And so the question whether the re-inauguration of our first
black president was appropriately set on MLK Day has been answered in many
ways. The Rev. Jesse Jackson, interviewed on CNN, viewed it positively,
projecting that MLK would have been pleased. Others saw these two historical
figures as more different than day from night.
Along the
political spectrum, the Green Party reflects my ideals and ideology more than
others, but as a pragmatist I vote Democratic and yesterday morning, felt tears
streaming from my eyes as the reality of Obama's reelection sank in. I had to
ask myself why I was crying.
Perhaps, despite
all of my progressive reservations about many of the president's policies and
actions, there is hope at the bottom of this barrel. Had Romney triumphed, the
barrel would have been empty. To realize that this hollow shell of a
personality racked up as many votes as he did is horrifying. So where in the
Constitution does it say that you can't run for President and be part owner of
a voting machine company? Is there a conflict-of-interests clause?
Where does it say
that a President can't profit off of an economic bailout he initially objected
to?
Where does it say
that someone guilty of, though not indicted for treason can't run for
President?
Thank God Obama
won. Even Tom Hayden agreed. He said that now he and his people can continue
inveighing against government policies with impunity.
But what really
nearly flooded my bathtub of emotions yesterday was that, no matter what you or
I think of Obama's policies and procedures, we
the people wanted him to win. The people's will prevailed, even with ten
million of their votes uncounted for various reasons. The Democratic Party is
the poor people's party.
As far as future
presidential elections are concerned, the minorities are together growing so
populous as a voting bloc that Republicans will have to become much craftier to
win future elections, despite their majority representation in the House of
Representatives though Democrats culled one million more votes.
The Republican
ingenuity going at the Electoral College in a way starkly opposite to that of
their opponents is unnerving. Instead of all states handing over their
electoral votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote, the Republican
approach is divisive: states will divide internally instead of unite--e pluribus pluribus rather than e pluribus unum. They are taking over
the House of Representatives the way that they wanted to take over the
presidency, which for them these days is out of the question.
They have
progressed from their states'-rights principles to intrastate wrongs.
Then there's
their other bastion, the Supreme Court; well, an other, anyway. Don't forget corporations and megaPACs. It makes
little sense to me that, at different levels, judicial posts can be either
elected or appointed. I think that the Justices of the Supreme Court should
have to run for office, as long as they are so clearly politically motivated.
Chief Justice Roberts's decision in favor of the ACA was highly political. He
wanted to throw a dog biscuit to the liberals in return for his overthrow of
our entire political landscape with the Citizens
United decision.
*****
All of that said, I certainly sympathize with President
Obama's wrenching need for a cigarette yesterday afternoon as he watched the
post-Inauguration panoply. The sight of a President chomping chewing gum, be it
Nicorette or otherwise, is disconcerting. I wonder what was really eating him.
Something we could know about or never will?
It is not easy to
be a black president trying to work with racists. I can't imagine the degree of
hatred that crackles around him every day on the job. I can imagine that he
feels compelled to govern to the middle and, given how far right the right wing
has drifted, many of his decisions are back stabbing and gut wrenching. I'm not
condoning them.
I think that he
is governing, as much as he is, with a knife perpetually stuck in his back.
Remember that he had the most liberal voting record of anyone in the U.S.
Senate.
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