Fear of History Repeating Itself

This is what I looked like in on November 22, 1963. Goofy looking. Buck teeth. Full of happy thoughts. Loved to play baseball and soccer. Sometimes played with girls. But mostly just a relatively normal suburban kid with friends of all colors and genders. Life was full of hope and happy thoughts. The world was before me and anything was possible.

The fear of history repeating itself for me comes from my memory of the events of November 22, 1963. I was in my fifth grade music class where we usually were subjected to a broadcast of the New York Symphony with commentary by its then Conductor, Leonard Bernstein. This was broadcast over the radio into the music room. The symphony broadcast was interrupted that day with the news that the President of the United States had been shot and was feared dead. We were rushed back to our homerooms without much talk from the teachers. Every adult not glued to a radio was crying. Later we were dismissed from school early to go home. Mine of course had no adults in it to explain things for me. So I went to a friends house. His mom was always home and never drank in the daytime. She explained it to us. She explained that the leader of our country was assassinated. Shot and killed. I remember it like it was yesterday. I fear for it today.

It's 6:00pm in Texas on election night 2008 and I am hopeful that the people of this once great country will decide to remove their collective heads from their collectively obese butts and vote for Barack Obama. It would be historically significant for sure but, moreover, it may be the only chance we have of reconciling our differences with all of the other nations of the world. The policies and preferences of the administration of George W. Bush have brought us to the brink of total moral, economic and diplomatic bankruptcy. Four more years (or eight, if we're really stupid) of McCain and the Bimbo would have the states seceding from the union to save themselves from the policies of the Union. There's but one small fear in all of that.

My fear is not that Barack Obama will be elected but that some redneck, skinhead, NRA (National Rifle Association) gun-totin' fool, Aryan Nation: Nazi Revivalist, KKK (Ku Klux Klan) member, or other fucking racist moron will assassinate him. The person we need most to do the most probably ever asked of a president will be in the most danger. Not from a force or evil from outside our borders but from within. The polls aren't even closed as I write this but I still have faith that Americans can and will do the right thing when most needed. I trust us to put aside color and culture to elect the person who has the potential to do the most good for the most people. But still the nagging fear.

I hope the majority of the people speak up this time. I hope the minority vote coalesces. I hope the complacent self-centered twenty-somethings arise as a force. I hope the poor, the disenfranchised, and middle-class working schmoes all rise up in anger about what this country has become, what has been done to its economy, and the farcical wars are exposed for what they really are. I hope Obama wins with all my heart. But I'm afraid for him and our country should the worst fears come to pass. The Watts Riots will look like a fraternity prank. The million man march look like a picnic. War will come home to America from within America. We are on the brink of seeing Dr. Martin Luther King's "Dreams" come true. And I have this recurring fear.

This is what I look like now. Older to be sure, perhaps a bit wiser but ever hopeful about my future. Damn, I've taken so long to compose this posting that the elections are over and Senator Obama is now President-elect Obama. All the more reason to be hopeful that people will accept this man as just a man and let him start to heal this country. Get us out of the new Viet Nam wars in Iraq(pronounced: ee-rahk not eye-rack) and Afghanistan. And maybe apologize to rest of the world (allies and all others) for what we've done to bring it to the brink of despair and economic ruin and generally, making asses out of ourselves (the politicos, that is.) Begin to polish our severely tarnished reputation around the world. Start to make America act like a world leading power rather than just a big bully. Just maybe there's a glimmer of hope that history will not repeat itself as it has too many times in the past. I am of a people who are constrained to "never forget." Remember the Pogroms and the camps. Remember too, Abraham Lincoln, Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I went to the polls and pushed the button that placed all of my faith in this one man to perform these Herculean tasks. I'm proud that I have the right to do so and I take it very seriously. I'm hoping, no praying that he will be allowed to start and finish these jobs and more and that history does not repeat itself.