It will come as no surprise to anyone who know me that my political views lean to the conservative, so as things unfold over the next few days, I am confronted with an issue of pride v. dissappointment, and how to meld those two feelings.
My issue stems from the fact that I am having mixed emotions as the events in Washington D.C. unfold over the next few days, and because of those emotions, I am incredibly conflicted. I confess that I am certainly dissappointed that Obama is REALLY going to become President. I guess, even though I went through real discouragement when the election occurred, the intervening months have given me some false sense that the whole election was some sort of bad, drug-induced dream that wasn't going to happen. Now, as we are inundated with innauguration coverage, I have come to realize that there's no such luck. We are about to embark on four (or eight) years of Democratic rule. Already, I read the headlines of climate control legislation, insanely huge stimulus/bailout packages and armed services that will be plagued by the sexual orientation of everyone's bunkmate, and I know it's coming. I know that as much loud and boisterous compalining that Republicans in Congress will do, the bottom line is that there won't be a whole lot they can do when push comes to shove.
At the same time, there is a part of me that is being caught up in the fact that our country once again can change leaders, and we don't have to hold our breath - wondering whether armed troops will line the street for it to happen. It will happen peacefully, and in some sense, that peacefulness will be all the more amazing considering the perspectives of the two most important men on the poduim (Bush and Obama). I am fascinated that we honestly are experiencing the first time that a white male is not leading the free world, and even though I disagree 150% with Obama's politics, he is an African-American, and is about to do something no other African-American has done. I think that must be significant, somehow.
On the other side, I am trying not to let my emotion become sucked into the propaganda machine that exists even more clearly than it did two months ago. For some reason, in one example, it was tyranny when Bush spent $40 million on his '04 innauguration, but Obama's $150 million is an acceptable amount, according to the media. We have people losing jobs, banks falling apart, but yet it's perfectly fine to have a completely obnoxious celebration in the midst of all the turmoil. The press is so biased, and now, more than even last fall, there is no way they can deny it.I don't know - there's good and bad here, and perhaps it's my pride that's preventing me from fully admitting the good, but at the same time, it might be my conservative common sense preventing me from being completly sucked in. It's even to the point I'm conflicted as to whether I should step out of my schedule on Tuesday to watch things, or whether my refusal to participate in this "coronation" is my valid, silent protest.
To complicate matters all the more, I watched President Bush speak last nite, and I was moved by his generosity and willingness to welcome Obama. It has hard for me to imagine a world where Bush is not president. When he became President, I had been married for about one year and was not a father. My life has changed so drastically since he took office - even to the fact that we were discussing last nite that all three of my kids have only lived during his presidency. There is a sentimentality to seeing him leave - I think that despite what anyone's political perspectives might be, they have to admit that he faced a very different world than what existed when he started his term, and in the midst of that came the defining moment for a generation - a moment more defining than any innauguration. A moment that changed how each of us saw the world, and thankfully, on Bush's watch, that moment has repeated itself - something that makes me thankful as a husband and the father of three children.
So, to watch or not to watch - submission to self-pride and bitterness or submitting to the thought that I am thankful to be an American where power will peacefully be transferred from one party to another, from one man to another - and a world where we'll all wake up on Jan. 21, and Republican or Democrat - we'll all still be a part of this country.
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