Happy New Year?!

If ever a salutation was more ironic: Happy New Year in this of all years is it.

There is no way on God's earth that 2008 will be a good year. The events set into place over the last seven tortuous years have unfortunately made prospects for a Happy New Year virtually impossible in the foreseeable future. This sad reality is anathema to the very nature of the American spirit which has been traditionally positive and bravely optimistic. So it is particularly disheartening when the actions of our own government consistently and cruelly crush the basic instincts of the people and their desire to attain "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"! This heartless and cruel government has forever damaged our image in the world and cynically reinterpreted the law and lied and lied and lied to the point of the surreal. The whole country is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and aside from divine intervention there is no cure for this psychic and spiritual mugging by our so-called leaders.

Albert Camus wrote that the first and foremost question of our existence is: Is life worth what we have to go through to live it? Most people cherish their very existence and try their best to live a life worth living. In spite of the seemingly insurmountable obstacles in our way we somehow hope against hope and find a way to be as life-affirming as humanly possible! How? Love! This is no glib or trite assessment! Without love there is no humanity and humanity is what used to define our country. So slowly but surely in spite of the awesome challenges that face us the indomitable human spirit just might overcome the seemingly impossible odds against it and triumph. So on second thought:

Happy New Year!

Read more New Year's posts from HuffPost bloggers

Comments

[kellygrrrl]

IMO, the one thing that would/could do the most to heal the psyche of the American people and our worldwide image would be for the next President to prioritize the investigation and criminal charges against the current Administration. I do believe that could restore some faith in humanity

[kellygrrrl]

thoughts going out to all the Vets out there - those who decided Life is Not Worth It, the families who loved them, but could not LOVE AWAY the pain, the nightmares, the insurmountable odds, May the New Year bring you PEACE

[SirReal1]

Richard,

I'm feelin' ya' bro'!

This past year has been difficult to endure on so many levels, and that generally doesn't bode well for the next one. But I still have hope, for several reasons.

First, is my basic philosophy, which has carried me through many trying and rewarding times in the past. Simply put, I believe that this life is for living, and I try to keep in mind that everything that encompasses "human" experience is a necessary part of that. The good, the bad, and the ugly, is all part of the experience of "living". I embrace misery when it comes just as I embrace ecstasy when it arrives, because it is just as "life confirming" as the other. What would we be without life's challenges? Certainly it is those challenges that have shaped us, and made us what we are today.

Second is my view of the state that we (as Americans) find ourselves in at present. From my perspective we have a lot of things we need to "fix", but I feel that we may be in the best position to identify exactly those things that need attention, than we have ever been in my lifetime. It's as if "King George" has taken a highlighter out of his pocket, and in bold bright yellow streaks has shown America the concepts and policies that are doomed from their inception!

This year we can put a stake through the heart of the Neo-Con, Religious Right, Moral Majority Republican Party, and get it buried with the coffin nailed shut!

Virtually ALL of their policies and ideologies have been proven FLAWED! G.W. was the "godsend" of the Reagen Right. A continuation of "DADDIES" and "UNCLE RONS" ideas and ambitions, and it has led the Nation to the brink of RUINATION! More people than ever (at least in my lifetime) now realize the basic truth of this.

(cont)

[Spikethedog]

Belzer's right.
2008 could be a disaster for the Democrats, in spite of their ability to run against George Bush, no matter who's on the ticket.

After all, 2007 was an unmitigated disaster for a party elected on an "end the war" ticket but which found no traction at all toward that goal.

Why should 2008 be any different?
After all, Democrats have no new ideas, no new candidates, no new goals.
Just the same old moaning and groaning about their imaginary loss of freedom and the so-called bullying by the right.

Doom and gloom is a good spirit for Democrats this year.....they better get with it as soon as possible so they aren't taken by surprise in November.
Well said, Richard.

[irishgawdess]

At 11:55 pm on New Year's Eve, M-80s started going off in my neighborhood, along with colorful fireworks. The revelry continued sporadically even after midnight, and I wondered, "What the hell do these people think there is to look forward to?"

