Yes We Can

I’m naturally snarky.  Sometimes, I can’t help it and other times, I just don’t try to hold it in.  But lately, messages of positiveness  have kind of gotten to me.  Professors have emphasized remembering the good parts of the books we are critiquing everyday and I just got an email with the message that rather than snip at Sarah Palin (much like I’ve been doing) we should talk about the good things that Barack Obama is doing and will do, if he becomes president of the United States.   I like this idea.  It appeals to the touchy-feely in me and I like remembering my liberal hippy touchy-feely roots. 

 

I am voting for Barack Obama in the upcoming election and I am voting for him in one of the critical swing states.  I purposefully kept my voter registration in Colorado because that is where it is needed the most.  I am voting for Barack because he will pass legislation that will make my life better.  He will support women’s healthcare and my right to choose, he will lower taxes for me and those in my bracket, he will help to pass laws that specifically benefit the working class. To put it more personally, he trusts me to be in charge of my own body and feels like I have the ability to choose the right person to marry, regardless of their gender.  He approves of my decision to get advanced degrees, to speak multiple languages and to eventually teach in higher education and he wants to help other people get the same benefits I have been so lucky to have.   He thinks that I need my money more than the oil companies, drug companies and the top 1% do and he doesn’t want me to have to choose between my health and my house, my meals or my transportation. 

 

But even more, if Barack Obama gets elected, he is not going to hurt the people who didn’t vote for him.  He is not going to raise their taxes or enlist their children into military service, he will not kill their unborn fetuses or ruin their sanctity of marriage but I cannot say the same thing for the Republican candidates—if they are elected, they will hurt my quality of life as well as millions of other people’s quality of life. 

 

I don’t like cheesy rhetoric but I do like change.  No, it’s more than change; it’s an entire rethinking of social priorities.    I want Americans, to be all that we can be, I want people from other countries not to mock us, I want to experience the freedom that I keep hearing so much about rather than being weighed down by high gas prices, bureaucracy and fear of terrorism.   I want Barack Obama to be our next president.  He is the only choice that will bring these things into existence.  I would be happy if he could bring even partial changes to this country because it would be a step forward after 8 years of galloping backward. 

Please, here is a website that makes my heart ache in a most hopeful way.  Check it out.  And vote, too.  Yeah, VOTE!