Well, Barack, It's Kinda Like This ...

After the past eight years – and I know I don’t have to go into details, because you know, and I know, and we ALL know what it’s been like – I was really hoping for a Democratic candidate who was smart and savvy, a for-the-People kind of guy who understood what life was like for the vast majority of us; someone who could speak intelligently but still be down-to-earth; someone who could talk TO me and FOR me, without being condescending or over-my-head.

I’d hoped for a guy – you know, just a regular guy – who had something of value to say, and could say it well. A guy who made people actually want to listen; someone who made sense on the most basic level – and if he could convey a bit of vision, be a bit of an unashamed, unabashed dreamer, that would be icing on the cake.

What I got was you – and I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you, but it must have been something spectacular.

I wanted a man who would say that things could and would be better. What I got was a man who reminded me that the best of what we could be as a nation was just around the corner, there for the taking if only we are willing to work together to achieve it.

I wanted a man who would speak wisely. What I got was a man who speaks not only with wisdom, but vision; a man who dares not only to dream, but dares to encourage the dreamer in me, and my fellow citizens.

I wanted a man who was willing to take on the responsibilities of true leadership. What I got was a man who leads not by words, but by example; a man who is humble enough to admit that he is human, but strong enough to demonstrate that it is our humanity that makes us unique, makes us worthwhile, makes us capable of accomplishing more than at times seems possible.

I wanted a man who had that all-elusive common touch. What I got was a man of uncommon ability to raise the bar, to encourage us to set our sights higher, to say without hesitation that WE can do whatever needs to be done to make things right, to reach whatever goals we set no matter how lofty, to BE what we were at our very best moment in history – and surpass it with ease by virtue of our determination to do so.

I wanted a man who couldn’t ignore what we’ve done wrong; who didn’t pretend that a flag-pin in a lapel and a politically-correct bumper-sticker was sufficient cover for deeply flawed policies that have cost us precious lives and the respect of the world. What I got was a man who understands the tragedy not of numbers in the thousands, but of each individual loss; a man who realizes that the shame of wrongdoing can only be erased by having the courage to do what is right.

I wanted a man who wasn’t afraid to speak the truth, and wasn’t cowed by the task of facing that truth head-on – even when it was ugly and almost impossibly hard to look at. What I got was a man who inspires the courage in me – in all of us – to seek out the truth within ourselves and each other; who gives us all hope in a time that seems too overwhelmingly hopeless, who says “you can DO this” when we have been, for far too long, rendered too paralyzed by fear to attempt to do anything worthwhile.

As I have said before, you are not the BEST of us – you are the best OF us. It would be the easy way out to look to you to miraculously and single-handedly change the course of our history, to undo the incredible damage that’s been done, to right every wrong.

But the fact is that you can’t do that alone. You can only do that by reminding ME – reminding ALL OF US – that together, we can do whatever needs doing, and then some.

I wanted a man who could do good things. What I got was a man who invites me, along with my fellow citizens, to do GREAT things.

I wanted a man who wouldn’t let me down. What I got was a man who I don’t want to let down. And I hope I never do – because there’s so much of ME in you, and so much of YOU in me. And that, more than anything, says something important about both of us – about ALL of us, about who we are as a nation, as a people, as a family of world citizens who are about to change the world – together.

I just wanted to thank you for being who you are – the guy who reminds all of us who we will be, if we just allow ourselves to be who we can be. Because who we can be is something incredible.

Loved it! Thanks for another work of beauty and inspiration! :applause:

Someone who helped us get organized and throw out the shroud of complacency that has kept us zombie-like for so many decades. Clinton did a little waking but mostly helped us sleep easier. Obama reminded us that waking up is hard and donig what we have to do is even harder but we have to do it. We have a responsibility and I'm glad we both got what we wanted NG.

Great post, poignant and as always on point.

The list composed by driftglasss.com: Who's been cultivating these "brownshirts" of ignorance???

"...Was it Karl Rove?

Or Tom DeLay?

Or Newt Gingrich?

Was it Roger Ailes?

Glenn Beck?

Tucker Carlson?

Neil Cavuto?

Ann Coulter?

Pat Robertson?

Maybe Chris Wallace?

Lou Dobbs?

Dick Armey?

Robert Novak?

Steve Doocy?

Jesse Helms?

Bob Dornin?

Jerry Falwell?

John Gibson?

Sean Hannity?

Dick Cheney?

Brit Hume?

Rush Limbaugh?

Mary Matalin?

Tony Perkins?

Dick Morris?

Bill O'Reilly?

Phil Gramm?

Michael Savage?

John Hagee?

Monica Crowley?

William Donohue?

Frank Luntz?

Michael Medved?

G. Gordon Liddy?

Or maybe Laura Ingraham?..."

