Some personal thoughts on Obama and our world

In California, this winter we have mostly had Spring and Summer temps -- it's been most unusual. But we are in our 4th year of drought--and the lack of rain this season will probably make it much worse. In spite of the fact that many Republicans don't believe in global warming, it certainly seems apparent that things are changing on this planet -- and it stands to reason that the stupidity of mankind is a contributing factor. Not taking care of our planet, polluting her without conscience, greedily using up her resources, drilling, digging, plundering, and bombing (even internally!) -- did we not think it would have any consequences?

I have always thought the underground nuclear testing and the continuous pumping of oil from the earth's nether regions have much to do with earthquakes. If you think of Earth as our Mother, a living entity, it makes sense that setting off nuclear bombs in her abdomen might not be such a great idea. And building nuclear plants in earthquake-prone areas, right on top of the fault lines -- a stroke of genius (NOT)!!! The more I watch history unfold -- and read about past history in books, as I am doing now with biographies of Lincoln, the more I realize we have seemingly learned NOTHING throughout the years of recorded history. Our weapons are improved (unfortunately) -- but our over-all consciousness has stayed the same. Brutes like Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld are still voted in as leaders, even in the country that is supposedly the world leader in morality and intelligence. Even when we elect a higher consciousness individual as a leader, the low-consciousness people who surround him in Congress won't accept him and try to bring him down before he's even had a chance to try to right all the wrongs done under the previous regime. They don't care if the whole ship goes down with them, imperiling themselves and their own families. Self-centeredness and greed rule these men -- and, until a new breed is born on our planet, we are held in their clutches.

I hope a new breed has been born in the form of our children and grandchildren and that, eventually, a higher consciousness will prevail, and the killing and murdering, war and plunder will come to an end on this planet. I once read somewhere that Earth was used as a prison colony by galactic civilizations. It's not hard to believe that may very well be true, when you see the types of greed- and power-driven, blood-thirsty men who have lived and ruled here throughout history.

I hope and pray for the best...and keep calling and writing my representatives on issues that matter to me. I am glad to see Obama taking his message to the people -- his town hall meeting in Florida today and Indiana yesterday were heartening to see. This is truly a different kind of president than we have seen in many, many years. He cares about the people--and the people know it. If anyone could bring change to Washington, it is this man! When the callow, uncaring Bush spoke, we watched and cringed to see what kind of bumbling errors he would make -- but when Obama speaks, we watch with pride to see, FINALLY, a man of great intellect and wisdom at the helm of our nation. Imagine, a president who can pronounce the word "nuclear" correctly! Even that alone gives me great pleasure! The contrast between him and Bush is so great, they seem to come from different planets. Imagine a town hall meeting where anyone and everyone is welcome, regardless of party affiliation -- where questions and questioners are not pre-screened -- where the average person can speak with their president and tell him about their problem, and he actually takes an INTEREST! This is the way it is supposed to be in our country--but for Eight Long Years, it was NOT.

In the Bush years, if you wanted to attend a town hall meeting, you had to prove you were a Republican -- and, if you had driven into the parking lot outside in a car with a bumper sticker in any way against Bush or his policies, you were escorted out of the hall by police. Wow...and this we called a democracy! Well, it's great to be back in a world we recognize as somewhat akin to the one our forefathers envisioned when they wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Eight long years of a dictatorship has taken its toll on us--a dictatorship of cruelty, ineptness, and dark intents. The mess left behind by the Cheney-Bush regime is monumental! In their tenure, they took a budget surplus and ran it into the ground, adding trillions of dollars of debt to pass along to Obama. They removed habeas corpus, approved torture, invaded another country on lies, starting a war that we still haven't been able to end, invaded our privacy in ways we are still finding out about--and, in every way, they turned our country upside down and careened us over a cliff, all the while lining their own pockets and the pockets of their rich pals at KBR, Brown & Root, etc. The work that KBR performed in Iraq was so shoddy, some of our soldiers were actually electrocuted while taking showers! And yet, the Pentagon this week awarded another contract to KBR! Greed and power, power and greed -- it takes a long time to dig them out of a system that has been taken over by evil men.

Obama said yesterday he is an eternal optimist -- I am going to try to be optimistic, too, now that we have a President we can trust to care about us and our welfare.