I want to believe we'll find our way to universal peace, love, and acceptance of "the other." Back to a more innocent time, but there's no going back to any such place or time... it never really existed. That's where Santa and the Easter Bunny live, and we are no longer protected, naive children. Pandora's Box has been opened and I'm really afraid the "evils of mankind," i.e. greed, envy, lust, pride, guile, etc., can ever be returned to that box.

However...and this is a biggie, there is still one thing left in Pandora's Box, and that is hope. Maybe that's what my neighbors were feeling at 12:00 a.m. of the new year? Perhaps there is still hope for mankind.

I'd like to think so. "Let it begin with me."

[GlockGal]

Happy New Year, Belz! I think this was in the running as one of your best posts ever. The irony was nothing less than delicious.

Albert Camus had the right idea; his question is something I struggle with every day. I think, despite the depths of many Americans' cynical nature that life probably is worth living. At least long enough to see if any of our current situations imporve on both the domestic and international levels. Do I personally think they will? No. It's hard to have hope in a hopeless world, especially in light of what the current administration has done to each of us and to the United States as a whole.

You do have a point, however. Love has to enter into life in some regard, or there is no point in hopefulness of any kind.

In this case, when it comes to politics, this begs the question: Do we, as a nation, love this country and have the hope our vote in November will change anything? Or should we simply let the past 7 years crush our hope, allowing sarcasm and the hardships in life completely drain us of any humanity we may yet have?

I don't have the answer. I'm one of the many in this country trying not to have a nervous breakdown over the current economic conditions we're facing, due to outsourcing, unaffordable insurance and all the other aspects of Bush's "legacy" we'll be struggling to cope with for many years to come.

[paige]

Richard Belzer, I heart you! *S*

[freedomis]

NEW YEARS DAY 2007 MUSINGS

1) Essential: To be alive; it is essential to be here to have anything happening in the new year.

2) Understood: Got to have family; without which, matters not the size, we get no genes and hence no smiles and no gene pool.

3) Pleasure, pain: Our own gene pool; If this does not describe kids I have done a Rip Van Winkle. Per cents? 95 pleasure 5 pain.

4) Nice: Neighbors; Nice neighbors are nice and since they can be so close they might be among that 5%.

5) Beautiful: Friends; Here is where many sit, mother, father, sister, brother, kids, wife, husband, gal, guy from anywhere, pets and UFO riders. As all know there can be and are some 5%ers here.

6) Fabulous: Freedom; I would not leave home without it and maybe I couldn"t.

7) Desired: No war; The only negative here besides the 5%ers and so according to my math makes it a positive. Not Bal. math.

8) Treasure Trove: Love; Can we all see that this is the treasure trove as it encompasses all the others and makes them come alive as deeds and not just as sayings that I have written down? The 5% is part of the whole and so we tuck that in with love also.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!!!
With love to all, Sandy and Tony 12/30/07

[raker]

The real tragedy isn't George Bush, our simian dolt legacy president. It's that roughly 45 percent of Americans voted for this idiot for president - twice! That roughly 25 percent of the population still admit to supporting him. After Bush slouches away, we'll be left with the knowledge that about half our neighbors are fearful, amoral, murderous monsters whose hearts sing whenever someone other is tortured or killed in their name. That's the real tragedy.

[Northwoodsbirder]

"There is no way on God's earth that 2008 will be a good year." We live in a time when humanly defined principles take precedence over the value of human beings. Our President, hiding behind his definition of "Christian," has sunk us in the quagmire of war on principles of defending the world from the tyranny of Sadam and devalued the people of Iraq and our own service people. These are times of grief for people of our nation who rub elbows with those who are suffering. It would be more comfortable to live in the ivory tower of denial. But I can"t and, clearly, neither can you.

Yes, love is the answer. But real love is very costly. It means looking beyond a person's faults to see the human being and their needs behind their actions. That means staying engaged with people who may hold very different principles and may even be unlikeable.

