Things are Going to Get Worse

Obama, sound more presidential than our president, said in his weekly address to the nation that things are going to get worse before they get better. I got that. I don't like the news but I am glad we are not being lied too. I was getting really tired of that, "the underpinnings of our economy are strong" shit. I'm not economist and I knew GW was wrong more than a year ago.

He is against the auto bailout. I am frankly against all the bailouts starting with Lehman's and moving on to AIG and then to Citibank. But I own a GM car and I would like to be able to get parts for it. But bailout or no most economists believe none of the big three auto makers will be around in 5 years. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could say that about the tobacco manufacturers? Or the porno industry? Notice how they have not asked for a bailout. Nor has Jack Daniels.

But as I was digesting all this news and commenting on a friend's blog it suddenly occurred to me that one of the reasons 9/11 targeted the World Trade Center buildings is that Bin Laden wanted to bring the United States to financial ruin. He could have kept his terrorists home. GW Bush has done it for him. That, as they say, is the bad news.

The good news is as goes the US so goes the World so probably nobody can afford to invade us and take over our country - like who would want it now?

But what really worries me is the vast amount of time till Obama really is president. It is over a month! And we do not seem to have anyone reliable at the helm of the sinking ship of state. How much harm can Paulson and Cheney and Bush do in 42 days?

A program I was watching on the Internet about stress reduction during these trying economic times says don't think about it. Obviously that is what the current White House is doing!

What does sit take to swear in Obama and his team tomorow!

Remembering the WPA

My family camped for vacations. Dad wanted to get away from his high pressure job and the telephone (no cell phones in those days) and so we took to the highways and byways of the mountain west and camped.

He often would point out that this trail or that camp ground had been built by labor during the depression when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt developed the WPA to put people standing in bread lines back to work.

The Blue Ridge Parkway that runs along the Appalachians in the eastern part of the United States is a great example of what the WPA accomplished. Not only did it put people living in that area to work but to this day the parkway allows an economic flow that has preserved the native crafts and culture of that area. The art trail we are setting up her in New Mexico is modeled after one set up by benefit of this parkway built over 70 years ago. Its stone bridges and retaining walls and restored mills and waterways are beautiful and lasting.

Here in the mountain west the WPA worked on many parks creating trails and overlooks that made their beauties more accessable to the public. The closest example to me is the Wild Rivers Park at the junction of the Red River and the Rio Grande. A system of trails allows visitors to hike down switchbacks to the bottom of the Rio Grande gorge some 600 feet below the scenic overlooks at the top. Remote campsites at the bottom allow hikers to over-night away from the maddening crowds. A group of volunteers goes out every spring to do trail maintenance but the original WPA work has lasted.

Today because of Bush cutbacks the National Park Service originally created by the giving of land by Rockefeller and other railroad magnants is suffering. Facilities are in need of repair to the point that on my recent roadtrips with my sister we have chosen to stay at state parks which are better funded.

The Bush administration has chosen to focus on foreign countries and exporting of jobs and resourses away from the United States. Our national parks are crumbling, our infrastructure is deteriorating, and the economy was built on a tissue of lies that is now going up in flames. President elect Obama proposes to rescue our economy by returning the US governments focus back to our own shores.

“We’ll be working out the details in the weeks ahead,” Mr. Obama said about his economic stimulus package, “but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy. We’ll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels, fuel-efficient cars and the alternative energy technologies that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead.”

It looks to be the modern version of Roosevelt's WPA. I certainly hope the effects of it last as long as the Blue Ridge Parkway. And that generations to come look back and point at the accomplishments yet to be achieved by this new era.

Obama to hit the White House Running

The pace of the world especially in the dire straights we are in does not allow for a lot of time to celebrate or for Obama any time to grieve the death of his grandmother. He is busy naming his team and setting his agenda (about as difficult as herding cats). I was overjoyed to see he is going to repeal some of GW's executive orders if not all.

Meanwhile I have been swinging from giddy to stunned that it really happened to going through political blog withdrawal. Seems I am not the only one. All my friends seem to be continuing to read the op ed pages available on the internet. I was reading Sails blog this morning and she cited an editorial by Frank Rich. I found the following paragraphs where he describes the morning after really spot on for me:

Our nation was still in the same ditch it had been the day before, but the atmosphere was giddy. We felt good not only because we had breached a racial barrier as old as the Republic. Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America.

For eight years, we’ve been told by those in power that we are small, bigoted and stupid — easily divided and easily frightened. This was the toxic catechism of Bush-Rove politics. It was the soiled banner picked up by the sad McCain campaign, and it was often abetted by an amen corner in the dominant news media. We heard this slander of America so often that we all started to believe it, liberals most certainly included. If I had a dollar for every Democrat who told me there was no way that Americans would ever turn against the war in Iraq or definitively reject Bush governance or elect a black man named Barack Hussein Obama president, I could almost start to recoup my 401(k). Few wanted to take yes for an answer.

So let’s be blunt. Almost every assumption about America that was taken as a given by our political culture on Tuesday morning was proved wrong by Tuesday night.

