Hope

Tomorrow, we vote. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, although I think you'll be able to figure out where I stand in the next few minutes - I'm just going to remind you that vital to vote, because what you care about matters.

The past 8 years, and the two presidential elections I've been eligible to vote in, my candidate has won my state, but lost the country. 4 years ago, when Bush (II) was reelected, I literally cried, amazed that parts of our country were either so blind or so stupid as to want to continue the policies that I felt were ruining a lot of what is good about this country. I'm still amazed, but now I don't know that they were stupid or naive, just that they've been scared. I've been scared too, and I'm still pretty scared. Scared that tomorrow night won't go the way I think it should, and I will be stuck with another four years of policies that go against what I believe in, another four years of someone who doesn't really know what they are doing. Scared that I'll have yet another president I feel I will someday have to apologize to my children for. I hope that won't be true, but I really thought it wouldn't be true four years ago, so I'll just have to wait and see.

I'm sick of being scared, and while I know that Obama is not the Almighty returned to earth, and that his (please god) presidency will be full of ups and downs and trials galore, I also think that he will at least try. He will make an effort to address all of the injustices that I see everyday. At least, that's what I hope.

And hoping, sometimes, is all we have.

"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.
It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory." — Howard Zinn