Perchance to Dream

[NanceGreggs]

I just want to believe in someone again. I want to hear someone’s words and trust in their veracity. I want to hear someone describe their vision of tomorrow, and know that I share it. I want to hear promises made that I honestly believe will be kept.

I want to look up to someone, and be in awe of their sense of purpose when they speak about change for the better, and the better days yet to come. I want to be dazzled by the depths of their compassion, the breadth of their imagination, and their infinite capacity to dream.

I want to remember what it was like to take pride in my country, instead of being ashamed of it – and be assured that it might be something to take pride in once again.

I want to remember what we have stood for in the past, and know that it will be recaptured in the future.

I want to believe that someone still believes in me.

I want to believe – no, I need to believe in someone right now. I need to dream that after the past seven years of hopelessness, someone will put an end to the nightmare.

For me, that someone is Barack Obama.

For others, it is Hillary Clinton.

The dream is the same, and the need to believe is the same for all of us.

Can we not respect each others’ need to believe in someone, to be hopeful, to look to the future with something other than dread and fear?

Can we not rejoice in each others’ dreams – even if we dream in different ways?

[kid a]

1. that is, pretty much, an amazing post, nancy - thanks!!!

REC!!!

[Tatiana]

2. What we have stood for in the past.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/index.htm

There are some powerful ideals embodied in those words. We have a right to live, to be free, to be happy, to have a government that is transparent and accountable to we, the people. The words may be meaningless or outdated to some, but I never cease to be amazed by the wisdom that the authors of the Declaration of Independence demonstrated.

Experience has shown that we'll suffer while conditions are barely tolerable rather than "abolishing" or getting rid of the things we are used to (or "accustomed"). But after a "long train of abuses," I honestly feel that it's my right, my duty, my obligation to throw off some of the traditional ways of government and look to a "new Guard."

Yes, it may sound a bit radical. It may sound like a risk. It may be a failure. But better to try and fail and try again than to be stuck in the monotony, gridlock, cynicism, and stagnation of late. I know others don't feel the same way and that, too, is their right. Thankfully, we are at a point in history where we can all go to the ballot box and express, at least to some extent, our preference for national leadership.

It's by no means perfect, but I do have common sense enough to realize that I don't live in a nation where there is one choice on the ballot. I don't live in a place where I have to declare my party affiliation and face death if my conscience leads me support the party of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

We've lost something in the past couple of decades. But even so, I refuse to give up on the hope and the dream that we can regain that which has been lost and write new chapters that will cause generations to remember this time in history with love and pride.

[NanceGreggs]

3. Again, Tatiana ...

... you post a reply that should be its own thread. Please post it as such - and provide the link here.

You are a truly gifted writer.

[Tatiana]

11. Nance, I think it belongs here, with the lovely sentiments of your OP.

I think this last decade has really taken a lot out of us, as a society, as a party, and as a people.

In the current environment, if JFK were running as a candidate for the democratic nomination, he'd be called an elistist fraud and a stealth Republican (due to his past friendship with fellow Congressman Richard Nixon).

We can't win for losing. We can't make progress because we're trying to re-live the past instead of learning from it and using those lessons to propel us forward.

...and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed

Those words were true then and they are true now. We have got to right ourselves.

I hope this attitude, this pervasive cynicism is only a primary thing. We're in deep trouble if it is not.

[Seabiscuit]

4. Yes, we do... but it's so sad that

words like "dream", "hope", "change" and "yes we can" and "are we fired up yet" have come to dominate one candidate's oratory as nothing more than empty campaign slogans, and to also dominate the entire MSM's propaganda machine.

I grew up with JFK, RFK, MLK and Cesar Chavez.

Those days are long gone. They have not returned this year, and they are unlikely to ever return.

The Obama traveling missionary circus to me is nothing more than cynically manipulated false nostalgia for something the people seeking it never understood in the first place, because either they weren't old enough back then, or simply weren't born yet.

Sorry to be so cynical with you. I love your writing. I just can't support your candidate.

Not that Hillary's much better. She really isn't.

I've given up on this election. The MSM took Kucinich and Edwards out. And with it they took the important issues and the candidates willing to pursue the important issues out with it.

What's left is media sludge.

Tweety forever. That's all we're left with.

It sucks.

Big time.

[NanceGreggs]

8. As one DUer recently put it ...

... "Sometimes you have to believe it to see it."

[Seabiscuit]

17. That reminds me

of the days way back when I dropped acid.

