Change Is Here.

Well, it is finally coming. Tomorrow at noon marks the official end of the George W. Bush presidency and the beginning of the Barack Obama one. I am hopeful that good things will come.

It is, I think, important to reflect on what that means not only for us as individuals, or the political parties, but for the country as a whole. We are to borrow an overused term, – at a crossroads. When you look at where we are it could almost be a book or movie storyline. We have two wars we were led into. One of which was a clear case of being misled into it. We have an economic situation that is the worst since The Great Depression. We have a federal government that celebrates incompetence and cronyism. Plus we have climate change worries and the national infrastructure is crumbling. It sounds like a situation only a madman would want to willingly step into. Instead we have Barack Obama. I do not envy his task.

I am hopeful that the damage of the last eight years can be alleviated, repaired, undone. I am also confident that things will get worse before they get better. Our economy will worsen, we will learn things we did not want to know. And we will be angry, depressed, and hopeful. We will, as a nation, need to work hard to fix all these problems. We will need to be involved in our local communities. But that will not be enough. We will need to be involved at the state and federal level. For so many years apathy has been the rule for myself as well as others. Apathy is not the answer, that much is now obvious. We’ve seen something amazing happen. We’ve seen the people finally respond.

Now comes the hardest part. Not only for you, for me, or Obama, but for all of us equally. We’ve seen many bad things happen these past eight years. I want to see an accounting for all those things that were done. I want to see justice for those crimes that were committed. But I am also wary of my motivations for wanting this. I know that any accounting that is had must be in the interest of justice and not simple vengeance. We must be sure to right the wrongs and not simply extract our pound of flesh. I think that Obama realizes this. His behavior so far seems reinforce this. I wish others would realize this.

So come tomorrow I will give my new President the chance to act on his promises. To put his words into action. Only then will I hold him accountable. I will let him, and other elected officials know what I think. But I will give them the chance. I see many simple wanting to get revenge, or acting out in anger at the last eight years. That road is dangerous. So I say we fix what is broken before we look at punishing the guilty. If someone sets your house on fire you don’t go after them while the house is burning do you? No, you put out the fire than get them. Let’s not let the house burn down while we seek justice.

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