{"id":2156,"date":"2008-05-10T12:20:54","date_gmt":"2008-05-10T17:20:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=2156"},"modified":"2008-05-10T12:26:05","modified_gmt":"2008-05-10T17:26:05","slug":"imagine-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2008\/05\/10\/imagine-3\/","title":{"rendered":"imagine&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"justify\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"133\" hspace=\"4\" height=\"276\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/images\/imagine.gif\" \/><font color=\"#550088\"><strong>the left coaster<\/strong><\/font>&#8216;s <em>paradox<\/em> has a <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theleftcoaster.com\/archives\/012508.php\"><strong>post<\/strong><\/a> up today about what it will be like with a President Obama and a Democratic Congress. I&#8217;m not so brave as he is. I&#8217;m anxious about the election. But it&#8217;s a real possibility &#8211; what&#8217;s right. One point he makes is one I&#8217;ve been thinking about. The blogosphere will change, and I&#8217;ll miss it. It has been a lifeline for these last three plus years &#8211; reminding me daily that I don&#8217;t live in a country I don&#8217;r recognize. The old one is still there, just buried.<\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"126\" hspace=\"4\" height=\"98\" border=\"1\" align=\"left\" src=\"http:\/\/tbn0.google.com\/images?q=tbn:2PR4YiYHHBCbgM:http:\/\/www.smh.com.au\/ffximage\/2005\/10\/25\/John_Lennon_wideweb__430x336,0.jpg\" \/>I&#8217;m under no illusion that it will be any utopia. Going by recent history, it might well be the worst of times for a while. Carter got elected after the Nixon debacle, only to be constantly attacked and obstructed, and was defeated after one term. Clinton was dogged unmercifully and soon strapped with a Republican Congress. I expect that the Republican Media will go postal if we have Democrats in power. Add to that the enormity of&nbsp; the problems that are the Bush legacy, and I don&#8217;t think we&#8217;ll be in a position to enjoy much Lennon-esque imagining.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">What can we legitamately hope for? First, freedom <u>from<\/u> the Bush Administration. What does that mean? It means a functioning government &#8211; a Department of Justice that is focused on our laws rather than obstructing them. It means a Congress that has time to think about what it&#8217;s there for instead of endlessly dealing with the Bush\/Cheney bullshit that&#8217;s brought it to its knees for eight years. It means a Military that can get back to soldiering and out of the public relations business. It means a State Department that uses diplomacy as it should be used. It means a place in the U.N. as something other than an object of ridicule. It means a C.I.A. that gets back into finding intelligence rather than manufacturing it. And it means the possibility of an open government that gives us straight information rather than empty rhetoric. That&#8217;s a lot.<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">One thing I can imagine is the possibility that a President Obama might just be able to bring off some re-uniting the country [the <strong>United<\/strong> States of America]. That&#8217;s what he says he wants to do. He says he wants to ameliorate the divisive nature of our politics and our gestalt. That would be plenty for me. &quot;<em>No need for greed and hunger &#8211; A brotherhood of man<\/em>&quot; would be nice, but not in my lifetime. I&#8217;ll settle for a large dose of honesty and adherence to the Law of the Land. &quot;<em>You may say I&#8217;m a dreamer, but I&#8217;m not the only one&#8230;<\/em>&quot; I think there are a lot of us who would like for those two things to come back into our lives, would see that as an accomplishment, would see that as as good enough&#8230;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>the left coaster&#8216;s paradox has a post up today about what it will be like with a President Obama and a Democratic Congress. I&#8217;m not so brave as he is. I&#8217;m anxious about the election. But it&#8217;s a real possibility &#8211; what&#8217;s right. One point he makes is one I&#8217;ve been thinking about. The blogosphere [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2156\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}