November 4th, 2008 (06:38 am)
How do you feel?: excited
Today is a historic day. We’ve been told this for many months; over a year by some. It may well be a day we remember for the rest of our lives. And it is finally here. I came to this country partly because it was the land of opportunity, choices, and freedoms: I wanted to have choice when I went to a store. It may seem shallow and crass, but part of it is true. I lived in a country where endless opportunity wasn’t always available to me. This is part of the reason I chose to come to this country.
But there was another part, a growing, warming sense for freedoms and opportunities that the rest of the world always seems jealous of. I came, discovered this to be real, and loved this country for it. Then President Bush got falsely elected, and these freedoms, choices, and opportunities were changed and/or revoked, not necessarily to me (though the increase in citizenship fees did affect my opportunity to apply and be allowed to vote). As the years passed and things became worse for many, a new America was revealed of only black and white, and never gray choices; of a fundamental determinism and obsession that one had to subscribe to, and if you didn’t you were un-American and unpatriotic.
Then an ignorant and blind America did it again in 2004 and things continued to go downhill for many. Once more, my world wasn’t really affected by these changes, but I read of many who were suffering. It is a different America that the world grew no longer to admire and respect, but to eventually disdain. It is an America that most of its people no longer subscribe to.
It says something when citizens are doing more for each other and themselves to help the environment and their country, while its government blindly ignores it and its people. It says something when the people bond together to help each other in times of crisis and catastrophe, when the government can’t be bothered to lift a finger. It says something when a groundswell movement of minor cries for something new grows to a deafening chorus heard from coast to coast and state to state for change.
This is that day. The day for change. Get the hell out and vote. Vote for change, so we can start fixing America again – because Obama knows, as everyone else does, that it’s going to take all of us to fight and make sacrifices together to get through this. If you have work and can’t make it, go on your lunch break. If you can’t do that, skip out on work for a day, because this vote is more important than any day of work.
I don’t have the opportunity to vote, yet. But you do, it’s your right in this country, so don’t squander it. This time more than any other, do what many others dream of. And lets make the rest of the world jealous of America once again for its freedoms, its opportunities, and its choices.
And make sure to vote a big resounding NO on 8.
See you Wednesday morning, at the dawn of a new America.