As a new year strides in shoulder to shoulder with a new presidency, both provide the distinct possibility of much fresher air than the foul effluvia we've been forced to breathe for so long. But we still need to remember the devastating impact of the last 8 years of George Bush's neo-con capitalisto-fascist sting operation and seek to remedy the damaged lives, the suppressed truths, the twisted logic and the utter and brazen abuse of Democracy that he and it will surely embody for all history.
And for all the upcoming celebration, it's vital to remember that we are in many respects still manipulated and still oppressed, even if we can't always feel it.
So firmly latched to the media teat which for the most part neither educates nor enlightens are we that even the liberation from BushCo an Obama era promises is dangerously close to being merely an updated version of the same side show which distracted the citizenry from ever allowing the usurpers to wield its destructive ideology in the first place.
We the People are not simpletons, though we may have been rendered thus by years of steady, insidious indoctrination via purposely inadequate education, infrastructure and government assistance programs.
We the People are not a legion of jump-monkeys, though our trust in our leaders has been so exploited that we respond with Pavlovian precision when color coded alarms are rung by would-be patriots who hide their treachery beneath a brazenly brandished flag and who themselves would no sooner defend this country from a real threat than profit by the very panic such a threat would incite.
We the People are not slack-jawed, empty-headed vessels, though the apologists for this dead-end ideology behave as if we were and still rant, still spew, still seek to divide and fill the void with vitriol not seen in scale since Germany in the '20s, '30s and '40s.
We the People are not a bully nation which supports unilateral aggression nor shrinks from engaging its true enemies, but if you claim to wage an honorable war then at least allow us to care for our wounded and honor our dead. Don't hide them as though they were misshapen, disposable freaks.
We the People are capable as individuals and as a nation of sacrifice in difficult times, as we proved so ably during the Great Depression and the Second World War, though we have suspiciously not been asked to cut back on our expenses, to serve in our communities, to demonstrate common sense and thrift from the outgoing administration during its many crises.
But this new year and this new presidency is the snap of the finger which will break the trance, the scent which will awaken and excite the muted senses. The consistent deriding of intellectualism, of reason, of science, of art, of ethics, of service, of thrift, of respect that BushCo has so shrilly embodied is what this new year and this new leader should begin to liberate us from. This is what we as a nation need and deserve.
It is all possible. There are clear cracks upon the faces of the Pop Pap purveyors in their monomaniacal motive to perpetuate mass consumption. The corporations and the banks are being exposed for their avarice and their fraud. The media and the networks are desperately churning out commercial-saturated serials, all incestuous copies of the other, all identically procedural and virtually interchangeable and the viewers are losing interest. Green alternatives have finally found purchase in the most proudly of gasaholic consciences. And even The Rest of the World, that place travel-terrfied Americans rarely encounter in person and which BushCo so royally pissed off with its errant jingoism and old white man arrogance has shown a ready desire to embrace change and be rid of the snickering shitkickering sneering profiteers.
So, while popping the cork on pricey champagne may not be the most economically feasible thing to celebrate the new year and the new president, we can with real pride and hope look forward. But only if we learn from our past.
Happy New Year and Happy New President. We the People deserve it.