Darkness, like Ignorance, is Bliss

I sat in the dark this past Saturday night during Earth Hour, the only light in my house from the glowing ember of my patchouli-scented incense, while I contemplated our great mother Gaia. As I took a sip of my Vente Chai Tea Latte with extra froth, it occurred to me that perhaps I have been too hard on Barack Obama. Perhaps instead of embracing change, I have been resisting it. Perhaps I have not been as hopeful as I could be.

Then it came to me: It’s only the words that matter. Everything else is incidental.

I just didn’t get it before. But I do now.

I simply have been paying too much attention to what Obama is doing and not enough attention to what Obama is actually saying. For instance, I’ve been far too consumed with the colossal expansion of government, which I thought was Obama’s way of dismantling our current system of capitalism and replacing it with a European-style socialism or fascism. But I understand now that all of this spending is being done with reluctance, and that’s what really counts. Because if I really listened to Obama, I would have heard him say, “I don’t like the idea of spending more government money, nor am I interested in expanding government’s role.” Like a loving parent, you can see that this action hurts him more than it hurts us; he’s only doing this for our own good.

And when he said that the omnibus spending bill didn’t have any earmarks in it, what he meant was, “Every omnibus spending bill after this one.” It was, after all, last year’s business, and Bush left such a mess it’s going to take at least a trillion or two or three or ten to clean it up.

I don’t know where I got that “massive power grab” stuff from.

And as for Tim Geithner, it doesn’t matter if the markets don’t have faith in him; Obama has faith in him, and that should be enough for us.

For a while I was upset about Obama’s announced intentions to close Guantanamo Bay. What, I wondered, would he do with all of those dangerous terrorists we’re keeping there? But then I heard that they aren’t terrorists at all; they’re not even “enemy combatants.” They are “detainees”, which is a whole different thing. These aren’t people who are being locked away for any specific reason, they are people the United States is holding back from doing whatever it is that they would otherwise be doing if they weren’t being detained. When I heard that, I thought the very least we can do is offer them some good ole American hospitality as an apology for “detaining” them for so long. Imagine my surprise when I found out that our president was a step ahead of me, promising these poor, freedom-starved folks some taxpayer funded welfare benefits just until they get back on their feet again.

You can just imagine how the rest of the world will look upon us after this meaningful gesture.

When Obama was elected on a promise of ending the war on terror quickly, I worried that if we pulled out too quickly that it would embolden our enemies to commit more acts of terrorism. After my epiphany during Earth Hour, I realized that there are no acts of terror; there are only man-caused disasters. With a little reasonable, intelligent diplomacy, man-caused disasters are much easier to control, predict and prevent than those random acts of terror committed by religious fanatics during the Bush administration.

Clearly there was too much “worry” in my life and not enough “hope”.

While I was sitting in the dark on Saturday night, cleansing my life from the toxic assets of modern civilization, I thought about the innovative new ways that the Obama administration is tackling foreign affairs. Most importantly, they made it a point to make sure that Gordon Brown and the U.K. don’t think that they are any more special than any of the other 190 countries in the world. Playing favorites is part of the reason the world hates us, after all. We all know that diplomacy didn’t work under Bush, but that was because of how we were doing it, not because of the countries in which we were attempting it. Obama’s YouTube message to Iran was hip and modern, kind of like Iran’s own personal Jay Leno appearance, if Iran has anything like the Tonight Show. By embracing technology on the foreign policy front, the possibilities for Obama are endless: I can’t wait until he starts texting Cesar Chavez (“OMG! Did U C Hannon dis Brown? ROTFLOL!”), twittering with BFF Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and sending friend requests to Kim Jong Il on Facebook.
If that’s not change, I don’t know what is.

Finally, I know that there are a lot of open-minded moderates out there whom I’ve offended with my over-the-top, out-of-touch conservatism; reasonable people whom, by their own admission, can always see all sides of the issue and whom, Lord knows, are much more qualified than I to state an opinion.

Allow me to apologize if I’ve harshed anyone’s mellow in the last couple of months.
By choosing to put my faith and trust in the government, I can devote some much needed time to updating my hairstyle and makeup, and also give the proper attention to picking out the exact right belted sweater, leggings and boots combo that will allow my gardening experience this year to not only be a fabulous foray into high fashion, but to be a far “greener” venture than it has been for the last fifteen years.

The new Lisa Mossie wants to be part of the hope, change and the government goody handout. I now hope to change and have changed to hope, and most importantly, am so much more hopeful about change. And I owe it all to Earth Hour.

You could almost say that instead of seeing the light, I was embraced by the darkness.

And darkness, like ignorance, is bliss.

Happy April Fool’s day.

Published in the Norristown Times Herald, April 2, 2009