Jeff Koopersmith on Obama and America itself victorious.
November 5, 2008 – Geneva (apj.us) – There will be plenty of time to discuss the race that brought Barack Obama to the Presidency.
When it became clear that President-Elect Obama had won the presidency, I wept with a joy I had not felt for 28 years. I whispered to my long gone mother that "she" did it – and she did it in my lifetime. My mom – Sylvia Reese Koopersmith – spent most of her life fighting for equal rights in America. She marched; she organized the Women's Army Corps and forced the Pentagon to integrate that service. She drove through the South in the early 1960s – taking me with her and fought with those who never bought the idea that the Civil War was over. She and I drank out of Black-Only water fountains. We ate at Black restaurants and I was beaten up. All my ceremonial aunts and uncles were African Americans and today I thought about them all – especially Mama Carolee, who I loved beyond description, and who lived alone in the city until a very old age..
I watched the crowd in Chicago and saw Jesse Jackson weeping with joy and others – unknown – black, brown, Asian and white also with tears in their eyes and requited hope in their hearts.
God Bless my America. After eight years of Neocon terror, the long national nightmare is almost over. I love my country, and all those who defied whatever bigots are left here.
This won't stop the neo-Nazis in our country. Tonight they are planning how they will figuratively lynch Barack Obama, and at any opportunity. This is tit for tat. This is what we tired to do to George W. Bush and especially Dick Cheney. We succeeded because they planted and reaped terror. The neocons will not succeed in harming President Obama because they are evil and guided only by a love of money and power, and a sick sense of nationalism that we cannot abide any longer.
The difference I hope the New Republican Party recognizes is that Cheney and Bush deserved to be hounded and criticized and made little of. They deserved to be tried for murder, of people, and spirit.
I worry. I watched Senator McCain act like a gentleman by publicly complimenting and congratulating Barack Obama late in the night. However, I also watched and heard the crowd that supported Mr. McCain booing Mr. Obama.
This is not what people do in my America.
On the other hand, the far larger crowd in Chicago applauded when Barack Obama mentioned the good fight McCain had made. Some cheered McCain in appreciation of his service.
This is the difference between the right and left – still separated from each other – almost half and half. The ultra right: the side of my country that has supported warring, and greed, and religious interference in a secular nation – yes "under God" but not "by" God.
Please. You self-described Republicans, who are not Republicans but instead neo-Nazis on the far right of any ideal are simply unwanted trash. It's over for you. Go home. Take your meds. It's time to rest and to support our new President and the spirit of America he represents or shut up.
I have had the honor of knowing some great Republican leaders. They come from a time when Grand Old Party could really be grand. They stood for conservative spending, and less interference from government at all levels. They stood for a strong nation – prepared to defend itself against aggressors. They were not vicious and moronic. They did not lie continually about everything from social problems to regulating those who needed regulation- needed to be watched so they did not bite the apple.
Where are they today, the good Republicans? Where are the Republican leaders who can mirror the exclusivity that so many Americans craved and have now voted for? Where are these leaders who could believe that life does begin at conception, but also understand that cruelty of raising a child who is, in the womb, overcome with illness – or the cruelty of bringing a child into a dysfunctional and dirt poor environment where he or she will lose all hope is lost at age three?
Yes, one can fight to curtail or even end abortions, but not by shooting physicians or pretending to know the mind of God. Where are the Republicans that stood side by side with Democrats and supported the safety net we call Social Security for the aged, or stood up and voted "aye" for the Civil Rights Act, or realized that rioters who couldn't take is anymore had a point?
I don't know where they have gone, but I know they are out there; fiscal conservatives, religious men and women, and corporate leaders who know the "bottom line" aren’t the only story or the prime concern.
It is up to them to rebuild the Republican Party.
It is up to them to make sure that budgets are balanced and that we liberals don't get carried away with helpful programs we cannot afford. Yet it is also up to them to confront the realities.
Soon, 80 million Americans will grow too old to work. They are largely unprepared for retirement – especially today after the last wave of greed that destroyed their pensions. They must also lend their expertise to repair the damage that Banks, Wall Street, and Realtors have done to the world – not just to America, but to the world. They must, as well, release the 2million Black men who are in our prisons for little more than selling drugs to people who need them just to confront the poverty and disrespect they meet each day.
Tonight, the world is celebrating the election of Barack Obama without doubt. In Nairobi, they are dancing with joy. In Italy, they are cheering in Rome. The world is celebrating – no rejoicing the end of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. We’ve had enough. They’ve had enough.
Let’s get to work!
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.