Then we turn and watch a video of these folks in line at a McCain/Palin rally and wonder "where did all these ignorant a-holes come from". I hope Obama does something about hate radio and expands the media ownership problem. If we want to change the perceptions of this hatefilled fearful ignorant minority then we need to eleminate the ones cultivating that mindset nationally..

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

:toast:

~PEACE~

makes the pain in my shoulder go away for a few minutes...

after the dark nights of the last 40 years maybe we are finally seeing the first light of the dawn.

At this point in my life, I don't care a whole lot what happens to me, but I care what world I leave behind. I'm starting to become hopeful.

your way with words is beyond my own. You said what I think and feel.

Thanks!:yourock:

I wanted a human being, for a change.
Someone who not only says that continuing to wage war anywhere is wrong.
Someone who not only says everyone else in the world deserves enough to eat,
and a shelter to sleep under, in the reasonable confidence that their rest would not
be broken by twice-their-size hooligans breaking down the door,
and clean water to drink... but insists that these be so.
Not because doing so could redeem "our" place on the world stage,
or demonstrate "our" unique exceptionalism,
but because doing whatever it takes that such be so
is what being human is.

... :hi:

and it's time. Thank you, Nance. Lovely. And GOBAMA!

"I just wanted to thank you for being who you are – the guy who reminds all of us who we will be, if we just allow ourselves to be who we can be. Because who we can be is something incredible."

you can really talk, boy can you talk. :applause:

i agree with what you said, but i couldn't have said it as well.

:hug: you are terrific and so is Obama.

and the Democrats for all their faults earned Obama, they earned him when in 1964, LBJ said, "I fear I have lost the south for the Democratic party for at least a generation" as he signed the landmark Civil Rights Act.

it was the right thing to do. the Republicans have been playing against this decision for 40+ years and what's their reward? they are going to get beaten by a black man, while running a racist campaign against him no less. that's justice if there is such a thing.

Cleaner and more refreshing than the coming of Fall. I'm not expecting miraculous change from Barack Obama. He's just one man. But he has that rare ability to pass on his vision to those who will listen. Millions, or tens of millions may hear, and working together can make great change.

Thank you is inadequate.
:thumbsup: :hug: :loveya:

:toast:

and thank you again.

the America-haters, the blue-jean & beads crowd, the Fonda sympathizers, the Martin Luther King frenziasts, the welfare state apologists, the pro-Marxist socialized medicine bunch --

and I'm sick of it.

There is not one syllable in your post acknowledging that Obama is a gun-grabbing Muslim and a socialist who cavorts with domestic terrorists. Not one.

Pathetic.

- - - - -
:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:


:thumbsup: :hi:

I'm offended.

:rofl:

(elect) again! :bounce: :party: :bounce:

If anyone can inspire a nation of me-firsters and spoiled brats to get up and DO something positive for each other and the world, it's Barack Obama. And if anyone can articulate what that means to all of us in the most poetic words possible, it's you Nance. Brava!

Talk about hitting the Trifecta!

Absolutely beautiful.

:applause:

Thanks for your diligence, Nance. :hug:

... O & Joe was the obvious alternative - and turned out to be not too shabby.

;-)

Let us know if you and the hubby want anything added to The Agenda.

but, here goes....what has been added to The Agenda by you two already?

Oh and "hi Kurovski" - I'm so happy to see you! :loveya:

stuff, and like that there. Joe stuff. Especially after a nice bender.

:loveya:

So I must thank you for this! :patriot:

You are amazing. Thank you for this. :applause:

and your post makes me think of something else that is inspirational.

It's that maybe the past eight years have not been entirely in vain. Maybe the American public (or a large majority of it anyway) finally sees the absurdity of the dead ideology that has been the message of the right since Ronnie Raygun. Maybe now they're seeing through the compliance of the M$M. Maybe we will no longer be so divided, red against blue, but rather united in sense against nonsense.

And most of all, maybe the left has finally found its voice again. The voice they drowned out of us with the death of MLK and the Kennedy's.

YES WE CAN!

recommended

You continue to outdo yourself these days - it's obvious that Barack Obama inspires you! I truly hope he lives up to his promise, which is also OUR promise. He seems to represent or embody the very best in the American people. After this eight-year-long nightmare I'm almost afraid to hope...but I still do, almost in spite of myself.

I'm new to posting but old to reading. Nance, I've sent your eloquent posts to people all over the world. I admire and identify. I'm gonna go out on a limb and post a poem that I wrote some time back but that I think is peaking in importance right now. I just heard on MSNBC that there's an e-mail going around that likens Obama's policies to those that began the holocaust.

Much appreciation to you, and all the smart, interseting DUers I see around me.

