Sun. Nov 3rd, 2024

Remember, Remember the Fourth of November

Our job really begins on the Fifth of November...

We’re coming down to the wire.  Only hours till the polls open.

Our job really begins on the Fifth of November...
Our job really begins on the Fifth of November…

(Just for fun, I’ve inserted some audio cues.  Just click on the links for a new wrinkle on the blogeroo!)

This is going to be a truly momentous election.  Either the people will vote for change – massive, historic change – or they will shrink from their date with destiny and vote to extend the status quo.

I think my countrymen will step up and break through the veil obscuring the vision of our future, because despite our increasingly risk averse tendencies, our occasionally xenophobic reflexes, Americans are at their core adventurers and lovers of equity and fairness.

Sure.  There’s a significant minority who believe in the zero sum game, that if someone lesser gets a banana off the tree, that somehow impoverishes them, the superior ones, the real Americans.

When I first started this blog, I was in a race to get it out there before the election.  Now that it’s here, I’m relaxing a bit.  Because I know that whichever way the ballots fall, the job here will continue.

We’ll still pursue the facts and the ugly slivers of truth about the cabal that sank this nation into the deepest hole since the 1930s.  We’ll still press for justice, or – as they said in the Winslow Boy – that right be done.  acrazyperson

Dubya, Dick, Donald, Condi, Wolfie and the rest of the Neo-con Mafia need to be called to account.  If we extract some justice…

  • for those who have impoverished while hundreds of billions in profits are sucked into the maw of the black hole called Iraq;
  • for those who’ve paid with life and limb in pursuit of a criminal war;

… from those who, through intention, stupidity or just goddammed apathy let the financial wizards bet our farm on their game; then maybe we’ll have done some good.  sparetherod

I can’t remember a date in my life like this November 4, since the day I stood in the draft lottery for the Vietnam war.  On that day, in 1972, I knew that one way or another, life would never be the same when I awoke the next day.

Whether my number came up or not – which it didn’t – other young men I knew would be drafted or maybe forced to enlist to avoid combat duty that draftees almost certainly faced.  Some would leave the country to dodge the draft, an act of conscience or self-preservation that would follow them for the rest of their lives.  My birthday, whcih was the basis of the draft lottery system, came up 346 out of 365.  Yet I still applied and was nearly accepted into the Navy scholarship program. acrazyperson1

Yes, I may have been crazy, but I was a finalist.  And when I was washed out, two recruiters came after me, promising the world.  “Can you put that in writing?” I asked.  Our conversations ended shortly after.

Somehow, this time, it’s a little more important, it’s not about me, or any other individual person.  It’s about the impact of this nation in the larger world.  somethingwrong1

Actually, I’m exhilarated to contemplate what comes after the election.  The possibility of speaking out in pursuit of justice, of helping nail some really dastardly characters, is exciting.  afraidofgovernments

I’d like to leave you with this little audio grace note: remember2

May the Higher Power of your choice speed you to the front of the line, may your name be found without incident, may you exercise your franchise without fear or doubt, and may you sleep the sleep of the just, waking to an entirely new day.  Hopefully, a brighter one.