The Winds of Change

If you have been paying attention to the political horizon over the last couple of years, it is likely clear that a storm has been brewing in this country. The last 8 years have brought us trillions of dollars of federal debt, one underfunded and undermanned war, one war entered into under false pretense and exaggerated intelligence, illegal domestic wiretaps, suspension of habeas corpus, bitter partisanship, runaway corporate mismanagement, reduced individual buying power, steeply rising energy prices, record home foreclosure rates, record home price reductions, skyrocketing college tuition costs, millions more people without health care coverage, completely ignored domestic infrastructure, declining belief that government cares about its citizens, severely reduced international support for the United States, and many other issues.

The dark thunderclouds of anger at the last 8 years...they bring with them the winds of change. I don't think that this will be a simple summer storm. This has the feel of major, life-changing event. These aren't ordinary winds, gusts bringing sideways rain splashing against windows. These are F5 winds, laden with destructive force and deadly objects, crashing through the windows of the current political landscape, laying waste the outdated infrastructure of the last 8 years and the complacency of ignorance.

Progressive change is on the horizon, led, not by a messiah, but by a man who seems to be acutely aware of his limitations, humble in the recognition of the importance of his task, cool in the face of adversity, strong in the face of history, and remarkably intelligent in his perception of the world around him. We have tried it the conservative way and we see that it has reaped what it has sown. The corruption and lies are appalling and it seems that many people now realize that it has given them little, if anything, unless they had plenty to begin with.

I welcome the progressive winds, the massive movement begun by a self-described "skinny kid from the south side of Chicago."

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."
- Barack Obama