Again, "What would Jesus do?" His birth would first be announced to society's outcasts, shepherds. He would engage with the disengaged and poor, meeting their tangible and inner needs. He would confront society's leaders for strictly adhering to the behavioral standards of Law and forgetting the worth of the very human beings that Law was designed to protect. He would define the greatest love possible as "laying down one"s life for a friend" and would value all people enough to lay down his own life for friends and enemies alike.

I don"t expect 2008 to be a "good" year. These are dark times. But I have hope because, no matter which way events go. I know that I am loved and that I can love effectively. This is not "Flower Power" love. It is a genuine active compassion for the people around me who are in need. I will vote. I will make my voice heard and my actions felt where I am. In so doing, I can share Hope with those around me.

To you and yours, Richard, we send our Love and our wish for a Hope filled New Year.

[research]

2008 is a desperate year. Probably the last chance we will get to restore the USA to democracy.

We don't live in a democracy anymore, except in name. We have no right to trial, no Habes corpus, you can be "disappeared" , secretly whisked away in the dead of night, rendered to a foreign gulag, and tortured to death, Or tortured forever, or tried by a kangaroo court and executed.

We are all under constant wiretapping and surveillance.

2 elections in a row have been stolen. Electronic vote stealing machines programmed to cheat made by Diabold and his brother and personally guaranteed to deliver the "electoral votes", odd that the exit polls didn't match the votes huh? plus all the poll tax/harassment crap from the rethug brown shirt at the polling places.

Government appointments and jobs now come with a rethugs republican Loyalty Oath required. Democrats will be fired, democrats will be prosecuted, rethugs go Scott free, no matter the crime. The Republicans have shown they are just like the Communist party in China and the USSR. Their fearless leader Bush systematically steals power.

There is at least ONE less democracy in the world today because of BushCo: the USA.

[escobar]

If the election is not rigged and we end up with a Democrat as President, it will be a good year.
Republicans are already preparing to block voters with lists as they had in Florida.

[Not Blind]

While we all wish 2008 will be healthy (or at least provide access to healthcare for those who are ill), safe (from tyrrany, bloodshed, government intrusion into our personal lives), peaceful (without further conflicts at home or abroad), prosperous (with a balanced budget, being able to pay down our national and personal debts, begin to save and grow wealth), and happy (absence of pressing global, national and domestic issues such as environmental, education, full employment for all), we can not hope or dream of these things while Dubya is still in office. Unfortunately, there aren't too many presidential candidates offering a change in the destructive, imperialist course we're on.
I fear we'll have an irreparably harmed environment, economy, educational and healthcare system, infrastructure with an insurmountable debt that will plague our nation for generations to come. I'd love to be more optomistic, but with one year left in Dubya's presidency, and a Congress unwilling to do much other than whine about these issues, we're doomed to the aftermath of the destructive policies set forth. While Dubya will be gone next year, his successor will be dealing with a host of problems on all fronts caused by the neocon, PNAC, AIPAC policies that have reaked havoc upon our once great nation and the world.

[realwoman]

Oh my Lord. The doom and gloom crowd is alive and well on the Huffingtonpost. How can you live life so full of anger and pessimissim? 2008 can't possibly be a good year? Really? It's only Jan. 1, for God's sake. In 2007 more people on Earth were living in democracies (al beit not always the kind we're used to) than ever before. There are people having a hard time here in the U.S. but that's the way it's always been and that's the way it probably always will be. There is no such thing as a perfect country or world, all we can do is to try our most to live in the best world we can. The people living in the true hells on Earth are the people that are living in countries like Sudan, Chad, Norh Korea, Iran.
Spend a week in any of them Mr. Belzer and you will see your country, maybe even, dare I say, appreciate it, a lot more than you do. America has been good to you, try being a little bit kinder to it.

[Pdubya]

rEVOLution Richard.

Thanks,

peace