So long Bush administration, and thanks for all the fish

January 20, 2009 will be a day dearly remembered by Americans and the world for more reasons than the intensity of swearing in the first black president of the United States.

It will be remembered for more than a re-lighting of the lamps of freedom and justice behind the doors of the Oval Office.

It will be remembered for more than Barack Obama’s moving inaugural speech, and the picturesque snapshots of our new president and first lady slow dancing among decorated soldiers and exuberant young people.

Tuesday will be remembered for the millions of people who huddled in 15 degree windchill among our national symbols of liberty to help make history and to hear freedom ring out with their own ears from a microphone miles away.

It will be remembered for those of us who believed in change, who helped bury the ghosts of both our distant and recent past and for those of us who “listened to our hopes instead of our fears,” in the words of Michelle Obama during the 2008 Democratic Convention.

In his inaugural address, President Obama said, “What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them, that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.”

Those saying we swore in a mere mortal and not a god, and who would tell us not to expect change too quickly, need not patronize their audience or seek to lower our expectations. I ask those who might claim that President Obama is only one man who can’t possibly change the things he promised in his first term to consider recent presidential history.

By forcing elections in Gaza, one man gave Hamas the opportunity to launch rockets into Israel, killing innocent civilians and instigating a war. One man’s adherence to an ideology of deregulation helped ruin our economy. During Hurricane Katrina, one man’s carelessness and cronyism led to over 1,300 preventable deaths. One man’s words helped take a nation’s soldiers to war and to their graves.

If George W. Bush has caused so much ruin in the world and America, surely Obama can influence even more good.

In his speech, Obama offered an answer to the Republican dogma of limited government when he said, “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.”

In this time of setting aside childish things, as President Obama said in his inaugural address, fiscal responsibility should no longer mean less government spending for the simple reason that tax dollars belong to the American people, nor should we reject the necessity of spending for the common good. In this era, fiscal responsibility means that we invest tax dollars wisely. Likewise, leadership should no longer be defined by the political party that brandishes the meanest, loudest words.

I think the one issue that might pervade Obama’s administration will be how we receive his speeches in contrast to the backdrop of media spin. Obama can accomplish as much as we the people allow. If we oppose his plans, our disapproval will trickle into the polls and influence our legislators.

If we oppose the president’s plans for legitimate reasons, then our system of government will be affirmed. If we disapprove of his proposals because of the rigid ideologies of pundits and politicians who would oppose his plans regardless, then our system has become more corrupt than any of us can put into words.

That said, the ground certainly is shifting beneath our feet. As we tell Bush “so long, and thanks for all the fish,” we also embrace the hope that, with our collective hard work and commitment, we will help make the world what it should be.

It may take eight years or four years, but we can and will get there.

What we do with this moment in history and how we collectively approach it is entirely up to us. Some will no doubt approach it with the belief that everything we can do for this country and in the world will be wrong, or they will continue to say that Obama is a radical or a socialist; they will be left behind to surf the AM radio waves. The rest of us will approach this time with the knowledge that not everything proposed will work right away, but that we have to try. And in the pursuit of finding what works, we will be on our way to forming a more perfect union.

We are now on our way to an America where we can have universal health care, we can return Iraq to the Iraqi people responsibly, we can lessen the financial burden of a college education for families, we can transition to green energy, and we can reach out to the poor and exploited at home and abroad.

Yes, we can.

Stephanie England is an English junior and a Mustang Daily politcal columnist.