Dear citizens of the U.S. of A:

[highlyeccentric]

Congratulations. I'm pleased and proud and relieved at your exercise of democratic common sense. And this election gives me hope, in a way that the '08 election does not, that your country stands a good chance of improving itself, improving the lives of its citizens, and also not dragging the rest of the world into either economic or political disasters. Good on you. Take ten points.

It is one thing to elect a liberal(ish) candidate who promises you, as Obama did in 08, all the pies you could possibly fit into the sky. Economic recovery! Free health care! Milestone black dude in the presidency! Restoration of your much-vaunted and much-abused position as Leaders of the Free World!

It is entirely a different matter to re-elect the same man when four years has proven that you can't fix everything with one milestone vote. Maybe it's just that I was ill-informed about the ins and outs of American governance four years ago (guilty as charged!), but I get the feeling that the past four years, and the hard fight the Obama government has had to put up just to make the tiniest of gains on the sort of things which much of the rest of the world takes for granted (vis: universal healthcare) - I get the feeling that President Yes We Can's struggle to yes anything has shown up the huge swathes of problems yet to be fixed.

And yet the voting population turned out and cast its lot in with the forces of change again. Mostly. The Republican House is not good news, not from where I'm sitting, in a country where most of your *Democrats* would be considered centre-right and the republicans could line up from right wing to 'completely barking mad'. But apparently yours is a country which deeply mistrusts things like, I dunno, making sure its citizens have adequate health care - and in that case, we can hope that anything which gets through a hostile house, while imperfect, may be longer-lasting and perhaps provide precedent for future change.

Also you got a gay lady, a pansexual lady and a disabled lady into your Senate! And several states put through gay marriage by popular vote! Those I am not relieved about, but quite pleased! These are precedents the rest of us can hope to emulate (although, gay lady senator? CHECK. We got one of those. She's even got a BAAAAABY. D'awww). The marijuana thing I've no actual opinion on but I'm amused by the question of how, precisely, anyone's going to deal with having a drug that's legal by state ballot but federally illegal.

I still find the amount of money, private or otherwise, you lot spend on election campaigns to be really quite worrying. But congratulations. I was cynical and grumpy four years ago and pissed a number of you off, but this time: congratulations on your exercise of democratic common sense.

Now, for the love of all that's sensible, do something about this 'fiscal cliff' thing I keep hearing about, mkay?

Comments

[cursor_mundi]

What I have found fascinating about the Obama presidency is the role of positive idealism -- something which is really lacking in other, equally fervent, political movements that are roiling around in US culture right now. Anyway, this idealism seems to be both wellspring and destroyer in one: without the idealism and belief that these sorts of changes could happen, they cannot happen, because one needs immense energy to push against the irrational fears of our conservative countrymen...but the idealism itself raises false and impossible expectations. I think the current "ObamaCare" is as good as it'll get for a generation or so...and then, once that's considered "normal," we'll be able to improve it, but not until people have forgotten that it's new and thus omg-do-not-want. Long-term politics and planning.

And, of course, our very system is designed to produce productive deadlock. That...doesn't help, especially in an age of high technology in which minor frustrations become public very quickly and really blow the process to hell. I'm hopeful that both parties have had enough of a shock that they'll actually be productive and not send us over this cliff, otherwise we'll end up like Greece...but with firearms.

[zcat_abroad]

As for applying for ESL jobs - there are piles of websites. If you're wanting a job around Sydney (or which ever city you're currently in), just rock up to an ESL school with your CV, and keep dropping them off. The way that most schools go, with wildly fluctuating numbers, there's nearly always somewhere which will snatch you up within a week. We've never gone very long when looking for them.