The End of an Error

[ellen_kushner]

When GWBush won his second term, I wore black for a week - not in NYC, where this sort of thing is de rigeur, but in Cambridge, Mass., where earth tones predominate. And over the past 4 years I have often had the awful feeling that I was living in a ghastly alternate reality, where everything had gone wrong in the world, and particularly in my

Comments

[hoppytoad79]

And over the past 4 years I have often had the awful feeling that I was living in a ghastly alternate reality...This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. O please, I begged, Let me jump back on the Time Machine to that point where a man who wasn't a disrespectful idiot was elected instead, one who cared more about the country and its people than about - oh, I dunno, being right or being too stupid to listen to those who actually were. Who did not make our nation and its aspirations a stink in the nostrils of the rest of the world. Nightmare, nightmare, nightmare.

Surreal nightmare, ghastly alternate reality...however you want to describe it, the last four years have been like a really bad acid trip--only none of us had dropped any. Obama winning was the first huge step toward waking up from this nightmare. Now that the source of the poison has been purged, we can work in earnest on cleaning the rest of the wound, treating the systemic infection, and getting on the road to recovery.

[dichroic]

That was something that struck me too, reading through the speeches. Coming across the ocean to escape poverty. Sweatshops. I hadn't even realized, until then, how tired I am of invocations of Americanism that start with the Mayflower, proceed to the Revolution, and go on to covered wagons with (when trying especially hard for inclusiveness) a quick nod to those who were brought over against their will.

My people are American, dammit. They weren't with the Pilgrims and they didn't take covered wagons and not one of my direct antecedents has ever lived in an American small town or on a farm. None of them were in the country when the Golden Spike was laid or during the Civil War. My great-grandparents and grandparents came across from the 1880s to the 1920s, through Ellis Island, fleeing fear and poverty. They spoke English with heavy accents, worked two or three jobs, and made sure to educate their children as best they could. And it was nice, for once, to see them - us- included in the categorical list of Americans!

[ellen_kushner]

Yes, yes, yes!!

And I loved his inclusion of "non-believers" in his admirable list of faiths, as well.

This is someone who lives in the same world I do - for once.

[bgliterary]

I agree to a point...but did he have to use the term "non-believer"? I believe in many things, just not in some religion inspired super being.

[ellen_kushner]

Yeah, he had to: it's recognized Code for "no super-being", esp. in Protestant lingo. I suppose practicing Pagans can be huffy if they want to (esp. as they're now recognized among the fallen in military cemeteries - oops!). If I wanna get sniffy, I hope someday that we'll see something official not delivered by a Protestant male. (But now, I believe change will come.....!)

[rosenhaus]

And because I've been wanting to say this for the last 8 years to Mr. Bush...

"And don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out."

Whew, that feels better.

[ellen_kushner]

Oooo - check out Bob Garfield 's little precis on this week's "On the Media" analysing W's last press conference, in which Bush said "Thank you" to the members of the press.

Ah! Here it is:

From the transcript:

BOB GARFIELD: Oh, really? Thank you? I believed him when he said “you,” but I'm pretty sure “thank” isn't the verb of one syllable he had in mind, because for the past eight years this White House has mainly given the Fourth Estate and the First Amendment the finger

[ellen_kushner]

OK, it's really 8 minutes, and I've posted it for all to see (or you can go to On the Media's site to download a podcast).

[ambitious_wench]

"In the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope."

I'm still euphoric.

[eegatland]

I liked Lowry's speech BEST. It totally rocked.