Diggin' up dirt is an honest exercise. Planting thangs that grow is too. The whole point is growth of the good, snatchin' out the weeds. I was thinkin' of what was to come when dirt redistribution and taxation of seeds took effect. I'se still in stunned wonder at the instant transformation of the world, now safe for fascists and terrorists. I'se thinkin' how I ain't been this terrified since Uncle's barber scorched his scalp an' he thought his 27 year ole haid ws gonna be bald...an I laughed and the look I got back was, well, terryifyin'.I ought to put a few words on paper, my last O word, so ter speak. But, then, this heah little gem landed in mah inbox.
From Iowahawk.
Election Analysis: America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster
Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don't care whether you are a conservative or a liberal -- when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation's highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread. 
Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let's not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama's election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country's struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left.
Less than fifty years ago, African-Americans were barred from public universities, restaurants, and even drinking fountains in many parts of the country. On Tuesday we came together and transcended that shameful legacy, electing an African-American to the country's top job -- which, in fact, appears to be his first actual job. Certainly, it doesn't mean that racism has disappeared in America, but it is an undeniable mark of progress that a majority of voters no longer consider skin color nor a dangerously gullible naivete as a barrier to the presidency.
It's also heartening to realize that as president Mr. Obama will soon be working hand-in-hand with a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard like Senator Robert Byrd to craft the incoherent and destructive programs that will plunge the American economy into a nightmare of full-blown sustained depression. As Vice President-Elect Joe Biden has repeatedly warned, there will be difficult times ahead and the programs will not always be popular, or even sane. But as we look out over the wreckage of bankrupt coal companies, 
nationalized banks, and hyperinflation, we can always look back with sustained pride on the great National Reconciliation of 2008. Call me an optimist, but I like to think when America's breadlines erupt into riots it will be because of our shared starvation, not the differences in our color.
It's obvious that this newfound pride is not confined to Americans alone. All across the world, Mr. Obama's election has helped mend America's tattered image as a racist, violent cowboy, willing to retaliate with bombs at the slightest provocation. The huge outpouring of international support following the election shows that America can still win new friendships while rebuilding its old ones, and provides Mr. Obama with unprecedented diplomatic leverage over our remaining enemies. When Russian tanks 
start pouring into eastern Europe and Iranian missiles begin raining down on Jerusalem, their leaders will know they will be facing a man who not only conquered America's racial divide but the hearts of the entire Cannes film community.
And those Al Qaeda terrorists plotting a dirty nuke or chemical attack on San Francisco face a stark new reality: while they may no longer need to worry about US Marines, they are looking down the barrel of a strongly worded diplomatic condemnation by a Europe fully united in their deep sympathy for surviving Americans.
So for now, let's put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said "I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore.
23 comments:
Have faith and strength Aunty.
Never fear. We won't stop being labeled racists just because of a little thing like this.
Thanky Iamnot fer the encouragement--heh.
BTW, I didn't git yore attention wif' the thang about Uncle's barber?
Last word? You will have to restrain yourself mighty good. lol
I might have to borrow this one too... said all that I was feeling and couldn't find the words.
Do you remember how we used the word "scared" and "scary" when we thought Gore might get in the white house in 2000? And the same in 2004 when Kerry looked like he might actually get there? Geesh, I'd be happy with either one of them at this point.
Meems!! Oh-no!!! I jes' did a garden' post--an' ya missed it...it is right before this post--go take a look--ain't as gorgeous as your Eden, but it is mah wee little attempt.
Yep, Sugar, youse too right--I'd take a Gore, that hapless noodle of a man. Kerry? Well, Teresa would be wif' him na' she smells dangerous to me--but nothin like MichelleO, gack! I mean, does ya want a first woman (nuthin' ladylike about her) who hates her country?
That was very very good. Swiftian.
Ten bazillion Moi points to Troll for the Swiftian reference.
That pic and the "celebrations" generally are good evidence that we need to raise the voting age.
Hi COMRADES!!!!
Just to let you know that we in the United States of Europe all send our deepest sympathy to you at this time of national peril.
We have fought communism for a long time here but managed to hold out. Don't feel too bad about giving in to it now.....at least you can holiday in CUBA without worryin' that they're gonna LYNCH YA!!!!!
Your all buddies now.....jest get a bit more red in those ole stars and stripes!
A
I had to Google "swifitan"
-10 points for me.
grrherhahaha what killer (tee hee) photos of putin and the dinner jacket! well hail far aunty these guys look awright to me! i love iowahawk.
Iowahawk rules!
JD
Troll-Swift,
yeah... heh. Fer a youngun, youse clevah.
MOI!
If only you'd campaigned harder, dahlink...now see what we must endure?
Troll-Sugar,
does A seem to be following ya around?
