Let me start by thinking all of you at DailyKOS for making my first year of retirement a fun one. Even though I did not have a job to do and have had multiple health issues to deal with, diabetes problems, two cataract operations and a hernia operation, I made it through. Being able to share experiences with people who share my life long held belief that everyone is created equal has helped me get through it all and given me a reason to have hope.
People are different now that the elections are over and Obama has had a very clear win. I live in the very Republican Texas suburb of Plano. I think if every person in the city who was not a Republican voted Democratic we could not win an election this year but change is in the air. It is electric, it is fresh and exciting. People are not afraid to speak out now and many had to overcome their natural tendency to let other voters decide and abide by the results.
I had my hernia operation last Friday and had some time to lay in bed thinking about all the ways I've been blessed since retiring due to health issues. I hope to return to work in the not to distance future as Social Security gets me by but will not go much beyond the basics. When they discharged me I rested a day and then went food shopping for me, my niece and two dogs. While I was sitting at a bus stop I began chatting with a young black woman next to me. She was in her mid twenties I'd guess. She said she was glad Obama had won but that her mother had to talk her into voting this time. She said she was frustrated that Obama had not done all the things he said he wanted to do when she voted for him the first time.
Her mother explained all the things that she had gone through so her daughter COULD vote and if she didn't vote those rights that were fought for so hard for were in danger of being lost. She voted and was glad she had.
My generation (I'm 65,) fought hard for equal rights. Middle aged people took them for granted and the current younger generation is in danger of losing those rights if they don't work to keep them and build on them.
I got on a shuttle tonight to get more dog food ( Did I mention my dogs are big? One is Boxer/Mastiff mix and another 90 pounds of sporting dog/mutt mix. ). I started to chat with the shuttle driver. At first he wasn't ready to discuss politics but since I was a nice guy he opened up. He liked a lot of what Obama was about but had not voted. He looked to be Black and Latino. He felt a big problem today is people trying to make Christmas Xmas. I assured him one of Obama’s big agendas is not to do that. I told him I like having Christ in Christmas but I like how people who are more focused in the spirit of giving can join in the celebration without feeling they have to be a member of a specific religion to do it. Maybe it is God’s way of doing a little advertizing and when the time is right some one who is more Santa centered will become more God centered. That can not be forced on someone.
He thanked me for my service in Vietnam and for fighting for equal rights for all as I got off the shuttle.
So just a month since election and people seem to be much more open, happy and relieved.
During the months leading up to the election my Republican friends were always confronting me with new reasons Obama was sure to lose and Rmoney would make the world a better world like Bush had. They assumed that since I'm white and a guy I'd be racist and pro GOP like them. Thanks to DailyKOS I was able to gently answer right away about specific ways their thinking was warped and had facts to back me up.
One friend kept asking me questions about this or that sneaky Obama plot after another. Thanks to DailyKOS I soon figured out he was listening to Rush Bimbo and after I showed him the folly of those plots and the reason they were being put out he stopped talking about how he didn't like that born in Kenya Muslim. After the election I found he had decided not to vote. That way he could say he had not voted for Obama to his friends but not be guilty of voting for Rmoney, who thanks to me he had seen was job killing puppet of other rich guys. Does any one here want to bet with me that Rmoney has already or soon will amended his tax returns back to paying zero taxes this year? Did anyone notice how soon after he lost he bought that “not made in the USA” luxury car?
While I plan to keep writing and reading here at DailyKOS I plan to do a lot more chatting to new friends about the fantastic job Obama and fellow Democrats are doing. I understand now that the young people of today are so used to our rainbow they take it for granted it is going to stay that way.
Some very rich Angry white men tried to steal our community of caring and failed big time. We have to work every day to be sure they will always fail. Thanks to the change Obama brought and is bringing to America. We must help him move forward so that change keeps growing.