oh yes we can if we will

I got home last night and found a stolen hour in that state between wired and exhaustion. I went to the default of a glass of Malbec and my laptop. But then I decided to put on my responsible cap and ignored Facebook in favor of the Obama speech I missed while at rehearsal.

I found myself agreeing with most of the speech. I’m sure that doesn’t shock you, my Republican readers. I am a liberal lemming. But, do I just have to be of a certain political persuasion to say, yeah, the guy had a pretty important point last night? That we have a problem. A pretty obvious problem. And we have to fix it. Right now.

I haven’t been as tuned into political news this week as I have spent a lot of time in my car (choosing my new iPod over NPR) or belaboring the intonation of words. So I’ve missed all the brou ha ha and anticipatory disdain over last night’s speech. I caught enough wind of it when I did go on Facebook and saw the requisite and not all too surprising complaints from the Obama haters. Enough to just make me shrivel my nose and say, really? Is it so important to dislike this man that we absolutely refuse to try his solution?

I know this strikes a nerve with me, as I find myself embroiled in a project taking a direction that I find completely foreign to my logic, my philosophy, and what I determine is a worthwhile or enjoyable expenditure of my time. But… at the end of the day I see that there is something that has to be done, a goal that has to be reached… and I will do what has to be done so it gets done. I have had my moments of digging my heels in the ground… but mostly, I just have to suck it up. Because maybe it will turn out all right and maybe even likable… even if it isn’t my idea of right and likable. 

And yet, I know that people aren’t going to suck it up. That’s when my impression with the President’s speech last night failed. It wasn’t about him. It was about us. Not that he has failed to offer us hope or change. That we, as a nation, REFUSE to make the change happen and squeeze out all the hope by focusing on stupid trivia like the fact a school system doesn’t want to say the pledge of allegiance to a flag. Or denying a couple marriage. Or forcing an unready mother to have a child. Or the contrived notion of a birthright. Rather than look at the problem we have to get through - that we really MUST FIX RIGHT NOW, we decide to create our own ruin by expostulating on meaningless, stupid minutiae.

I know I can’t expect any other American citizen to see the world as I do. Just because I learned in the last couple weeks that sometimes one has to get over a petty grievance in order to get out of a muck doesn’t mean that anyone else is going to arrive at that destination of thought. 

Would I be saying this if it were a Republican president mandating spending cuts on programs over spending money on jobs? Hm. I wouldn’t like it. But if it were what was put to me as a solution right here, right now, I would find a way to wrestle it in my mind. Because we have to get through this and not keep standing in the mud.

And you know, it goes back to that overused and abused catchphrase of three years ago. Yes, we can. We can. But only if we get over ourselves and decide that we will.