Learning To Hope: Thanksgiving 2006

[Plaid Adder]

I just went through a bunch of my old posts from George W. Bush's second term. I have not forgotten how bad I felt this time two years ago, when we were facing another four years of his rule. I will never forget the day after that election. George W. is responsible for a lot of other memories of mine that will haunt me till the end. Memories of Shock and Awe, Abu Ghraib, Katrina, Fallujah, Samarra, Baghdad, Baghdad, Baghdad...For six years, he and his worked overtime to turn my country into something I couldn't even recognize. I think the best description I ever came up with of what George W. did to me and to all of us during his six years of more or less unimpeded power was near the end of a DU column from October 2004 called The Immoderator, in which an imaginary debate between Bush and Kerry, moderated by an imaginary me, becomes more and more ludicrous and sadistic until Bush's protest finally sparks this outburst from the imaginary me:

No. It's not right. I'm not right. I've been treating you as if you weren't a human being with rights and feelings just because you're my enemy. I've denied you the opportunity and the ability to make your case to the public. I've framed this event so that all your responses are overdetermined and you'll never be able to persuade the audience no matter what you do or say.I'm not right. I'm taking advantage of you because I've got you in my power and I'm fanatically committed to taking you down no matter how foul my methods have to get. I've manipulated everything I can manipulate and I've badgered and belittled and tormented you any way I can because I'm terrified, I'm desperate, I'm unbelievably angry, and I am ruthlessly protecting the last tiny piece of safe territory left to me like the cornered animal that you have made me. I have been treating you since you showed up here without mercy, without compassion, and without any respect for basic human dignity. I know perfectly well that even you don't deserve to be treated that way, but after four years of living under your rule I can't even remember why that's true. You've been pumping your hatred and lies and selfishness and filth into my country's veins since the century began and now I am as polluted as you are. I am the Swift Boat smearers, I am Fox News, I am the shifting pretext. I am pre-emptive war. I am Guantanamo. I am Abu Ghraib. I am your America, George. How do you like me?

I don't know how George W. liked his America. But I know that this Thanksgiving, one of the main things I am thankful for is that it's not his America any more. Not all the way, not all the time. It is going to be a long fight. But we will get it back. Our country is going to be ours again.

It is so strange, after six years of going from bad to worse to beyond your worst nightmare, to finally have hope. But I do; and that is a miracle for which I will never get tired of thanking people. Every day when I check out the DU front page and see that one of the Congressional Democrats has proposed something that will roll back Bush's executive power-grab or restore habeas corpus or start investigating shit that should have been investigated years ago, it reminds me afresh how miraculous this is. We are not stuck any more. We are not traveling inevitably toward the darkest regions of hell any more. We may still be floundering in the black river but at least we have turned the boat around and are headed for the shore. Things have changed. Things are changing. Things will change.

I saw this morning that Speaker-to-be Pelosi has announced that the House of Representatives will be in session as soon as they get sworn in, instead of waiting for Bush to trot out another mendacious, pathetic, poorly-delievered state of the Union address. Great. I love that. It cheers me up just to know that from now on, the news will be capable of surprising me. In a good way. And to know that no matter what happens during the next two years, one thing it will not be is business as usual. Thank God for that.

You keep trying, no matter what; you fight without hope, just because you have to fight, just because you can't stand to just let it all go to hell without at least trying to stop it. And for years, it seems like it doesn't make a damn bit of difference. And then, finally, it does.

Two Thanksgivings ago, my despair over the election results was so dark that the only thing I could do to make myself feel better was amuse myself by writing a hatchet job on Lynne Cheney's curiously revealing novel Sisters.. I was surprised to find that the lesbian sex angle had been severely overblown. From my point of view, the really dirty parts of her novel were not about sex but about power--specifically, the kind of power her husband Dick knows so well and wields so crassly:

At the end of the day, folks, Lynne Cheney is just not about sex; she's all about the money and the power. Specifically, this novel about how the smart thing for a woman to do is to get her hands on as much money and power as she can have without exposing herself to the dangers that threaten all the women who challenge the capitalist/patriarchal system. Sophie sums it all up a few pages after she's done having sex with her cattle baron:

Sophie pondered a moment why she had been able to remain a member of polite society despite having violated so many of its rules, and she decided the reason was her position. As head of Dymond Publications, she could impose her will on others, and as long as she could do that, the world could not entirely cast her down with its opinions. An insight came to her: this is what men have always known. This is why they can behave privately in ways that violate the public morality and not be ruined. Because they have power. (115)

This is what men have always known; well, this is what Lynne's man has always known, that's for damn sure. You can behave privately in ways that violate the public morality and not be ruined as long as you have power.

