America, Tonight We Dodged A Bullet . . .
launched from the heart of darkness.
“The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness,
bearing us down towards the sea with twice the speed of our upward progress . . . .
The Heart of Darkness,
Joseph Conrad
The damage we avoided through the agency of the re-election of President Barack Obama cannot be overestimated. Mitt Romney’s America, if it had been permitted, is one we would barely recognize. If armed with the power of the Presidency, he and Paul Ryan, their horde of surrogates, advisers, puppet masters, Wall Street thieves, and moneyed enablers had barely concealed their plans during the campaign to subvert, injure, and dominate. If they had succeeded, the America of 2016 would likely have found us with less freedom, less economic mobility, and diminished dreams. Inevitably, too, other needless and immoral wars, fought for the interests of a cabal of Neo-Cheney Neoconservatives, would have taken thousands of lives in Iran, in Syria, in . . .? Where not? Why not? We’ve seen this before.
Yes, we dodged a bullet tonight. History will speculate: what happened to us, that this group of selfish, crass, heartless, and criminally acquisitive Republicans could have ever become so powerful with so diseased a public philosophy. An the, so near to capturing the Presidency? What happened to us?
The answer still lay in the future. We need to seek that answer, though, and then, to find ways short of open civil war, to address it. If not, the next bullet fired at the heart of our nation from its own insular heart of darkness may hit its mark. Let’s roll up our sleeves.
Right on!
He's also a part-time phys. ed. coach at St. Mary of the High Rise High School.