Healing

Well, the election's finally over. Barack Obama has won, and is now the President-Elect of the United States of America. John McCain graciously and immediately conceded defeat. Sarah Palin is on her way back to Alaska, where many of us hope she'll stay. Permanently.

Whether a black man won, or a white woman became VP, is irrelevant. I don't care about sex or skin color. Neither sex nor skin color matter. What matters is the person. And the person most likely to heal this country and lead us back to respect and prosperity is Barack Obama. The fact that he IS black says volumes of how far this country has come in so short a time. That the majority of voters put their faith in Obama rather than in "tried 'n true" McCain fills me with pride. I am proud today to be an American. I wasn't before yesterday. I wasn't because the Republicans, led by Governor Bush the Smirker (who reportedly looked quite angry at a news conference this morning) have raped this country, pillaged our finances, and brought upon us a waking nightmare many of us thought would never end. On top of that, he started an illegal war in Iraq, he lied to the American people and to Congress to get approval for that war. And on top of that, he managed to tarnish the United States' reputation on a global scale to where we no longer enjoy the respect we used to in the global community.

Now is the time for the Republican Party to take stock of itself. Where it went wrong, where greed got it, and where it will go from here.

We live, as Barack Obama so eloquently put it, not in the Blue States or the Red States, but in the UNITED STATES of America. We, as the American people, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike, need to start working as a united people, to heal this country, to rebuild from the shambles. It's time now for both parties, but the Republicans in particular, to take stock, reevaluate, and decide what's more important: The depths of their pockets and those of lobbyists, special interests, and big business, or the welfare of their constituents, the American people, many of whom have been suffering greatly with no representation, no voice to speak for them, no government of the people, by the people, for the people.