Well, they don't have absolute power any more. And I cannot wait for them to finally be ruined.

Not just because I will enjoy watching them fall, though there is that. But because their rule has been disastrous for the country and for the world, and the sooner it is brought to an end the better off we all are. And now it looks like that is finally happening. And I cannot express how thankful I am for that.

Since 2004, in a lot of ways, I have been mourning the death of hope. This year, I feel it reborn again. And I feel how much I have missed it, how much I really need it.

Happy thanksgiving to all of you, especially all of you who have done so much to make this change possible. I am grateful to everyone who helped fashion this turning point. And I hope the change will be swift, and that it will reach everyone who has suffered unjustly at the hands of these bastards, before it is too late to do them any good.

Happy Thanksgiving,

The Plaid Adder

[catrose]

1. K&R

and a happy, hopeful Tday to all

[Blue in Bama]

2. I have admirned your posts

for quite some time. I decided to speak up myslef finally. But once you were so down you were going to quit writing. Remember that column? I'm glad ya didn't!
RW

[antigop]

3. Welcome to DU, Blue in Bama

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

[Blue in Bama]

17. Belated thanks

I had a much deserved sleep in. Watching Macys parade outa one eye and typing with one hand, bloody mary firmly clinched in the other. I almost act like a red stater on Thanksgiving (the horror, the horror) but rven I can only take just a nominal amount of NFL games. Bring back the sleep fairy by dusk, please. I'm off again tomorrow and might actually get rested up!
Happy to have found this DU site,
Randall

[texpatriot2004]

4. K & R. Thanks Plaid Adder and Happy Thanksgiving in this

season of hope.

[omega minimo]

5. It would help if people understood this didn't start 6 years ago with George Dubya Bush

:hi:

[wryter2000]

19. Amen to that

Frankly, I put the beginning of the decline at around 1966/67 when George Wallace became the darling of the college lecture circuit. (I'm not sure Goldwater really belongs in the same category as the current rwers.) I thought at the time "that George Wallace? What are people thinking?" I think that's the first time that the powers that be realized what an effective tool hate and fear could be.

[beltanefauve]

6. Hope!

I know, a very foreign feeling. Six years isn't all that long, chronologically, but to watch one's country become so totally unrecognizable as it has can really do a number on one's hope. I never stopped believing. But I've also believed in, "Let it begin with me". Hope springs eternal when each of us, one at a time, in our own small way, plants a seed. Now we have to nurture the seedlings.

[madrchsod]

7. after the elections i thought of these lyrics.

"People get ready, there's a train a-comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord"-curtis mayfield

yes there is a train a comin` and we just have to get on board. we still have a long way to go but i think we will arrive where we need to go...

[illinoisprogressive]

8. Mourning Hope

That is so profound and true. I think many of us have without knowing it. The day Bush won his second term, it seemed to me for about 2 days I heard this silence in the air. People were going about thier business and the cars kept wizzing by but, I heard a deafening silence.
I never knew why.
I think with those words you wrote it may have been the total loss and death of hope for me.
Looking back, there has been a shadow of a dark cloud hovering since then.
Last year I found blogs. I clung to them. My only hope of truth and knowing how to find others who felt the rage and despair I felt.
I stayed up half the night November 7th feeling like dancing and like I was lighter than air. I slept a few hours and stayed glued to my television all day. It was so wonderful and exciting. So much joy for the first time in forever. there was light again. I ate everything on the news programs up like a starving wretch.
I felt rebirth. Like things were put right and as it should be. Everything felt like it was going to be okay.

[mwar]

9. Here's what I think....

I view this time as only a brief respite from the larger war. I have been so fatigued by outrage and simmering anger, I’m almost out of ways to express it. Every day I think about the many ways our lives have been under attack for so many years while standing amongst the flocks of oblivious feast birds.

It has been both a curse and a blessing to have been given the ability to see these things. I suppose I should be thankful for that during this time of year, as difficult as it is.

But the most troubling things to me remain those that do not happen. There has been no national sense of alarm, no general urgency during these years when country has been under a terrible multi-level assault from within.

