In 2004, after the election, I was crushed. The rush of emotions was overwhelming, particularly after the effort I had put in, the way I do, before the election.

All that emotion was channeled into something that overwhelmed me, and helped bring back the sun, as it were. This activity brought a sense of community in dealing with the struggle that has left me with a profound understanding of the reality of oh so many other people, and how we share it.

That old website is here.

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/index_old.shtml

I’m not going too far to say it brought me to tears, seeing so many people *feeling* the same way I did. Not so much mad, more apologetic, to a world we know we had just screwed by failing in our quest to unseat Bush the Lesser (and four years later, our economy crashed as any viewer of history would know it had to, and brought the world’s down with it).

If, as you sit back and ponder your own perspective on the changing world within which we find ourselves, and you are curious about a nice solid, “compare and contrast” in the two “sides” of our politico-ideological-cultural-split…..take a look at that site I linked above.

And compare and contrast it with what is happening now, what with the secession petitions and what not.

What came out of 2004 for “the left” (and oh how I hate that terminology) was the determination to worker harder, and smarter, to help bring about the world we know is right there, waiting for us, within our grasp as a society and a culture.

Because the thing is…what with how Congress is divided and my early take on how the (completely unchanged) Republican leadership is going to play this “fiscal cliff (and oh how I hate that terminology)….it looks as if Washington is little changed in its conception of the balance of power.

And some won’t be satisfied they’ve played the political game for all it’s worth until we are peering over the cliff…which…in economic circles…tells a lot of folks you’ve already gone over it.

The lesson wasn’t learned from the debt ceiling debacle last summer, and the voters certainly didn’t make a resounding call either way, so unfortunately my outlook for the next year or two is pretty “bleh”.

We need a longer term, “here’s the way it is”, solution, and while Republicans don’t have the power to write that solution, they *do* have the power to keep Obama from doing so.

This infighting will continue, most likely, up through 2014. The next midterms will hinge on whether or not the Tea Party still exists, and old people make up over 40% of the electorate as they did in 2010. I have my doubts about this, as a demographic that can only shrink as the wave of time moves ever forward may well have already peaked, politically (we can only hope).

Concerns also linger for a worldwide economic downturn. Were I an investor, I’d turn my eye to local concerns, as I think the domestic U.S. is going to do quite well. With Europe continuing to dither on a deal, and not sucking it up and settling on tugging along Greece and Italy like we do a good portion of South (i.e. with yearly budget payoffs to keep them relevant economically), they’re going to be a constant drag on any economic momentum.

Mix in with this our now yearly “Storms of the Century” (thanks Global Warming! You do exist!), and there’s still a lot of risk swimming around. But the fundamentals are still there, and if people just sit bit and relax and take that big, strong, black, and white hand of leadership so far outstretched from our President, we should continue to recover nicely.

After 2014, and the endpoint of the “easy predictions” on what happens politically, I kinda want to bring you back topic-wise to the website I linked earlier vs the current cacophony of conservative conniptions. If they become too much to bear, there’s always another option…

You can always come on over here, where we accept science and math and rights for women and gays and and workers and the freedom to smoke a bit o’ to the weed and be able to go to doctor to get that “thing” looked at and still get your shit done…as we all do…as Americans. Come on over, you’d be more than welcome.

To say I’m not happy about the election would be a lie. I think we did a good job and avoided a mistake we made about a decade back, hiring a CEO for a job that requires decisions made with the heart and soul foremost, and not the bottom line over all. A community organizer does that work just fine, and believes in it at the same time.

Peace, love, hope, change and Obama, 2012

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