Strange Days at the Polls

Yesterday I had great many errands to run, but foremost in my mind was heading out to the county Registar's office and making sure that I was actually able to vote on the 4th. This is what I saw:


The County offices were packed with people in to Vote Early.

I have been writing, reading and following the electoral process with a lot of zeal for the past 16 months. I was actually watching the Democratic debates when Chris Dodd was still a candidate and when Rudy Guilliani was the presumptive Republican nominee. Even back then I started pegging a lot of interest in Barrack Obama, and by January he was my candidate. I voted for him in the Utah Democratic primary over Hillary. I didn't think he had shot then really, but what a crazy year it's been.

Unfortuneately all has not been well in Avalon for the past year. The sins of the past were starting to haunt the Dow Industrials going back to November of 2007 and since then nothing eased the pain until we hit a total economic freefall this September. Now we are in what is going to be looked at as the biggest slowdown since the Depression, you can just feel it. As bad as it has been watching America turn blue has been beautiful to see. I think collectively we know what has led us to this point, and we know what it takes to bail us out.

My Stepdad calls September 19th "Red Friday". He wants it commemorated as the day card carrying members of the Republican party woke up Socialists. It looks like it might be the day the "Free Market" died. I think the markets should be there to give everyone a slice of the pie, and you know Brother's if I have enough I am going to share them with you. It just feels right to me, I might even want to say it feels "American".

Naturally a group of people in America want to create a strict Socially Conservative state. Liberals aren't the ones tapping phones of Soldiers and Democrats. They aren't ones scared of what happens when Blacks, Latino's and Asians vote. They aren't the ones pounds the pulpits with Dog Whistle politics. They are NOT the ones trying to silence people with the Spectres of Fear. Al-Quada was just as big of a threat under Clinton as it was Bush, but Clinton didn't re-organize the government to fight them. Social Conservatives need to have control, and they think that they must rule on top over the "lesser" people.

Three of the greatest figures in U.S. of the 20th Century, Bobby Kennedy, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were all sensible Social Liberals. Their killers, as much as we know, were carrying the water of extreme Social Conservatism. Our greatest hopes for a united, peaceful multi-cultural America, one that could really live up to the notion of "With Liberty and Justice for All", we're silenced by Hill-Billy's with guns. The only way to silence the surge in common sense was with a gun.

The worm has definitely turned. I went out to register and then found out that I could Vote, so I did. In the short time I was there so did at least several hundred people. People of every description and from every walk of life were in the courthouse exercising their most crucial right in Democracy. Over half of them were under the age of thirty.

Things aren't great in America today. But it feels like the Ghost of Ronald Reagan might have finally left the building. The influence of that son of a bitch that ordered State Troopers to open fire on students in California, that did everything he could to drive a wedge between Americans and their Government might finally be fading. It feels like Morning in America, and the tide is turning. Maybe John, Bobby and Martin didn't die for nothing after all.