Citizen Power

Does the sun seem brighter today? There has been a massive shift in American government. We are shifting from a government that assumes the worst of people, who suspects everyone and shrouds itself in layers of secrecy, to one that values sharing information, and indicates it will trust people. Imagine having a government that doesn’t feel everyone needs to be suspected of something! It feels like our long national depression has lifted, and Americans can finally stop being ashamed to be American. After the inauguration of Barack Obama, there is now a sense that things are possible again, that we have a chance to fix things.

There are a lot of good things about the new president, but one big one for me is that he respects science and will work to tackle  climate change seriously, not as a side issue.  President Bush said and did just enough to keep his critics from making too loud of a noise. Being an oil man, that was expected.  He had to keep his big donors happy. But Obama has no such ties to Big Oil and he will be shifting our energy focus off those damaging fossil fuels and on to renewable energies. He also respects other types of science including medical, so I expect he will sign stem cell research funding very soon.

I was not an early supporter of Obama and it took me quite a while to gradually get to that point, but now it seems like President Obama is the right person, in the right place, at the right time. The last eight years have been a rough ride. It’s been exhausting to try to keep track of all the crimes and misinformation and propaganda and everything else #43 did that was just wrong. The damage will live on, but at least the Bush administration criminals, warmongers and cowards can’t do any further damage to us. I hope they change the locks and passwords on everything in our executive branch just to make sure the SOBs who used to run things don’t come back. We can’t afford one more day of that.

None of us knows exactly what type of president Barack Obama will be, and his inaugural speech sounded rather tough to me, but it probably had to be the way it was. Even his flubbed oath of office probably had to be that way so that it too was remarkable. As for his politics, Obama campaigned as a moderate, not a progressive, and he has met with moderates and conservatives presumably to get their viewpoints and use them. But don’t assume that means he’ll be a conservative president. President Obama will be giving people orders, not taking them. He might have some hawks and conservatives in his cabinet, but he will only be considering their ideas, not automatically accepting them. Many people are worried he will carry on too much of the Bush administration’s policies, but where the law is concerned we can be sure he won’t. Where climate change and science are concerned, his administration will be very different.

Our country was drifting towards fascism and maybe it still is, but we now have a president who can stop it and has shown strong signs he intends to do just that. Unlike Bush, he actually knows better, knows the law, knows the Constitution, and seems to care. He also clearly respects the law, much more than George Bush or Dick Cheney ever apparently did.

(more…)