We did not come here to fear the future. We came here to shape it. I still believe we can act even when it’s hard. I still believe we can replace acrimony with civility, and gridlock with progress. I still believe we can do great things, and that here and now we will meet history’s test.

Because that is who we are.

President Barack Obama
Address to Congress
September 9 2009

Lately in American political discourse, there’s been an increasing tendency to use the word “Socialist” as a bogey-man threat around policies people don’t like, or even as a slur against people.

This rampant fear-mongering would be bad enough, but using the word “Socialist” as if it were the worst thing you could ever call a person makes me even more annoyed.

My late grandfather, Harold Luxemburg, was a Socialist. In fact, one of the earliest mentions of his name in the New York Times was June 2, 1934, when he and some of his fellow Socialists got arrested for forming a picket line in front of a Brooklyn bakery they were trying to unionize.

Scary stuff, right? Um, no.

Grandpa worked all his life for the rights of people who didn’t have many. He could have had an easier time of it had he chosen some less contentious profession, but instead he saw poverty and discrimination and unfairness all around him and decided to do something about it. He worked to improve the lives of milkmen and restaurant workers and janitors, and he always rooted for the underdog.

In his private life he was a kind, intelligent, and caring man with a strong work ethic who valued education and cultural literacy extremely highly, and loved spending time with his family. And sadly, he left us in 1990. To this day I miss him and am proud of him.

So to the Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh loving troglodytes who think that “Socialist” and “Socialism” are a slur and gleefully hurl those words around as if they actually had the power to hurt (if any of you should happen to find your way to this little corner of the Internet) — with all due respect I say, you don’t have a clue. My grandfather the Socialist was a better man than any of you.

Sad news of Ted Kennedy’s passing.

An imperfect man, whose life was marked by tragedy. And yet he managed to take it all in and transmute those flaws into the energy to drive a historic Senate career with a far-ranging legacy.

I like to think that finally he is reunited with his martyred brothers, and that they greeted him with a welcoming hug and told him, “well done”.

Photo Credit: jonathanpberger on Flickr.

How the hell did Rod Blagojevich get elected in the first place?

Was he always this crazy or did it happen more recently?

We, the United States of America, your top quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4.

Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20, 2009. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage.

We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely,
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Eight long years later, and the nightmare is almost over. Here’s two views I collected that sum up my feelings. First, from Ezra Klein, because he sums it up much better than I could:

Because George W. Bush was president, more people hate America. Because George W. Bush was president, more Americans view the presidency cynically. Because George W. Bush was president, this country is worse off, and this world is worse off. He betrayed us. I have no interest in engaging the debate that asks whether he was a cynical monster or a hapless fool. It is enough to say he was a failure, and leave it at that. He can spend the rest of his life giving speeches to justify his actions. But he will never be able to drown out the roar of his record.

And next, a bit of snark photographed by our pal Seamus:

Some kind folks at work have arranged to pipe in a live feed of the Inauguration Day festivities into a viewing area with plenty of seats and a big screen. I’ll be there, watching with a big smile on my face.

No long post. Just great relief, and happiness, and pride in my country.

Now the work begins.

I’m so glad I am here to see this day.

UPDATE Nov 5: Read this.

Here’s my call for Tuesday (hopefully I will not jinx anything!). Obama 286, McCain 252.

I don’t think we’ll take 60 in the Senate. My call: 57 seats.

And CA Prop 8? Too close to call.

Finally, just for fun, this slightly cheesy video:

If you have not voted early, do your duty tomorrow. I’ll be there when the polls open at 7.

That’s it, in a nutshell.

I realize this is an issue that causes a lot of pain and confusion, even for some people who are generally liberal on social issues.

Bottom line, though, is that change is not always pretty, or safe, or easy, or even comfortable.

No on 8. It’s the right thing to do.

UPDATE: I am very pleased to note that Chuck Geschke, Founder & Chairman of Adobe is quoted in this No on 8 press release.

Jeff Matthews nails it:

What happened to the heroic, forward-looking rhetoric great leaders are supposed to provide in times of crisis?

FDR gave us “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Churchill gave us “We shall fight on the beaches.”

George Bush cruises in with “This sucker could go down.”

Afternoon update: OUCH. Largest one-day drop on the DOW, ever.

I spent the evening watching Obama’s historic speech in a packed hotel room in downtown San Francisco. I got home to find close to 100 posts piled up in the “Politics” section of my feed reader. With that amount of text flying, it’s virtually impossible to find anything to say that’s truly original, and there are far better writers than me who will turn out much more lyrical paeans to Obama’s speech.

So I’ll just share one part of the speech, that made my jaw drop amidst all the cheers and even a couple of tears:

….part of what has been lost these past eight years can’t just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose, and that’s what we have to restore.

We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country.

The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland, but don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in a hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

You know, passions may fly on immigration, but I don’t know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers.

But this, too, is part of America’s promise, the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

Obama called out what are arguably the four most divisive issues in American domestic policy, and talked about trying to find common ground on them.

A less gutsy politician wouldn’t have done that. And in fact the speech could have been just fine without that section. But no, Obama went the extra mile and took all four of them head on.

Election Day is less than 70 days away. Bring it on. We’re ready.

San Francisco is a deeply flawed city in many ways (not to mention the whole voter initiative process, for that matter), but it also manages to come up with little gems like this. What started out as a joke is now going to be on the ballot this November:

San Francisco voters will be asked to decide whether to name a city sewage plant in honor of President Bush, after a satiric measure qualified for the November ballot Thursday.

[snip]

The measure, if passed, would rename the Oceanside Water Pollution Control Plant the George W. Bush Sewage Plant.

It almost makes me wish I still lived in SF.