I simply can't live my life in a constant state of outrage. Even during the eight years of Bush, I couldn't stay outraged about EVERYTHING, as many here seemed to do. In recent diaries, we're told, in effect, that we need to be outraged about Chinese drywall, and AIG and the "Wall Street bailout," and the fact that the nation is "in danger," and the lack of "objective standards" and licensing for federal managers, and the 20th anniversary of the Exxon Valdez running aground, and the fact that we're not sufficiently outraged that the Iraq war isn't over yet.
We're told that we're insufficiently outraged by aspartame. Every hour, it seems, there are more diaries telling us that we need to be more outraged about even more things.
This isn't to condemn any of those other diaries, some of which I agree with. But I've got to admit that sometimes, it seems to me that many of us aren't happy unless we're in a constant state of outrage about SOMETHING. And sometimes, all of the outrage and negativity makes me want to be happy about something, and I suspect I'm not alone in that reaction. Although I never expected to be pleased with everything this, or any, President did, I just can't live my life in a constant state of outrage. I've got to focus on good things every once in a while.
Perhaps we're not out of Iraq yet, but we at last seem to be heading in that direction. Perhaps this administration's policies on interrogation and detention of terrorism suspects aren't as different from the Bush policies as we had hoped, but they're still a vast improvement. Perhaps this administration hasn't been as tough on Wall Street types as many of us hoped, but at least it doesn't act like they're the only people it cares about. Perhaps women still don't make as much as men, but we've now got a law allowing them to sue for back wages for periods that they didn't even realize they were being discriminated against. Perhaps marijuana hasn't been legalized, but the federal government has redirected its enforcement efforts away from raiding medical marijuana providers in California.
Is it OK to be happy about the fact that when going ashore on a cruise in the Caribbean last December, whenever I wore an Obama t-shirt ashore, I was approached by total strangers and told how happy they were about our election? I don't think that would have happened after any previous American election. Is it OK to be happy about the fact that I'm old enough to remember when I couldn't eat in the same restaurant or stay in the same hotel as an African-American in many parts of this country, and now we can do it? Can we be happy about the fact that I remember when African-Americans, and those supporting their rights, were killed with impunity in much of this country for the horrible crime of registering to vote, and we now have a President whose father was Kenyan?
I volunteered at the Inaugural Opening Ceremonies, and was in the mass of people freezing on the Mall on Inauguration Day, and I simply CAN'T stay in a constant state of outrage when I remember sights the wide variety of people -- old, and young, and in-between, of every race and gender -- united in hope for our future. When I want to feel better after reading another negative diary, or after looking at my retirement investments, I look at the pictures that I took at the Inaugural festivities, and think about how much unites us as Americans, and at how happy I am that Barack Obama, rather than John McCain, or Rudy Giuliani, or Mitt Romney, or Mike Huckabee, or some other Republican is our President.
It took us 8 years to get into the mess that we're in, and we're not going to climb out of it in a few short months. We didn't get out of the Great Depression overnight, and we won't get out of this overnight, either. Not everything FDR tried to do so succeeded, and not everything that Barack Obama tries will do so, either. But I think it would be nice, every once in a while, to put our outrage about whatever we're supposed to be outraged about on the back burner for long enough to on just how far we've come as a country in very many ways, how much unites us, and how much we've got to be thankful for in having THIS President, rather than just about any of the other possibilities from the last campaign.
If you'd like to feel a little better about the state of the world, perhaps these pictures will help you do so, as they do me.
There were young families there:
And middle-aged couples:
There were young women:
And old women pushing their walkers:
There were young black couples:
And young white couples:
And not-so-young couples:
There were Asian-Americans:
And Americans with ancestors from every continent:
There were Americans who now knew that their children could be ANYTHING for which their talents qualified them:
And most of all, especially once we had our new President, there was JOY:
Finally, lest we forget just how deep was the hole into which this country had been dug by the previous administration, there was this sign to remind us as we left the Mall that there were big problems facing our nation and its new President, and that they didn't begin with the Obama administation: