President Barack Obama.
A black president. A smart, thoughtful, gracious man in the White House.
Nope, I have no idea what that might feel like -- even the smart, thoughtful, gracious part has been too long to recall clearly. But I'm practicing imagining it, and it feels good.
The beginning to his acceptance speech has helped me imagine:
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.And I have been trying to reconcile that with the gay marriage bans in California, Arizona and Florida, because I also cannot fully imagine how these rejections of the basic rights of some beloved friends hurts them. Our failure is wrapped up in our success in a pretty intimate way, I'm afraid.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
And then there's the passage of Washington State's Assisted Suicide Initiative (called Initiative 1000), which I'll admit I was aware of but not keenly attuned to like I certainly should have been. Most people I know won't see the connection here: Assisted suicide is about personal freedom, right?
It would be about personal freedom if we had a health care system that supported alternatives, like Medicare that paid more than $162/day for all medical expenses (including drugs -- painkillers) of people in hospice. Initiative 1000 was not an issue that arose from the grass roots in Washington, as Stephen Drake points out. It was funded by wealthy outsiders, which does raise the question of what that money is all about, doesn't it?
The future I'm imagining certainly includes hope. But that's not nearly enough.
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