Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The Day After


Light the Fire

The United States is like a giant boiler. Once the fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.”
                                             Winston Churchill

So...it's over. All the hoopla and cynicism, the hype and outright lies can be tucked away and stored in the attic for a few years while, hopefully, all of us turn our attention to getting back on track. Thank God there will be no more robo-calls and attack ads. I just hope that all the money spent to discredit one another, six-billion dollars by some counts, spurred some segment of the economy. I choose not to think about how that money could have been better spent. Most of all, I pray that we can unite around a common cause—getting America back to work.

Churchill was right. When we light a fire under this country, there is nothing we can't do. Once we decide to stop fighting one another and come together for the good of the whole, we will move heaven and earth in the right direction.

It was Helen Keller who once said, “The only thing worse than being blind, is having sight but no vision.” We must stop studying our ideological navels long enough to look into the eyes of our fellow human-beings and see that the only enemy we have is the one that divides us. We must have a vision of ourselves as a united country which, even in hard times, can pick itself up and get on with what needs to be done.

Our system is imperfect. Here in Alabama, we elected a man who broke the law to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Apparently, our antiquated constitution allows for such a travesty. But we also voted to remove some of the racist language from that same constitution. Two inches forward, one back. But by and large, the system, with all its flaws, works most of the time. Even though a huge chunk of the east coast was wiped out by a hurricane just a week ago, people of that region went to the polls and voted. We were passionate enough, in fact, to vote in record numbers, which is why we can now rest assured that 'we the people' have spoken.

Let's go forward, America. Let us be the dysfunctional family that we are and not allow that to stop us from the tasks ahead. Light the fire! Here we go!

                                     In the spirit,
                                       Jane

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