Yes We Could

I have some friends who don’t share my political beliefs and some who do. We’ve been emailing articles back and forth during this divisive campaign season. I’m sure the rest of you have been going through the same experience. While I’m not ready to pretend the last eight years never existed (how can I? we’ll be living with the damage forever.) But as the Thanksgiving season approaches, I want to reach across the table with an image of a barn. It’s time to join hands and rebuild. Here is the email I sent round today.

We did it. OMG. Our oldest called twice from Germany, on the land line! There were lectures at some university building all day Tue/Wed AM about the American political system. She said McDonald's was giving out free hamburgers. Virtually no one was for McCain. She phoned just as Wolf Blitzer was calling PA. They were watching CNN too and cheering as the states were called for Obama. We were watching CNN and talking to her at the same time. Is that too cool for school? Her second call was after 8pm our time so it was 6am their time and she was heading back home, all screamed out.

I don't know what makes me happier, having an African-American president, first lady and first family, or getting rid of the Republicans and installing the Democrats once again. I have hope that we can move forward to rebuild and repair our country - the economy, the health care system, the environment and our image in the world. I pray that we can reverse the harm that Reaganism has done to this country.

True, I wanted Hillary, partly because I thought she was the right person for the job, partly because she was a woman and I wanted to see that in my lifetime and truth be told, partly because she was a boomer and I'm not ready to pass the torch. But if this is what it takes to make change happen, so be it. We need a new New Deal. Besides, now she can go off and channel Eleanor to her heart's content and become the new Teddy Kennedy in the Senate.

We stayed home to watch the returns so we could be with our youngest. She cried during Obama's speech and told us she was so inspired. When I made calls and drove to Nevada I remembered why I was doing this. It's not easy making cold calls. But as I cradled my cell phone and hesitated over punching the buttons, I pictured my two girls and the future I wanted for them.

About six years ago I was driving down Kanan and Thousand Oaks Blvd. with them in the car and the Simon & Garfunkel song about going off to look for America came on. I started to cry. They asked me why and I said I wanted my country back. Now, after years of fear about how much worse it could get, I can be proud of my country again.

With love and respect and to a future where we all work together once again.

Great Depression II

I just came back from back-to-school night for our daughter who’s a high school junior. She’s taking, among other subjects, AP English and AP History – the American versions of both.

She doesn’t know how lucky she is. To be reading about our great country during the difficult times we’re going through. Of course, she’s only 16 and she isn’t aware of the problems.

I thought if I told her about the financial market debacle this week I could guilt her into cleaning up her room and getting more organized for what should be a most difficult year but I was being selfish and stopped myself before I dumped the problems of the adults on the shoulders of a 16 year old.

But I did want to sit in on her classes for sure, especially if this time around I could bring to it the knowledge and discipline of an adult. Instead, I went to the Internet to find Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech about the four freedoms and then I started surfing. I found his first inaugural address from March 4, 1933, the one about fear and read it all the way through. I was guessing that it would be as encouraging a message for our times as it was for my parents and grandparents going through the Great Depression. Damned if I wasn’t right.

Check out this site for the speech. Read through all of it. It will lift your spirits. After a week of financial disaster and head banging BS from the Republican candidates, I needed to know that if we got out of one hell of a pickle, we could once again. You will be amazed at how similar our times are to those of the First Great Depression.

Surely FDR’s America, listening around a radio, was no smarter than our America now. Yet Mr. Bush is seemingly AWOL once again. A bad case of senioritis I would say. And McCain/Palin, well, I’m beyond insulted at how stupid they must think I am. Once we had real leaders. I pray that one day we will again. Obama can inspire, but can he lead, can he pull together his own brain trust for the tough days ahead?

When economists throw around phrases like “worst financial disaster since the Great Depression” I can only assume that they know the full impact of what they are saying. I can only hope that they aren’t just reaching for another sound bite, that they actually stayed awake during their American history and English classes. Because I did and those words have resonated in my head all week.

My daughter has to read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath this year. Perhaps I should offer to be her study buddy.