Moving in a Better Direction

I am, every day of my life, more thankful than I can put into words for the accident of birth that put me in the United States of America. As with all grace, I did nothing to earn this blessing, and neither did you. A simple change of a last name, a religion, and a DNA cell here or there, and I am in China or Iraq or Darfur or...you get the idea. No, it is nothing but a stunning blessing to have been born into this country. That said, I am not proud of my country every day. We are often greedy. We are frequently arrogant. We regularly expect people in other countries to behave as though they have had all of the advantages of life that we have had, and seek to punish them when they don't.
Today is different. I am proud of my country. Nationally, we have declared that we are fed up with arrogant leadership that plows ahead with bad policies no matter what anyone thinks. We have told our President who can't recall ever making a mistake that he has made several, and bad ones, too. And to his minimal credit, he took a short step toward doing better today by allowing Mr. Rumsfeld to go back to bullying business people rather than killing our men and women in uniform. Bush's The Donald maintained his posture, even in humiliation, lecturing us all that the only reason that he was going was that Iraq is a war that is "little understood." Yeah, if only we were as smart as the Neo-Cons, we'd want Rummy to keep this crap up until George II leaves at noon on January 20, 2009.
Other great human beings dismissed yesterday: Rick Santorum, Mr. "Gays are worse than people who practice bestiality" was excused by the apparently sobering up Pennsylvanians, who also turned out Curt "What do you mean I can't force companies that want my ear to throw contracts to my daughter? Weldon; the loathsome Ken Blackwell, architect of the theft of the 2004 Presidential Election, was thrashed by Ohioans fed up with the corruption of the Republican party; many others, from Bush lapdogs to just plain criminals were given permanent vacations.
I only have one regret: Harold Ford, Jr. lost in my state. Bob Corker is a joke; my thoughts on him are in a previous post. But Harold's defeat carried with it some measure of encouragement. In this southern, Republican state, against an opponent who was way too comfortable using race as an issue, a black man lost by fewer than 50,000 votes. Harold polled almost 900,000 votes. Even if we must still be ashamed that the better candidate was defeated by his skin color, we are making progress. Just think, if only 50k bigots had stayed home, Tennessee would have elected the first African-American Senator from the south since Senators have been elected by the popular vote. We almost did something great! I am a United Methodist Democrat. That means, by definition, that I am an optimist. I fully expect that in two years, we will have an opportunity to take the step we didn't quite make this year. Harold is far too fine a political leader to end his career at age 36. He will be back, and we should elect him when he runs next.
There are many difficult days still ahead. But we will now have the checks and balances system constructed by our Constitutional founders in place to prevent this President from racing, solo, into all of the quicksand that Mr. Bush has found in his 6 years in office. We will have the opportunity to look into all of the questionable dealings leading up to war, in conducting the war, and in botching this time since that is so obviously breaking down into civil war in Iraq. Questions will now be asked, and answers will be required. It's about time!
There will also be a great deal less of this "God prefers us" and "God wants us to do this" garbage from the American extremists. Those who have claimed mandates to "do the will of God" in our country have been put in their place. Because anyone who has ever had a serious encounter with the Bible knows that God loves all of this human creation. We are all God's children, those who know it and try to live accordingly, and those who don't get it yet. And the single group with whom Jesus Christ is constantly, invariably harsh is that group that continually presented themselves as knowing God, but demonstrating none of the grace, mercy and love that God embodies. My right-wing sisters and brothers, pharaseeism is not of Christ. Give it up! We are still all sinners who have fallen short of the glory of God! You didn't get yourself saved, and you don't get extra credit for getting there earlier in the day. Stop acting like you did.
Instead of screaming "Murderer" at young women who are so desperate in their circumstances that they have decided that abortion is the only way out, use your energy and resources to provide prenatal care and make the adoption process less costly. Instead of blaming gays for threatening the sanctity of marriage, use your commitment to Christ to establish mentoring programs for young couples who desperately need to be educated that the marriage contract isn't a "let's just try this for a while, and if it doesn't work out, so what?" type of thing. Instead of trying to kill all the terrorists, why not advocate for programs to provide food, education and opportunity for the children of the poorest and most repressive nations of the world. Osama bin Laden is the exception; most terrorists aren't rich and powerful. They are, for the most part, disaffected, isolated people who feel no connection to other human beings, and see no opportunity for their lives. How might any of us react if we had been born in the Gaza Strip, Ethiopia or North Korea? It is too easy to impose our expectations on people who have never known a good day, heard one encouraging word, or been told that they matter to anyone for any reason. Why not try to live out that old "Love one another" thing before we lower ourselves to that "kill them all and let God sort them out" mentality. Because we can't kill in God's name any more than the bin Ladens of the world can. Because God's word is life. And that's not debatable.