Just When I Thought It Was Safe for a Progressive to Go Outdoors

I was starting to get over the election results when I heard from about the feelings of several folk regarding the presidential election.

One of them wanted me to make sure I notified my congressional representatives that I didn't want Arlen Specter to head up the committee that first approves judges. I let him know that Specter had already toned down his statements about not supporting a pro-life candidate for a judge's position. Personally, I was rather happy to hear that Specter might keep the most overzealous judges off the bench. Roe versus Wade being overturned isn't the first thing on my hopeful agenda for the future. What I desire is a country where no woman desires to have an abortion and where old people are treasured for what they have already given and may still give to society for just being, if nothing else.

One of them sent a forward of an e-mail from a woman in Cleveland lamenting the stupidity of the slight majority of Americans whom she believes fail to understand the situation in the world and act more like cowboys than people who understand that the world is too complex to put into simple black and white terms. I tend to agree with her in spite of the fact that some of my well educated friends and family also voted for Bush. She isn't alone in her thoughts about our stupidity as Americans, though. The headline for London's Daily Mirror newspaper was "How Can 59,054,087 Americans Be So Dumb?"

MSNBC reported this: "The more serious-minded Independent was even harsher. Under the banner headline, "Four More Years," it ran photos representing its left-of-center view: a humiliated Iraqi prisoner at Abu Ghraib, shackled and masked detainees at Guantanamo, an oil pipeline, a Christian pro-Bush slogan and a grinning President Bush."

On the other hand the Monday, November 8, 2004, Independent has this headline: "If enough goes right in his next term, George Bush will have achieved greatness." You can read it today at this URL:
http://www.independent.co.uk/580526.html

Another e-mail reminded me that things weren't perfect in Canada, either; but what I would least like about Canada isn't the political situation and especially not the free healthcare. (If I had that, I'd be much better off financially.) It's the cold weather that would bother me coupled with the distance from my family and friends that I see seldom enough as it is.

So the election has been placed back into my mind; and my feelings of discouragement return, unless the writer in Great Britain is a prophet about the future of the Bush presidency and Lincoln is revisited in his presidency. You see the war has been my biggest disappointment with this president. I believe we acted to quickly and without proper preparation or reason. I still tend to believe that; but I might change my tune if I see real, positive changes happening not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Israel and Palestine and Iran. I don't believe that "the ends justify the means." I do believe a positive outcome, even in the midst of error, is better than a negative outcome in the same situation.

I have also been disappointed about our current president's attitudes toward social programs and his placement of a so-called "Marriage Amendment" as a major part of what our nation needs to be working toward. It seems to me there are many more things about which we could be concerned than whether a few homosexuals, even if we believe them to be sinful, want to have a more committed relationship with one another. One fellow even suggested that if we gave them the same rights and roles as heterosexual couples perhaps their relationships would fall apart as quickly as those of heterosexuals! (This is said by someone who has been married to the same woman for nearly 40 years, though.)

It's past midnight. My love awaits a diabetic snack which I shall share with her shortly. I hope George W. Bush is right and most of the world is wrong. I have serious doubts, though.

Mike



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