Anon-Ardlair,
oh? ya managed to hold out? What does ya call them thugs in the EU parliament who tries to force Ireland to sign the perverted document they's preteneding is a constitution?
A.B.,
+ 1000 points fer the curiosity to bother lookin' up Swiftian!
K9 Pup,
heh...why is these men smilin'
Yeah, foolish Yanks put a doofus in the chair...easy pickin's is comin' fer the tyrants of the world.
Anon JD,
welcome to the Porch. Did ya find this by tags?
ah ab, all is not so dark and despairing - the end of the world is not at hand.
but, the nation still has a deep division in world view. how did we ever arrive at such a gulf between expectations? perception? interpretation?
but perhaps you see a little now what it was like for 49% of the population over the last 8 years. there was no compromise from the 51% - only a riding roughshod. we cannot of tyranny of the majority - regardless of who the majority is.
but how can we bridge this divide? each side must compromise - but as i jokingly said to a colleague the other day - except on MY issues - the ones that are REALLY IMPORTANT - of course therein lies the rub - we none of us want to give in on what we hold near and dear - yet we must somehow give a little or we will break - and that is what will be our undoing, not the obama administration.
obama is not so left as many on the right make him out to be - that's why leftie idealogues don't care for him - why he worries them. he will not necessarily pursue a leftist agenda, nor will he pursue a totally progressive agenda. he is a bargainer of sorts. a pragmatist.
have you read shelby steele's "A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He Can't Win"? ab? i found it a fascinating discussion of racial identify (thought i disagree often with steele). steele posits that two kinds of african-americans - challengers and bargainers - and Obama is the latter. but i think he is not just a bargainer in terms of racial identity, but also in ideaology (spelling is wretched this morning).
i loved the garden post. though i am still quite content in my city apartment, i do miss a garden of my own from time to time.
Howdy Bird Beauty,
Oh honey, it sure ain't the end of the world--jes' a nasty brutish regime to endure--like the Romans under Nero.
I hears ya' sentiment, an' agree that we's very divided. But here's the thang about compromise:
When the disagreement is over how to achieve a goal, then a meet-ya-in-the-middle- approach is sensible and the better part of valor.
But when 50% of the nation has one goal, and the other 50% has a wholly other goal--ya have two different countries livin' on top of each other.
Thas' whar' we is, Bird. So we see-saw back an forth ever' 4 or 8 years...it ain't no way to run a country.
The plain fact of the matter is that the conservatives is too tolerant--I mean, that we permit the worst of the left to get away with barbarism and crass vulgarity which poisons the culture. The left-moderate doan EVER knuckle their own bad folk.
Here's a few easy non-polarizin' examples:
1) AL Gore is a fool, a liar and an incompetent. He did not invent the internet. He does not care a fig for the environment other than as a broom to ride across the moon for his personal advancement. His personal living is gluttonous vis a vis the environment. His massive primary residence is not only not energy efficient, it violates all "best practices"...an the apparatchiks of the left know this and laugh about it. They jes' keep putting press releases on how Gore cares so mush and the sheeple greeniacs believe this swill.
Meanwhile, GWB's Crawford home is state of the art "green" --was before he became POTUS.
2) The libs re-elect crooks--Jefferson wif' money in his New Orleans freezer, or that dope headed graft taking pervert of Marion Berry. They permit repulsive "spokesmen" like Al Franken or Michael Moore to make the rounds of the media yak-fests, rather than find a principled Dem
(even a weirdly leftist like Evan Byah at least has MANNERS).
Republican voters tend --in general--to not return crooks to office, and they do not use freakazoids (Sharpton, Franken) as spokesmen.
Note what my point is--I am not saying that there are not weak, jerks in both camps. I am saying the Democrats think it is OK.
It is a matter of awidening cultural divide--we doan wanna live in each others world.
Conservatives (which is NOT to say republicans --McCain is NO conservative) do not want to live with coarse elements that have become standard fare on TV as "entertainment."
They do not want kindergarten babies in sex ed classes. They do not want the creation of a larger an' larger strata of the population that thinks the gubmint is gonna do ever' thang fer them--git real--make YORE OWN LIFE, like the Vietnamese boat people did--
America is so great, so cool, that a person willing to work can make their dreams come true. But libs have the idea that dreams come true by the hand of the gubmint! Ya'll get all tingly at the idea of "helping people" but all ya is doin' is keepin' those folks as pets. Yep, ya feed them and house them and lead 'em around on a leash, vote here, mark this circle...
Dems create a permanent underclass whose one thought is "gimme."
Sorry, Bird-Beauty, but there ain't no patch to put over the gash between us philosophically--I WOULD NOT live in yore city--it is beautiful, heart stoppin' beautiful, but it is corrupt an' debauched. I ain't lookin' to live in such. An' it is a metaphor for all thangs liberal, in mah view.
