Tomorrow
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | PerspectiveA thing is about to happen which has not happened since the Elder Days.
– J.R.R. TolkienIt has been a long and terrible time since tomorrow mattered as much as it does today.
It began with that first terrible election, the media manipulations, the stolen and uncounted votes, the menacing mobs, and a decision by the highest court which sealed our doom. A man who was not chosen came to possess an office he was unworthy of, and everything that since has come to pass now seems almost preordained, fated, inevitable.
We have seen tax cuts which looted our Treasury and further enriched the wealthy, we have seen presidential vetoes of legislation designed to heal the sick and feed the children, and we have seen executive orders designed to shatter the Constitution and erase our rights. We have seen annihilation by fire and water visited upon our cities and ourselves. We have seen wars and rumors of wars. We have seen fear visited upon the populace by design. We have seen terrorists, and all too often, they have been us.
We have known death, and disgrace, and failure, and greed, and theft, and shame, and utter lawlessness. We have lost hope, and been afraid, and fallen to exhaustion and despair. We have seen torture and murder stamped with the seal of highest approval, and we have become what we despise.
But tomorrow is a different matter…
Pitts’ choice of a J.R.R. Tolkien quote is perfect. Tolkien was a young soldier in the trenches in World War I. He began to work on his Middle Earth fantasy while he was there to maintain his sanity in that crazy world. So his marvelous myth in which Middle Earth was saved from destruction by the hope of a small band of dedicated Hobbits was his homage to the common soldiers he fought beside in that most horrible war. And Obama’s hoped for victory is likewise a homage to the commoners sending $5 donations and becoming an army of volunteers unlike any in recent history.
Barack Obama is no political rookie, but his success is the product of a groundswell of bloggers and kids and african americans and other just plain folks who saw with horror what our country was becoming. Kerry’s traditional politics just weren’t enough in 2004. It was too much like what it needed to replace, or maybe we weren’t quite ready. Whatever the case, this election has the feel of a historical moment in the making – the stuff of myth and magic…
If voters had been paying this much attention 8 years ago we would not be in the mess we are in today. My hope is that we can extricate ourselves from that disaster. It’s sort of like a make-up test we failed the first time.