A better world

As a relatively new parent, I'm more and more concerned about the future of our nation and our planet. Often I've seen the politics of this nation as a facade, a distraction, a game that the power elite play in order to keep our minds off of the real issues - inequity, millions nationwide and billions worldwide not having access to necessities, those in power struggling to maintain power. As such, I've felt for a long time that monikers like Democrat and Republican are nothing more than contrived labels designed to force us to opine about issues that shouldn't even be political.

But with that being said, I think there is little doubt that this country has "declined" in just about every sense of the word over the last eight years:

Unemployment has risen, "real" income has decreased, education has suffered the consequences of outdated policies and procedures (probably for longer than eight years), health care has become ridiculously complicated, and Constitutional Rights (whether you'd agree with the intentions of the Federalists or the Anti-Federalists) have been chipped away. Violence has begotten violence. Anger and deviceveness have flourished.

I think voters in this country showed in the 2008 election that a vast majority of the nation believes that much of this is due to poor leadership in Washington - mostly the current presidential administration. In 2006 we (voters) cut into the absolute power held by the Republican party, but that only slowed the pace of destructive agendas.

On November 5th, 2008, for the first time in my voting life, I witnessed what appeared to be real, unbridled, widespread exuberance as a result of an election. People were motivated and smiling. People looked hopeful and happy everywhere I went. Granted, I do live in a large city that traditionally leans to the left, but I can't say I ever noticed Clinton's election bring this much enthusiasm to our nation. The mood was not about Democrats beating Republicans, not about Bush's term coming to a close (well, maybe a little bit about the fact that McCain would not be around to continue the neo-con agenda), but more about people finally believing they elected a president of sound mind who has America's (and the world's) best interests in mind.

Obama is not the exalted individual that many make him out to be - he said he wouldn't take PAC money for his campaign and then later did. He spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on his presidential campaign. Like most presidents of modern times, he had to stop attending to his (important) job to focus on his campaign for almost two years. Obama is still a politician through and through. And like other presidents, he forgets his place in the Executive branch, talking about pushing through agendas when such subjects should instead be handled by our congress. But he is a politician who knows how to appeal to the mainstream. He is a politician who tries to bridge gaps and break through polarization, working to find common ground. He's by no means perfect, but for the first time in my voting life, I do believe he could be the most qualified for the job.

I hope that we and he can bring about the changes that have been promised. I hope that this world will be a better place in eight years. I hope this begins the path toward the next stages in human advancement - being able to live in harmony with our environment, being able to live in harmony with each other, providing equal opportunities for anyone who's interested. As we stand right now, we have to dig ourselves out of a hole. (Finally) coming full circle to the beginning of this post, I'm concerned about my daughter. For her to live a complete life, she'll need the following (in this order):

Clean Air - You can't last more than a couple of minutes without breathing. I hope new environmental policies will work toward this end.
Clean Water - You can last a couple days without it, but same story on the environmental policies.
Food - Can last a couple weeks without it, but best to ensure that food is of the highest quality and is raised / grown with the health of people in mind. I don't think that has historically been important.
Shelter - Improve the economy, most everyone should have adequate shelter.
Health Care - We're nowhere close yet, hope something gets done along the lines of universal health care.
Education - So she can continue to make the world a better place for the next generation.

I hope this election year becomes a catalyst for us to act, to evolve, to better ourselves. I hope we can believe the promises. But at least I finally have hope.

(Sorry for the ridiculously long post. This actually just started out as me noticing I hadn't posted in a while and turned into this big political rant. Yikes.)