Common sense based morality continues to be displaced by a bigoted version of religious exclusion. Science continues to be discredited and not yet acknowledged as the sole reason that this planet can support so many of us simultaneously. Even as science may increase our lifespan, we still don’t take advantage of the time to rise above centuries of religiously driven ignorance. And when science dictates an immediate modification of our behavior to continue that tenuous human existence on our planet, the government of its most powerful nation attacks the message at home and struggles to suppress it elsewhere.

The cultural degradation of this country continues to accelerate. Education continues to be diminished in schools in favor of system performance statistics. It’s as if a team of corporate auditors have been installed with an agenda to dismantle public education in keeping with the larger schemes of social privatization.

While we may all breathe a small sigh of relief at the outcome of the past elections, I for one will refrain from taking anything for granted. Although I believe our very existence has been pushed off a cliff, I take some solace in knowing that gravity does not accelerate in a linear fashion.

There is still some time to learn to fly, unlike the pitiful flightless creatures so many of us will gorge ourselves on today.

[Dudley_DUright]

10. I felt exactly the same way in 2004 PA, but my current hope

is tempered by the knowledge that Bush still has a veto pen and (at least in his own mind) the power to start wars any time he wants (e.g. Iran). I will have even more hope after 2008 if the country does not backslide and elect yet another republican as president. Happy Thanksgiving to all at DU. You all are the best.

[The Wizard]

15. Bush can start an air war

but we have a compromised ground force because of the mismanaged Iraq debacle. And Congress still holds the purse strings. Let's hope there aren't enough of them on Halliburton's payroll to keep funding Bush's insanity.
Congress recinded the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and cut off the funding of the Vietnam War. It's always about the money.

[democrank]

11. It will be a very long time

before I`ll be able to accept that so many Americans sat back and not only watched this happen but supported Bush`s reckless, dangerous policies. Were they too busy? Disinterested? Duped?

Perhaps my experience with civil disobedience during the Vietnam War made me believe that we`d take to the streets in droves. I thought Abu Ghraib would do it. Or the secret torture planes. Or the warrantless wiretaps. Or the how many billions a minute spent on the invasion of Iraq? Or the mushroom cloud lies. Or even the sullying of our good name around the world. Or the rubber stamp Congress. How many soldiers died while we were shopping or planning our next vacation or watching Dancing with the Stars?

Last night I watched Lawrence O`Donnell on Keith Olbermann`s Countdown. At the end of his segment, he was near tears as he spoke of our soldiers trapped in Iraq and the Thanksgiving holiday most of us will enjoy today. I cried like there was no tomorrow, because for some of our soldiers, there won`t be. Yesterday on CNN a reporter talked about how he decided to give up his nice, leather toiletry bag for a regular baggie when flying. Such sacrifice. Such depth.

Perhaps we`ll be able to turn this thing around, but it will take more than chatting with focus groups or repeating a strategist`s talking points.It will take more than a pale blue backdrop with feel-good phrases. It will take an acknowledgement of just how low we`ve sunk at the hands of First Sociopath, George W. Bush.

[H2O Man]

12. Happy Thanksgiving to you & yours.

I did not think that hope died in 2004. It was a harsh year, for sure, and a lot of the plant that progressive democrats were tending did indeed wilt. But a kernel of that plant fell into the muck & mire, and the composted remains of that election cycle provided the nourishment for that small seed to grow.

[NC_Nurse]

13. As usual, an excellent post.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and all DU'er's! I feel SO much better this year than I have since 2000.
It's great to see that the entire system has not been gamed - at least not yet - and we have a chance to stop that from happening!
I am grateful for DU and the posters like PA who so eloquently sum up the things I've been feeling that most folks down here in NC just don't see....
Thank you!

[Demeter]

14. Don't Let Hope Die A-borning!

We have to not only clean up after the Infant King, but also child- (and idiot-) (and fascist-)proof the government, so that somebody with a better brain than Rove's can't ever pull this stuff again.

We have to educate the Red States. Their only reason for being red is sheer ignorance. They ignore Reality in all its forms, until it bites them really hard (usually to death). And they LIKE their ignorance; they are DAMN PROUD of it! This MUST change.

Karl Rove has as good as admitted to conspiracy to commit election fraud, with his cryptic comment on "his math" and the evidence of a 4% tilt built into the election machinery. It was LUCK that the political situation went into meltdown AFTER the machines had been doctored, and that the precipitous plunge put theft beyond the range of Plausible Deniability. This MUST be investigated. Witnesses must be offered money and protection to spill what they know (and there aren't many of them).