Seriously, though, having seen the real thing in my lifetime, I know it when I see it, and know when I'm not seeing it; IOW, I know when to believe and when not to. The only one during the past year, for instance, that made me want to believe again was John Edwards. He had RFK's fighting spirit. And look what they did to him.

[Bluebear]

5. 'I want to believe that someone still believes in me.'

I believe in you.

As a gay man, though, there is no way I can believe that Obama believes in me.

[Seabiscuit]

7. It's with a heavy heart that I say your instincts serve you well: he doesn't.

[avrdream]

14. As a gay woman, I feel the same way.

I lost faith in BO during the Donnie fiasco. For me, actions speak so much louder than those words of hope that you dream about, Nance. I am behind your fellow in the GE but am VERY upset about his actions on that Gospel Tour.

Just so you know where some of us are coming from in our opposition to Barrack.

[FrenchieCat]

6. My 70 year old aunt

who I visited with today says that she plays the Video "Yes We Can" at least one time a day.

She is a french Immigrant who has been in this country since the early 70s. She said that she has never felt this hopeful for her children and grandchildren before.

[saltpoint]

9. Recommended strongly and appreciated greatly.

[tandem5]

10. What a positive connotation to such an existential and ominous Shakespearian allusion! nt

[grantcart]

12. We have been patient. Its been 40 years. We haven't been running

off with every hukster selling happy days. When the right leader came forward we weren't convinced overnight. Many of us started with other preferences. As we became more open he grew in stature. I was afraid that he was too much of a policy wonk. I hesitated because I thought Illinois was giving us another Adlai Stevenson.

We were patient. He didn't seem to enjoy campaigning that much. And then he got better at it. And then a lot better. When a rumor started he would chase it down. A criticism, he faced it squarely. When opponents tried to get in his head he talked about Reagan and they went crazy.

Still patient more hopeful. Yes he has charisma but we didn't jump in. Examined his record more carefully. His words on the war more perceptive in 2002 than many were in 2005. And he still got better. And the campaign was so well run. So we hoped a little more. We didn't jump in like school kids. But cautiously believing, maybe he is the one. Feb. 5th, South Carolina, Potomac Primaries. Consistent. If he is close by or within a couple of hundred miles we get our kids and shove them in the car and buy them pizza and bribe them with a hot fudge sundae so they will sit for a couple of hours because we want them to believe. We have wanted to find someone since 1968 that would finally look around and ask, "Why not?"

In Wisconsin he takes the speech we heard before and shapes it so its like we never heard it before. My god he's pissed that they are denegrating words. He loves words and he is careful with them. A steely gritty strength is showing thru. A lecture on policy is thrown in. If they want policy details the college professor will oblige. How many details do you want? He appears that he could match you policy details all day long.

We are impatient now. If you don't believe that's fine but like an old prospector that has been mining for years when the gold nugget is in your tray you know what you have. Its not hoping or believing anymore. You know what you have and you want to go to Assay Office and stake your claim. You don't believe in it? Its ok but please get out of our way.

He's gotten better at it. He's enjoying it now and he is in control of it. He isn't running for president anymore he is becoming a president and we get to watch. I've been patient a long time. I didn't think I would see it again. I'll be damned if the system isn't working this time.

[donheld]

13. Thank you for that

I wish everybody would be as gracious as you are.

[tishaLA]

15. Thank you.

We are lucky to have you and H2O man share your brilliance with us.

[GTurck]

16. Well said. I have grown tired of ...

being suspicious and wary. I am so tired of having to distrust what a leader says because what they say and what they do is so far apart. I want to believe that this country as an ideal will again ascend. And I am exhausted by the partisan, personal viciousness of those who have divided this country. Let it not happen to the Democrats this year.

[H2O Man]

18. "But I, being poor,

have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams."
-- William Butler Yeats

Nominated for dreams.

[rug]

19. Aye, there's the rub.

[Scurrilous]

20. K & R

:thumbsup:

[puebloknot]

21. I get your drift, and I believe in dreams, too. (If you only knew.)

The most important person we all have to believe in is ... ourselves. There is a thin line between admiration, laced with hope, based on facts, and thoughtless following of a leader out of absolute fatigue. I fear for our country because I don't believe we have the kind of choice we've always thought we had. And I'm feeling very wary.

But I'm doing what the Hopi Survival Kit advises: I'm digging a hole in the dry ground with a stick, and I'm dropping some corn in that hole, and I'm living with the expectation that green shoots will grow out of the desert in the spring. Let it be so.