Dare I hope?

Dare I hope that the people of the USA are ready to hope that things can be better? They WANT things to be better? They want to stop being afraid and pinched and depressed and angry? Are they ready to stand up and say ENOUGH? Can we elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden?

Are they ready to say they work hard every day, come home and do a little more around the house, just to get by but never see the light at the end of the tunnel, so are now ready for the light? Are they tired of the darkness and suffocating feelings and anxiety about their lives? Can they accept just a smidge more responsibility so their children and grandchildren can have at least as much as they do or even a little more?

Or, are they afraid of light and air and smiling and believing they can leave something better for their children? Can they leave behind the devil they know and venture out to something different? Can they remember what it was like?

Or, are they willing to throw the dice on the future, the future for themselves and their children? Are they will to hand the reigns over to an old man that just wants what he thinks he is owed, someone who has quite willingly sold his soul in order to get what he wants. And, standing right behind him is a woman that wants nothing more than to be queen.

People don’t seem to get that it really isn’t all about them. Some of it is, but mostly it’s about the country, and world, being left for their children and grandchildren. I know many people have children because they want children. I often wonder, though, if they stop to think about what that means. Long term. Generational.

Having kids is not just have the kids, grow old then die. There is a huge responsibility for what they leave those kids. Will it be a life that is a little bit better than our own? Will we leave clean water and air, enough oil and natural gas to see them through discovering new sources of energy and technology? Will there be enough food?

Will it be worse? Will the ravenous use of all natural resources, including all the oil we can drill-baby-drill for and a planet moldering under polluted air and water and landfills of our throw-away living be the legacy? Will they have all the bills of our mismanagement and over-use and greed? Will the sins of the fathers be visited on the children?

Are we ready? Can we deal with a little more pain so that our old age and the ages to come aren’t crushed?

We have to be ready for change, for a man and a government that wants to make it better, to make a life and country that does not live with fear, that reaches out to our neighbors on this tiny world and stands straight in amongst them again. We have to be ready, if not for us, then for our children.