Forty Years On

It was April; azaleas hung like
promises of resurrection, delicate
in the Southern breeze.
I was thirteen, babysitting age,
trying to keep the neighbor’s kids
from killing one another over supper,
popping my fingers to WTIX out of New Orleans,
learning to do the Tighten Up, to Archie Bell and the Drells,
movin’ and groovin’. Then the music stopped:
“We interrupt this program—.”
My heart jumped up in my chest like a captive bird.
And before I even heard the words complete I heard
the tombstone in the voice on the radio.
Phrases dissolved to little snatches—
lone assassin,
shot dead—balcony—Memphis,
riots in the streets,
a familiar incantation:

“Requiem. Requiem.”

All night long they played that speech
that sounded like a sermon;
the dream and all God’s children.
The terrible things that people have done.
The terrible things that people will do.
They played “We Shall Overcome,”
on my very own radio, on WTIX out of New Orleans.

When they said that people danced in the streets,
they meant my people.
Good People.
My streets.
The faded “Coloreds Only” sign still hung,
not on some crumbled antebellum plantation
half a world away,
but on the stair up to the balcony
at the Ritz Theater,
not half a mile away.
And even if that law about that balcony wasn’t law any more,
fear still hung in that flower filled spring air
like nooses in the trees,
a portend of the strange fruit yet to be borne.
And I didn’t know if it was all right to cry,
because I was tainted, too,
pinned beneath the RESERVED signs
on the tables in my grandparents’ café,
where the cigarette ad on the door said
“C’mon in, it’s KOOL inside,”
and everybody knew who could come on in,
and who could not.

I knew there would be loud talk.
I knew there would be hot anger.
I knew there might be bright blood.
But I didn’t know if I ought to be afraid,
and I didn’t know who to be afraid of,
because what needed to be overcome was me.

And the black preachers and the white preachers
preached their sermons come that Sunday,
and the black choirs and the white choirs
sang their hymns about the Blood of the Lamb,

and the interviewers interviewed the candidates on TV,
who said that they would help us,
but they didn’t know how to help us.

And we thought we might not survive, but we did,
or most of us did, though forty years on
it’s all so much the same.
We’re still tired and confused,
and our children still hear
tombstones in the voices on the radio.
And the preachers still preach, and the choirs still sing
and the candidates still say they know the way.
But there are nooses in the trees,
Good People,
there are nooses in the trees.

... it's beautiful - what a gift you have!

And welcome to the conversation ... :hug:

Thanks back. It's risky to go all out in a first post. I appreciate the generousity.

... hope we'll all be reading more of your work in future.

we are the ones we've been waiting for.

Thanks, Nance. :)

And as usual, here you are, knocking it out of the park yet again, and so damn eloquently...

I am proud to call you friend!

And even prouder to K&R!

You really know how to inspire.

Another one out of the park, lady!

This is beautiful Nance...and important! :)

The Republicans deride hope, because They want the people hopeless. Hopeless don't vote. Ininspired people don't care. Ininspired people don't get involved.

They are scared, because the average people aren't for a change.

Beautiful piece, Nance. Made me get all teary-eyed by the end. You express so many of our feelings so eloquently, in a way we are not able (not me anyway). You are a gifted writer. Thank you.

... and a warm welcome to the DU family.

:hi:

K and R - I even tried to "R" twice!

And that's saying a lot.

:applause: :applause: :applause:

I can't wait to roll up my sleeves and do whatever I can to help him. We have a lot of repair work to do to fix the mess Bush left behind.

... :patriot:

about this country in eight years and it's because of the thoughtful, intelligent direction this country will take under the Obama adminstration.

I wanted a man who wouldn’t let me down. What I got was a man who I don’t want to let down.

I wish I could put my feelings into words as well as you do

Thanks for the lift, Nancy.

--IMM

Handing out Democratic literature to voters.

I have been rooting for the Democrats since 1968, when I first knocked on doors for Eugene McCarthy, and I have never seen anything like this. The parking lot of the library where the voting took place, and that of the church next door was constantly filled, with cars slowly circling the lots looking for an open space. This on a weekday during the first week of early voting: granted, the public schools and the University were closed for homecoming (this is the only place I've ever lived where they closed the schools for a football game) but most businesses and government offices were open. The turn-out is eye-popping. I wouldn't be surprised it it hit 90% or more locally.

I have a feeling November 4 is going produce the biggest traffic jams in local history. Note to procrastinators: most precincts are right next to a bus stop. Park and ride, unless the idea of spending hours looking for a parking space appeals.

My guess from the response of the voters was three or four to one in favor of Obama. I got hugged by a whole lot of Little Old Ladies, and got a thumbs-up from lots of college students. I also learned a lot: not every big-assed pick-up with an American flag decal on the bumper is driven by a Republican. And not every hybrid belongs to a Democrat.

Nance..brilliantly writing for so many of us.

There are no words to express what your words have made me feel.

:hug:

Don't break my heart. Be the man that I believe you to be.

As always!