Impeachment, conviction and imprisonment MUST proceed, and quickly. There's no golden parachute in the public world, unlike the corporate, and we want to be sure that would-be tyrants get the disincentives loud and clear. An example MUST be made.

These are our true New Year's Resolutions! Let us give thanks that we can even talk about it with a sense of possibility!

[rosesaylavee]

16. Well said as usual.

I needed that burst of hope on 11/7 to give me energy to continue on to the struggles ahead of us all in 2007. As someone has already mentioned, there are those signing statements to contend with still.

I am thankful for your continued sane and insightful postings here on DU.

Happy Thanksgiving to you!

[wryter2000]

18. Thank you

I, too, have hope. We all have to stay on our Dems in Congress to do the right thing. I know my Barbaras (Lee and Boxer) will fight the good fight. I promise to stay on top of DiFi. On to 2007!

[Hidden Stillness]

20. 2006--A Wonderful Year After All

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." (Proverbs 13:12.)
"Now abideth faith, hope, and charity." (1 Corinthians 13:13.)

Now that the sun is coming up, the Republican lies and smear campaigns no longer work and are even being answered angrily by the American people themselves, the tide has turned, and we are returning to our rightful place as the center and mainstream of American politics, the relief has come back, and you can now imagine how you will get back home. You can't feel real relief until the process was well-enough along, that you can see, and feel, the road up ahead, and know it led there. I actually had a good sense that things might be all right, believe it or not, after the crushing and shocking 2004 Presidential "defeat." When TV "news," over and over, showed huge crowds shocked, angry, depressed, when at least a few people committed suicide because of it, when there were "I'm Sorry" messages and websites, sent from us to the rest of the world, I started to get the feeling, "There are a lot of us on this side--people are not happy; we are actually just starting to re-form and re-establish ourselves with this tragedy."

It helps to make yourself feel better by thinking of several things about life. First, that the future that you will live in is not perceptable "up ahead," from the known facts, but always seems to come at you from the side, where you never expected, and didn't see it coming. The future that actually develops is always a surprise, always takes a turn you didn't predict, and is not necessarily made up of the elements that you were already aware of before. You can get very depressed if you only think of the situations you were aware of, and wonder, "How can any good change come out of all this mess?" Realize, that there was a world of reality that we cannot be aware of, going on underneath, and that often was the real make-up of the new change. It is not as bad as it seems, and the solution is actually forming, unreachable.

"It's always darkest before the dawn." "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Many things tell you that the pendulum swings back and forth, that the Republican oppressor will not rule forever, no matter what they claim, and that now is our time again. Their oppression was severe, yet in the end, strangely, it was easy to break up and start to end--This is why we VOTE. All the planning and educating and "framing" in the world did nothing, but have one election day and--bam!--the very next day you wake up free.

[omega minimo]

22. Thank you for another gem

In the darkest days, I told a friend I was willing to believe in light at the end of the tunnel, miracles even. The next day, Jim Jeffords left the Republican party, repudiated their hypocrisy and shifted the power balance in Congress.




Your posts are stunning. I linked this to a Thanksgiving thread. If you'd rather I hadn't please let me know.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2790812&mesg_id=2791079

[bleever]

21. Now THAT's what I'm talkin' 'bout.

We've been shell-shocked for so long, I think it's difficult to feel as much gratitude and possibility as we are now entitled to.

Strong, lucid words like these are just the tonic.

:toast: Happy Thanksgiving.

[Old_guy]

23. Bright light of truth - the exit strategy

Its taken me 3+ years to connect the dots....but Dick Cheney's meeting with Saudi Arabian leaders in advance of next Tuesday's meeting between President Bush and Iraq's President Malaki gave rise to the following speculation...

(1) "Was the US's origninal intention to control Iraq acceptible to Saudi Arabia?"

(2) "Did the Shia rise to political dominance in Iraq take US and Saudi leadership by surprise?"

(3) "Has Saudi Arabia leadership maintained a 3-year, behind-the-scenes role supporting Sunni reprisals against the majority Shia in Iraq?"

(4) "With the strong assertion of control by the Shia population, has a Balkanized Iraq state (separate Sunni, Shia, and Kurd states) become the next-best acceptible solution for maintaining Saudi and US interests in Iraq?

(5) "How long will US presence be needed in Iraq to assure a Balkanized Shia-Sunni-Kurdish Iraq?"

[newyawker99]

24. Hi Old_guy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: