A Change Has Come

 

"It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die
'Cause I don't know what's up there above the sky
It's been a long, a long time coming
But I know a change's gonna come, oh, yes it will"

Sam Cooke

"That was the best convention in American history. I'm floored. What a night to be alive. WOW. Just freakin' WOW."

 

My YouTube comment on last night's Democratic convention

Well, that's it, boys and girls. After last night there is no way we will ever be able to go back to the way things used to be. This is the new reality. This is a the new America. There's no turning back. For the first time in three years, nine months, two weeks and three days I can honestly tell you that I am again proud to be a citizen of the United States of America.

Such a novel feeling in the twisted age of Donald Trump.



As anyone who knows me will attest, in the last decade-or-so my sleeping schedule has become just a wee bit - "discombobulated" shall we say? On the evening last, while everyone who bothers to pay attention was watching the Democratic National Convention, I was sound asleep. I was only able to tune in to the festivities when I awoke slightly before two AM (Thank goodness for YouTube). I had only seen highlights of the previous two nights - the keynote speakers. That was it. This time I decided to watch the thing in its entirety. I had been under the impression that a "virtual convention", with each speaker broadcasting remotely, would not have the punch that a convention is supposed have. I was as wrong as I have ever been in my life. Political conventions are sometimes amusing but rarely informative; they lack spontaneity and are almost always boring.
 

What occurred last night had an intimacy that made it a beautiful event to partake in. For the first time in my life I felt like a participant in a convention, that I was part of the history taking place. The first political convention that I have a conscious memory of is the GOP convention of 1964. That was when Barry Goldwater told America:

"But first of all, let me remind you that extremism in in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me further remind you that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

 

Barry was wrong then. He would continue to be wrong in the years that followed. It would be said that he would grow as a politician. Shit happens.

I thought that Kamala Harris' acceptance speech was the capper on the event, that it couldn't possibly go any further into the clouds of joy than it already had. Then, at the very end, they cross-faded to singer Jennifer Hudson's stunning interpretation of A Change is Gonna Come, the civil rights anthem written by Sam Cooke in 1964, less than a year before his sudden death by gun-violence. Like the Beatles' appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show ten days after Sam recorded that song, Jennifer Hudson's performance last night of  A Change is Gonna Come was the kind of televisual moment that stays with you forever.

 

Indeed, that change has come.

As former president Obama pointed out during his remarkable keynote address, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can still win the popular vote and lose the election (Forgive me for sounding like a broken record, but we really need to do away with that damned electoral college). In spite of my pride in America at the moment, I'm aware of the undeniable fact that I live in Idiot Nation and that a major effort needs to be made to ensure that the Orange Psychopath is not sent back to the White House for another four - very long - years. The Republicans are more desperate today than they've been since their founding in 1854. Donald Trump is, in fact, beside himself  in desperation.

Trump knows damned well that the next administration (with the might of the Department of Justice behind it) will easily be able to siphon through the mountain of corruption and illegality behind the most disgusting American administration in the history of greed and mediocrity. 2020 will be the most important election day since 1932. We need to get out the vote and win. Only then will Donald Trump and these corrupt buffoons doing his bidding (and that would include Vladimir Putin) will be held accountable.

On November the third, don't vote as if your life depends upon it. Vote because your life depends upon it.

When the debates happen next month and October, for the first time since the Ford/Carter debates in 1976, they will be conducted inside a closed television studio - with no audience in attendance. This is as it should be, and I hope that it sets a precedent for the future. Cheering crowds of buffoons that erupt at every political point made by their favored candidate are an annoying distraction. From now on, they need to keep the audience at home. Just a thought.

The GOP is at the moment going through herculean efforts to steal this election - everything from confiscating outside mailboxes to keep people from mail-in voting, to limiting the polling places in cities with high densities of minority populations. This is no longer amusing. If this unhinged sociopath and common pervert is allowed four more years of destruction, this country is finished. You think I'm joking? Keep voting Republican.

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY

SUGGESTED VIEWING:

Just in case you were snoozing like Yours Truly, here's a YouTube link to watch last night's convention. It really was quite a night to be an American.

https://youtu.be/tcQjlQOA5dY

Aren't these incredible times to be alive?

Sam

SUGGESTED LISTENING:

A Change is Gonna Come
by Sam Cooke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPr3yvkHYsE

If you viewed last night's convention and you still don't understand that we are standing face-to-face with the dawn of a new era, you might as well go back to sleep. Sweet dreams!

The change is here. Deal with it well.