What a beautiful piece
Thank You!

... CanadaSam :hi:

for putting into words exactly how I feel.
One message after the other, and one photo, and then another, and there are lots of tears flowing around this country.
It's so good to be able to hope again.
Have a great week, Nance.

... and thank you for your kind words.

so well written and I especially liked the line: "reminds all of us who we will be". I appreciate what my fellow expat so often contributes.


Here's to a future!

Gobama!!

:kick:

It brings tears.

I'll continue to campaign for him, and I'll vote for him, and I'll pray that he addresses real equality after he's inaugurated.

I think he's the best man for the job, and better than most candidates we've seen in decades, maybe my lifetime, but I don't think he's an infallible Messiah. I don't think he thinks he is either.

GOBAMA!

And I'm sorry I saw this too late to rec it.

:kick:

My friend in Alaska got his fourth Obama shot up (four bullets) in a little town near Wasilla after having the first three signs vandalized. Sign number five is up.

I'm going to send this to him so he knows his persistence will mean a lot. Thanks for this.

:yourock:

But then I read on and you said everything that I feel.

I am not putting down Ms. Greggs, I just think Obama has promised more then he can deliver in one term!

But I am still voting for him, cause if he can deliver what he has promised, I will be glad to post an "I WAS WRONG" post up here and will smile the whole time I do it!

Prove me wrong Obama, it would make me proud!

I'll email Mr. Obama personally!

With a full apology.

Make me eat my words Mr. President!

Barack is a flawed guy, and I think there are a lot of things on his agenda he will not be able to do.

But I cannot see him doing any more damage than Bush did, or McCain will do!

So warts and all I will vote for Obama.

Cause his warts semm less painful then McCains, and in time I think will heal!

Just my .02 where I agree to disagree, but I do agree he is the best choice for a President of the two real choices we have!

He has a sewer to clean up after such a tremendous failed eight years.

Tell me--just what specific flaws do you see?

You really sound like you feel like you are settling.

I suggest that you read this and get on board. Because we know no president can go it alone.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7608575

:kick:

The only flaw I see is he is promising more then he or any President can deliver in one term. IMHO

But....And I stress this

If he is able to deliver on 100% of his promises, I will happly eat my words!
If he misses a few, well I will still call his first term a success!

I give him credit that he sees the problems and wants to change them, which is more then I can say for McCain

I am not settling Texastoast. But I am not offended by your comments either!

But I admit to being cynical, a point I hope I am proven wrong on.

... which is, of course, the fault of the writer and not the reader.

My point is that THAT ONE has an incredible ability to inspire ALL OF US to be involved, and STAY involved. And there is no limit to what we can accomplish together IF we believe we can do it.

The Dem candidates were an exceptional group of people - each brought something of value to the table. But I was an ObamaGirl right from the start, because while the others were saying, "Put me in charge, and I WILL achieve," Obama's message has always been, "Put me in charge, and WE WILL ALL ACHIEVE by pulling together."

Of course he's human - of course he is flawed, just as all of us are. But he encourages the masses to not be deterred by their flawed humanity - but to rise above its limitations and reach for loftier goals.

The man's got attitude - which is exactly what ALL OF US need right now.

Like I said I hope he proves me wrong and makes me feel foolish for doubting!

You've got a way with words. I'm sending this out to my Dem friends and hoping to inspire a few to get their asses out of the house the next 8 days and do something to make sure this man is our next president.

K & R to the max

I am profoundly moved by what you write, stirred by the responses to your eloquence, and above all, gratified beyond words that we have a presidential candidate who not only promises hope, vision, and direction for our country, but a man who we will be willing to support; whose team we want to be a part of. The next four years will have an air of magic about them.

I am going to forward that post to everyone I know. It brought tears to my eyes. No kidding. Beautiful. Thanks.

Really sums up what was just so great about Barack and why he was such a great surprise to America.

This is a great post. I hope you don't mind Nance, but I posted it on my blog:
www.SherylValentine.blogspot.com
If you have a problem with it please let me know... Love your journal!

I think it's GREAT!!!

Thanks for finding it worthwhile!

I can't say everything, but something happened work wise that I felt I should forward to both candidates.

I was emailed back by reps from both Obama and McCain.

McCain might as well have said "Go F**K Yourself!" But in short form, his rep said they would not bother the senator with this.

Obama's rep sent me his cell phone number!! We talked and emailed for over an hour and he said he WOULD PERSONALLY bring this to Obama's attention!

2 days later, I was emailed by this rep who said that right now the senator cannot look into it, but after Election Day, I am supposed to call back and the senator will look into it.

The fact that his campaign took the time to look into this situation tells me Obama is worth it.

I can't believe it was bullshit!!

Maybe he can do nothing about it, but the fact remains that he took the time, more then McBush did!

I was wrong about the dude! Vote Obama!