I'se glad youse cheery, darlin' truly I is--flappin' by heah to let me know yore joy--an' truly, I git that ya think it is yore turn after 8 GWB years.
Ya think it is yore turn cause--like me & dems--ya doan wanna live in the world that conservatives would build--so now ya got yore own hoss, an' ya think yore turn is finally heah.
But fer folks like me, it ain't about takin' turns. I doan think wrong has rights--evah. I doan think we oughta give wrong a its own turn at the helm, I doan think human weakness should be elevated to the status of legal protection, an' I doan think a man who moved to insure that medical care be withheld from a baby who survived a botched abortion because it would "burden the original decision" (to abort) is fit to president of the port-a-potty society.
Ain't tryin' to git all highbrow, but bottom line is this:
Conservatives do NOT think man is perfectible iffin' he has enough license to "do his own thang" and "guilt" is removed from the language, and religion neutered an' that "natural" man will evolve into some naturally peace -seekin' humanoid if only we can engineer the right social policy, gather to sing kumbaya an soak the achievers so the "the right balance" of distributed goods is given to yore pets, the right political system..yadda yadda yadda--all that utopian fodder.
What? Ya never read Lord of the Flies?
Mankind is NOT evolving morally or politically.
Here is a challenge. Read Cicero. Virgil. Aristotle. We ain't no smarter, no further advanced. Less, I reckon.
Liberals want to find a magic system that will open a portal into nirvana on earth, a mild bacchanalian dimension where never a harsh word is heard, never a rebuke is offered.
Woan happen, but the liberals, having learned nuthin' in the 20th century will kill another 100 million in this century to try to achieve it.
But doan worry, be happy.
Birdy, glad ya saw the garden post--doan ya have a few posies on your balcony?
Belle.
youse is an inspiration for the good folks! I loved your respectably spoken but oh-so-informative response to Bird.
a beautiful good morning to you AB.i have left a comment responding to your recent comment over at my roost.
now, about your last comment to me here:
methinks you have somewhat overstated both the "evils" of the dems and the virtures of the conservatives. you've applied a broad brush that paints all dems one way and all conservatives another. frankly, i think all of us, as a whole, are equally responsible for turning a blind eye to corrupt politicians, and as far as the idiocy of who is making the rounds and spouting forth the talking points - again - equal responsibility.
but your stance saddens me, as what you say may well be true - no way to come together. so when one side offers the olive branch, the other brushes it aside.
we are at impasse when one half wants to impose its will on the other half. who cares which half is in the position of imposition. this is, as you say, no way to run a country.
yes, san francisco has its share of corruption - but most places have some corruption - in one form or another. small towns and small cities have their share as well. but all san francisco, like any other place (your place too, AB) has fine qualities as well.
time to focus on the good stuff. time to find common ground.
because without common ground, this country goes down.
p.s. sadly, i have not a balcony - no outdoor space of my own (like many a city rat). but i have all of san francisco's greenbelts and parks to enjoy. my favorite is the Rose Garden and the Botanical Gardens in Golden Gate Park - not to mention the numerous, small public gardens that are scattered about the city (quite a few in my neighborhood).
one of these days, i will take my camera with me on my neighborhood walk and show you the gardens i enjoy.
see - we have some common ground.
To Bird
Auntie mentioned jerks in both groups so don't speak of broad brushes.
The olive branch you speak of is your idea of an olive branch not anything a conservative would find any value in.
Jeff
I wonder what planet Bird inhabits regarding the majority "running roughshod over" and "never compromising" with the minority the last 8 years. Especially since there were only 6 years where Republicans held that razor-thin majority status on paper.
It would be closer to the truth to say the Bush Rino trashed Conservative principles in order to gather bi-partisan votes on many many many initiatives.
"No Department of Education Bureaucrat Left Behind". "Enormously expensive Prescription Drug Benefit for Seniors who Don't need it".
"Let's grant amnesty but not call it Amnesty".
The list is endless.
Is there a little space on the porch for a UK cuz?
I've followed your election for months, like many in Britain and I'm sorry for the result.
What you lose, you will never regain so fight every attempt to destroy the Nation you love from within.
I've heard some Conservatives say "just four years to go".
This is naive, trust me.
Who will take back the freebies from the subsidy junkies, the professional victims?
In the UK and Europe the hard luck story wins every time, the tax payer just bleeds more cash until we are working not to feed and clothe our own families but the offspring of the immigrant and workshy.
This is ahead for you, where mediocrity is glorified and independent thought is sneered at and discouraged.
America was a beacon for the Free World, dont let the light dim by submitting to the forces of Socialism.
Britain and Europe have already fallen.
Cat
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