Today was the day so many of have been waiting for. Initially I was just looking forward to saying goodbye to the horror that has been the Bush II administration. Then Barack Obama became the President-elect and I started looking forward to saying hello to some positive changes, and to celebrating an extremely important marker in the history of the United States in the election of the first African-American president.
For me the day was only partially about the Presidential inauguration. It was also about the millions of people who participated by going to Washington and standing for hours in the cold to share in a collective sense of hope and positive anticipation. For some today marked a moment of pride in emerging from the shadows represented by the term "minority" or "special interest" and being fully recognized as participants in the US experiment.
The moments that were truly important were not the moments of pomp and circumstance today. The moments of humanity and caring that broke through the boundaries of the trappings of power to reassert a warmth and human connection, as much as any political promise, represents the hope that President Obama brings as capital to his first four years in office.
The Obama children looking happy and relaxed during the ceremonies. The clear warmth between the President and the First Lady as they danced together. The faces of older folks who were participating in a moment that they never thought would happen while they lived. The faces of younger people excited to be alive and wondering what would happen next. These were among the moments that most moved me.
Now comes the time to realize the dreams, to ensure that the promised change is instantiated in the lives of working families across this nation.
While the President may want to take a non-partisan approach that insists on the unity of all the people of the United States as a single people looking for solutions to today's problems, he faces a complex poliitical establishment and the contradictions between his vision and the interests of different participants in the dance of power will make for an interesting drama in which we can all participate by engaging in organizations in neighborhoods and work places, encouraging those organizations to express themselves and build constituencies around areas of concern to the members, and helping the President to achieve the goals so many working families depend on to ameliorate the difficulties in which we find ourselves due to social and economic stresses not of our personal making.
My best wishes to the President and to all in these United States that work together for positive change on behalf of working families, the disenfranchised, and the oppressed, and for an end to racism, exploitation for private profit.
In unity and struggle,
rico49
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There has been much talk of "bipartisanship" which, I'm afraid at best, would only produce watered down versions of the change that our nation needs. It is my hope that this has been proposed mostly as political rhetoric and that in reality the Democrats are going to be willing to use their strength in numbers to provide our nation with real progressive change.
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