Hey, there! A New Day is Dawning!
Jan 21st, 2009 | By Megan Edwards | Category: Random Thoughts, featured article
Photo by Dan Sedenquist“Hey, there! A new day is dawning, and we’ll be together. Happy are we.”
As my mind floated back toward consciousness early this morning, these words from an old summer camp song drifted through my mind. As I awoke, my intellectual faculties began switching on and providing analysis. My mental jukebox had searched its archive, I decided, and found a tune to match the feeling inspired by yesterday’s inauguration. Yeah, that was it! Our new president has taken the reins. “A new day is dawning.”
“And we’ll be together.” This line, too, matches well with the feeling of patriotic pride that rolled across the continent yesterday. Electing Barack Obama was not a one-person task. It took a groundswell. It took a majority. It took enough parts of the elephant to pull the rest along. Obama’s inauguration brought down a wall that has divided us since our country’s founding. For generations, we’ve been claiming we’re the land of equality, even though we knew full well that George Orwell’s pigs had it right when they said that some are more equal than others. Yesterday, we took a step far bigger than Neil Armstrong’s moonwalk. We’ve been talking the talk for a quarter of a millennium. Yesterday—at last—we walked the walk.
“Happy are we.” Yesterday, I think it’s fair to say that most Americans were happy, if not jubilant and downright euphoric. Today? I figure it’s up to each one of us. But the feeling that we’re together now lingers. And I’m still humming!
I hesitate to publish everything about the Obama administration I feel on my own website because my hard-core Republican family reads me. But, I have to say that the America Obama spoke of yesterday is the America I grew up loving. I didn’t recognize the gang of idiots that was America the past eight years. I’m going to hone down an opinion on what might have been happening and pubilsh it, but for now, I’ll say here (where my family won’t notice) how proud I am to be American just now. When I was little I knew that we could pull off getting rid of second-class citizenship, and so we (mostly) have. Damn, but that makes me feel better!
And, instead of calling himself a uniter, this man is acting like one. Can you believe it? As I said, the world has apparently gone sane! Is it safe?
My hope is that in a few years we will again be the shining beacon for the world, instead of the neighborhood bully. This country is just too good an experiment to let it go to helena handbasket. I am so looking forward to the next few years (in that regard.)
Steve
Steve,
If your family is very wired, they will still find this comment — but perhaps that is just as well?
Mark
Steve — yeah! I had the thought yesterday that the next time I’m at the Bellagio and the fountains are dancing to the strains of “Proud to be an American,” I won’t be feeling guilty. It’s been a while since my heart swelled in that regard, but difficult to express. I’m not a proponent of “love it or leave it.” I prefer “love it and improve it.” With Obama’s election, we improved something fundamental that’s been wrong from the start. And we got a uniter, too. Dang! We really did it! How can we not feel proud? I say going sane is worth the risk!
From a human standpoint this is too good to be true, my faith in the politics of the US, partisan or not, has been restored to the degree that there actually seems to be somebody who does give a damn. The fact that we have to have an agenda in order to accomplish goals doesn’t seem to matter anymore and that’s a good thing. Let us continue to exist peacefully and prosperously. All people are equal everywhere.
The world has hope now. From a Canadian who pays attention to world affairs.