are cheering for us.

They are reminded that America was not a failed experiment. The thought of that is undoubtedly too depressing. I know that when I woke up the next morning after the 2004 election and found out that George Bush was still president, my faith in the system was sorely tested. In the intervening years, the damage has piled on - from Abu Ghraib, to signing statements, to refusals to testify - you name something that goes against the grain of the America I grew up with and it was probably done during the last 8 years.

As I am not working at the moment, I have had some time to contemplate this change of administrations. In some ways, the last eight years was a necessary cancer. Americans were not paying attention. We took our health for granted. We ignored warning signs at first, then didn't believe them when they were obvious, until it was too late and the injustices to our democracy overran our national body.

Many of us grew to believe we could not accomplish change on our own - that like living with a psychologically unbalanced person it is often impossible to win any argument, and that person - or the neoconservative movement - has far more energy and hate to spread than one person can muster up the energy to counteract. Ultimately, though, like living with such a person, you realize the relationship is toxic and you must get out. You must speak out. You can't be cowed and you won't be silenced. The right to free speech is really the right to dissent. Dissent is when you recognize from your viewpoint that something is wrong, and you say so.

It took a real whack on the head to wake this country up. That's an indication of how deep asleep we were. The rest of the world was starting to worry that we were perhaps in fatal downward-spiraling coma. And frankly, if the neocons had another four or eight years at the helm, perhaps we would be. Instead, we seemed to have made it to treatment just in time.

The world wants us healthy. They need us, and not just for whatever tangible benefits we may bring, but for the hope that our country can right itself when listing badly, that we may sometimes be preoccupied, but when called to really save a situation, we can do it. We are putting a halt to our national cancer and are going to pull out all stops to make ourselves healthy, and I predict we will be stronger than ever before, and with a far greater appreciation for our "freedoms" than has been felt for many years. We will reclaim them, and should not let them go easily, for when you sacrifice your freedom you lose all. We had a taste of what it was like to lose free speech, legal rights, and control over our government. As Patrick Leahy properly corrected that White House lawyer in a hearing, she did not take an oath to the president, her oath was to protect and defend the constitution.

Against all enemies, foriegn and domestic. The foreign ones are easy to identify. The domestic ones are much more subtle, because if they are people in power with the wrong agenda, or a hidden agenda, we have a responsibility to excise them for the health of the nation. This past Tuesday we did exactly that, and we shall grow in ways that have not been seen for decades. I believe that any administration should endeavor to leave the country in a better condition than it was when they started. With any luck, we will have a nation we are proud to hand over to our sons and daughters.

This truly is the greatest nation on earth.

[NC_Nurse]

1. I wish you a complete and speedy recovery.

Thanks for a great post. :hug:

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. You're right about all of it

Without Chimpy Fucknuts, we probably wouldn't have gotten Obama and the Democratic "surge." So, finally, Chimpy got one right.
Inadvertently.

I hope your treatment is uneventful and successful and that you're back and strong really soon.

Hang in there, Tab.

[Tab]

3. It's ironic

but that may be the one positive legacy he leaves.