And aren't we thrilled that Obama and the voters of this United States (no longer divided into red and blue) did prove us wrong. I admit to a definite negativity about the possibility of democracy winning out in the United States. I thought it very ironic that we were "exporting" democracy while erasing it here in the United States with executive orders that allowed its citizens to be spied upon, vanished to Gitmo, marginalized by labeling us terrorist sympathizers, the list goes on. Or was going on, but it looks like our President-elect plans to change that all the minute he takes office.

My Word for Today - Validation

Now that I have stopped dancing about the election Tuesday, and gotten another day to sleep off the fatigue of working at the polls during this very critical contest for America and the world, and read all the blogs about what it meant for so many on a very personal level let me just I believe Obama's victory was validation for all I have believed since my idealistic youth.

Yes, we can change the direction the world is going. Mom, would have said it was going to Hell in a handbasket. I frankly at times felt more like I was in one of those mining cars in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

So my word for today is validation. Complicated word. It seems to be used by engineers and computer scientists and a whole host of other technical trades. For the complete list of what validation can mean I refer you to Wikipedia. Enjoy. After a quick scan and then more in depth spot reading that was totally off point I found what I wanted:

In psychology and human communication, validation is the reciprocated communication of respect which communicates that the other's opinions are acknowledged, respected, heard, and (regardless whether or not the listener actually agrees with the content), they are being treated with genuine respect as a legitimate expression of their feelings, rather than marginalized or dismissed.

In case you missed it that was what President Elect Obama and Senator McCain did in their respective speeches on Tuesday night. It is what we need to continue to do in the years ahead. GW Bush and his administration contantly marginalized or dismissed the opinions of others. It made us angry then it made us fearful.

I am reminded of the time riding in the passenger seat of my brother's sports car and telling him he was in the wrong lane. The first time I thought he had not heard. But thinking it was important because the lane in question was the parking and unloading lane on a very busy street and their were vehicles parked in it up ahead I said it again.

He told me he was driving and I should shut up. Well, as soon as we slipped the MG under the semi truck trailer ahead I thought that would be a foregone conclusion. Decapitated you cannot talk. So I screamed at him that he needed to get to the left lane or slam on the brakes. He finally saw what I was so excited about and we narrowly avoided an accident. But he had to dis me afterwards by reminding me he was driving. I asked him to stop the car and I got out. I was five miles from home from my house and had to call a cab to pick me up but I never rode as a passenger in his car again.

This is frankly exactly how I have felt the last eight years in the United States. I would have called a cab if I had known just exactly where I wanted it to take me beyond away from here. And I live about as away from here as you can live and still be within the boundries of the United States. This campaign process was my last attempt to get anyone's attention about where we were heading. And I felt so validated when from the podium those running for office acknowledged where we were heading.

I was scared to death of McCain winning because as we neared the back of the economic truck parked before us he did what GW has done for years and said, "The underpinnings of this economy are sound." I am not an economist but I knew that was wrong two years ago.

I think as we move forward (having changed lanes) it is important to not invalidate anyone's opinion. We need to concentrate on " reciprocated communication of respect which communicates that the other's opinions are acknowledged, heard and respected. . . ". We are going to have to work together if we are going to avoid a train wreck the like of which they world has never seen.

I Get to Shout

For those of you that have read this blog before you will know that I posted one about having to whisper for the last eight years or be thought a traitor. Coming out as a Democrat was risky enough in my predominately Republican neighborhood and a definitely Republican county, but then to say I was for Barack Obama . . . well, I just figured I had lived a nice long life and if it was over I wanted to go out with a shout and not a whisper. And if McCain won I wanted to emigrate to another country.

So yesterday found me working as an Obama poll watcher in Angel Fire. I and the other volunteers recruited by the Obama campaign were there to insure that regardless of who won we could say this election, as opposed to the last two, was run and won fairly. I told myself that was all I wanted - fairness. The sweeping victory of Barack Obama was icing on the cake. I can now believe that America has a chance of reclaiming its position as a beacon of hope in the world.

Everyon can read the national coverage of this race. But I would like to say something about precinct 01B in Colfax county, New Mexico. There are approximately 1100 registered voters. Of those 1100 the poll judge believes approximately 200 need to be purged from the rolls. This is done through death, notification the person is now registered to vote elsewhere or if they miss voting in two presidential elections. Of the remaining 900 approximately 300 had voted early or by absentee. Before I left my post at four 519 had cast their vote. That is a damn nice turnout.

The poll challenger for Obama, watching all voting irregularities, called me after the final count to say that in our majority Republican precinct Obama had lost by only 34 votes. A lot of Republicans crossed party lines to vote for him and for our new Democratic Senator Tom Udall who carried the precinct. As thrilled as I am that my Red State turned Blue yesterday I am even happier that this election did not seem to be about party as much as it has under GW Bush. (mind you I am not moving to the deep south any time soon). Hopefully, this election will heal political divides that have separated this country for the last eight years, and that Barack Obama's election will heal the racial divides that McCain's base proved still exists among the Joe Six Packs of this nation.

And because Our President elect is a man who is willing to talk and not invade there is hope that we as citizens of the world can come together to address issues like global warming, the global economy, world peace, religious freedom.

But first given the mandate this election gave him, Barack Obama has to heal the wounds inflicted upon this country by the last 10 years of divisive politics. I have great hope that he can. Especially now that we are all allowed to talk outloud without fear of being sent to Gitmo.