Thursday, November 06, 2008

Should I Read It or Be It?

Here we are reflected at the Domain. The retroactive bid to deny the tax incentives given this high-end multi-use development failed, by the way. Now that we are townies we don't go there so much. Fact is, when we lived a few miles closer we didn't go there much.

But, yeah. Seems everyone has something to say about the election. Should I just observe and read others' thoughts or add to fray?

Obama has given a lot of people what he promised. Hope. That's something. I'm too pragmatic, I guess, to feel it. The stock market is pragmatic, too, and is sailing downward. I keep thinking how a president, even with a majority in both houses, can really be stymied by the system and the circumstances. I keep thinking about what Barack is not. He is not an advocate of gay rights. He is not a descendant of slaves. The First Lady and his children, though, might be. I always thought our first 'black' president would be. I didn't think that he wouldn't have white ancestors, of course, because many U.S. blacks do. Remember Barbara Jordan? Yeah, wow. (Black, Gay, Woman. Not in my lifetime.) Barack seems a little too evangelical for my tastes (yeah, yeah, the Republicans, damn 'em, let's not even talk about them) and he didn't come out for gay rights. I also have a problem with his assertions about taxes. He says 'if you earn less than 250,000 dollars your taxes won't go up.' If you are a retiree with unearned income, though, what then? Ah, well. I can hope, too. I like that Barack seems a radical choice from name to background. The world took notice. It represents better than our words that the U.S. is an amalgam. It is many things, our country. Some are unsavory, some are lovely and some are just plain interesting! I find people with varied backgrounds to be beautiful, creative, interesting, accepting. Well, you know, in general. And I have hope that Barack will lead us out of wars, fix the economy, appoint some Supreme Court Justices, change the way the world views us, etc. But I'm a skeptic. I'm waiting for the morning after. And I hope he is given a chance to do what he can without too much pressure of all this expectation.

2 comments:

Eugene Sepulveda said...

Linda, why do you say Obama isn't for gay rights. That's simply not true. He and Joe Biden were emphatically against CA Prop 8. Obama wants us to have every constitutional right offered others. For now, he does not support legislative, same sex marriage. Though, again, he was against passage of Prop 8 which rolled back that right.

Linda Ball said...

Somehow I never saw being against something that abrogated something but not for it being for it ("for now he does not support legislative same sex marriage" in your words), but that's just me. As President he won't be able to move your cause much, but he could certainly do more than he has, don't you think? But it wouldn't be pragmatic, vis-a-vis getting elected. We will see now that he's in office if he can avoid thinking about 2012 and support this. My opinion, of course, is that is it just plain wrong to give rights through the government only to couples who meet some religious criteria. I'm sure you feel the same. Hold onto to the euphoria of getting your guy elected, though. Life is never simple.