November 5

And now it starts—the taking back of America from what someone has called “the monster of the Republican Party.” Obama has won in a landslide. It was time.

The country that I took citizenship in is not a country of belligerent selfishness nor of hypocritical self-righteousness. The avenue that the country has traveled down in the last decade is not the America I knew—and for some time thought was gone. But it has survived and was just waiting to be reawakened.

Despite the thunderings of religious bigots who so often proved themselves to be the gays or adulturers that they denounced; despite the posturings of free-market zealots who had their hands in the national till all the while; despite the cynical manipulators of patriotism and national pride who sent us into a war that has claimed over 4000 of our young people and countless thousands of the people we were supposedly “saving”—despite all this, America has come back. We have elected someone who seems to have the steady hand and the composure to sort out the lies and tell us what we need to hear and not what America’s vanity might prefer.

In the weeks ahead, I hope that Obama brings us a message of sacrifice and working together. We need to hear it. I was touched by the poll that showed that a majority of people earning over $200,000 said they expected to pay more taxes and that it was all right. America has been good to them. It is fitting that they pay something back. For too long we have all been sipping from the public trough.

Obscene CEO compensation has been merely the tip of the ice berg. We’ve all had tax rebates. Defaulted credit spending has helped drain national capital. We have systematically dismantled our self-sufficiency by sending our manufacturing overseas. We were told to spend, spend, to keep the economy going. But, as my late husband used to say—it’s not possible to spend yourself rich.

Everyone was involved. Short-sighted local governments, dazzled by visions of increased income and an unwillingness to look for the long-term downsides, granted permits to developers to throw up more and yet more of development houses that borrowers could not afford and are now in foreclosure, leaving everyone else, including those who did not default on their mortgages, with devalued houses.

Everyone had a hand in this and everyone will suffer regardless of whether they were financially prudent. That’s not the American ideal—but it is the American reality.

It was one hell of a party with everyone coming dressed as some form of greed. Now it is morning and the room stinks of corruption and last night’s booze.

Anyone who thinks that this election was about abortion and “values” and supporting the military has watched too much FOX. It was about the economy and about the final waking up of the electorate to the fact that we’ve been had.

So, I say to Obama—put us on diet, make us be frugal, remind us about the lessons of prudence and cooperation, and try to get us beyond the easy self-serving answers that require no thought. We need to think more than ever.

Above all, though, I would say to him: I am delighted that your generation—the one we have stuck so cruelly with the bill for the party—has the chance to take the leadership away from the people who have messed up so royally. Go for it! But I also send you my most ferevent hope that you be safe from those who fear you and the change you must bring us.