Dear Fellow Americans –

Fifty-two percent of the citizens of the United States woke up on Wednesday or stayed up late on Tuesday and embraced elation, pride and a feeling that “it’s finally time for us”. 

I am proud that Americans were able to step above color lines and elect a well-spoken ambitious young man of mixed race. 

Forty-eight percent woke up to grief.  I am not talking about anger.  I am talking about unabashed grief.  We are not upset that a man of color was elected.  That was a great day for America.  We are grieving because the man of color who was elected stands so diametrically opposed to so much that we value.  Those values built the America that so many, who are overjoyed with the election results, are expecting to take care of them.  We are grieving because the media sold the people a president rather than presenting all the facts and encouraging all citizens to make informed decisions.

We are not grieving for our pocketbooks, our mortgages or our elitest rights.  I represent many of the average Americans who make up that 48%.  I am a public school teacher in a Title I Renaissance school.  My school is 92% economically disadvantaged, 84% African American or mixed race, 12% Hispanic and approximately 4% Caucasian. 15% of our students deal with some form of disability.  I am a Caucasian of American Indian, Romanian, Scottish and English descent.  I serve this community because I believe I was put on this planet to serve, not to be served, to make a difference, not lodge complaints, and to be appreciative of this remarkable country through good times and bad.  I will not always agree with her actions, but I will always believe in the principals she was founded on.

We who are grieving believe it is each community’s job to take care of the truly needy, not the federal government’s.  We volunteer in our schools and houses of worship.  We contribute regularly and quietly out of the little or much that we have to community food banks and clothing drives.  We serve in shelters, provide aid to unwed mothers, and answer with our time, finances and labor in times of national and international disaster.  These actions come not out of creed or patriotism but out of values that have been passed from generation to generation and out of the belief that it is the right thing to do.  “There but for the grace of God go I”.

We believe that opportunity is there for every American to succeed but that it takes hard work, education, a teachable spirit and the desire to make the world better, whether through a product, a service or an idea.  We do not begrudge anyone’s success or think it somehow takes away from us.  We know that Presidents have very little control over the economy and that it runs in cycles.  We know that we suffered a traumatic financial attack on September 11, 2001 which took many years to recover from.

We believe in living within our means.  When we make a poor or inopportune choice economically, like buying into inflated property values, it is our job to find a way out, not the Federal government’s.  I have a school loan that was taken in the faith that it would prepare me for a career that would provide for me more adequately in my single middle-age and allow me to retire someday.  It did not.  I am now trying to decide how to handle a loan that is well beyond my means to pay.   But I am not asking the government to solve this problem. It is mine and I will work at it till it is solved.  I will be working till I am 90 in order to do so, but that is MY problem, not the government’s.

We who are grieving after this election believe that this is a country worth defending and know that we are safe today because a good man, who has been slandered in every possible way for doing the best he could in the worst of times, has seen to it with unwavering conviction. We are free today because MILLIONS of American men and women have forgotten about self and donned their country’s uniform to gain that freedom and to preserve it, with no thought to their rights or personal safety. They did it for the greater good.

November 11 we will celebrate Veteran’s Day. We do this the week after we have elected to the highest office in the land someone who has never served, wants to cut military budgets, and immediately pull our troops out of a war that is acknowledged to be coming to a victorious end. In my generation we were raised to respect our elders, yet this bright young man jeered his opponent’s disabilities in commenting on his challenges with electronics. This has nothing to do with age. It has to do with the severe limitations of the use of his arms and hands due to the massive injuries .he suffered while a prisoner of war under a brutal regime, defending our country.   

We grieve because young people in our country of every color have lampooned this servant of America in vulgar and utterly profane ways rather than saying “We disagree with you, but we honor you and your family’s service to our country through war time and peace time”. When they do this they mock every American who has served so that they could have the freedom of speech, beliefs and incredible opportunities that are squandered every day.

We grieve because the “agents if change” jeered, belittled and attacked in an incredibly sexist manner a self-made, faithful, hardworking mother of 5, who has a son in uniform. She achieved in every opportunity to improve herself that was presented to her throughout her life. This is what the President elect’s party supposedly stands for and yet she was completely denigrated because her core beliefs were not acceptable to them. Senator Obama never uttered one word to ask them to cease and desist except when the attacks involved the children. Yet the party and major media accused us of focusing on trivialities and cried “Foul” when we questioned his long-term associations and stated agenda.

Those who are grieving grew up in an America where parents of every color and creed believed that it was their job to raise responsible citizens, and support their educational goals (even when those opportunities were limited). Our parents and grandparents provided for us through sacrifice of their own needs and desires. They showed by example how to get along, and how to disagree without being combative or demeaning. They demonstrated how to accomplish hard tasks without whining. In most homes, we had the example and learned the value of a stable marriage. Our parents did not expect our government, our community or our teachers to raise us. They expected us to go to school, mind our manners, do our best and accomplish something.  

We are grieving for the removal of parental control of the information that is given to children by their schools. This government indoctrination into class warfare, liberal values and, in many states, the homosexual agenda, is a very real part of the education reform that is planned by the extreme left of the Democratic Party. President-elect Obama is the leader, promised one and poster child for this group.  

We are grieving because the Judeo-Christian values that have upheld this nation are being mocked at every turn while we are told how intolerant and archaic WE are. We are grieving because we fear that everything we have fought for, that our young people are fighting and dying for, and that this country was formed to embody, seems to be of no use to many of the current generation which has been indoctrinated by the liberal, and often radical, professors who have staffed our universities since the 70’s.

What do we hope for? We hope that our economy survives the spending and taxes that are coming. We hope the information age doesn’t become the disinformation age where all information you receive is controlled by the government. We hope that the terrorists who hate America, the Europeans who we fought for and who have thrown us to the wolves and the Russians and Chinese who are rattling their sabers, somehow believe that we are still a strong enough nation to withstand their attacks and survive to our tri-centennial.

With disregard for our own grief, we will pray for providential wisdom and guidance for President-elect Obama and all leaders because that is what we do. We will continue to go to work every day, raise our families to the best of our abilities, worship in our various houses and creeds, and serve our communities. We will continue to care for the needy and would rather not be told it is someone else’s right to dock our hard-earned pay checks to do so. We will continue to celebrate achievement by all who work hard and grab onto the American dream and not feel it in anyway takes away from us. We will do our best to take care of the planet and its inhabitants. 

We will continue to fight for the rights of “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” and believe in a “government of the people, by the people and for the people”, not a government that controls the people. We will continue to “ask not what our country can to do for us but what we can do for our country”. We will celebrate the indescribable privilege that we have to live in the greatest nation on earth and thank our Creator that He inspired the puritans to escape here for religious freedom from religious oppression in England. 

Freedom isn’t free. It is a result of struggle and constant vigilance.   May a people of every age, color and creed be raised up that will read the unedited history of America through her highs and lows and learn to serve her, not themselves. 

- I sign this as an anonymous public servant. This is the age of vetting the civilian questioner rather than those that must answer regarding their plans and purposes. In the very liberal district where I am employed I run the distinct possibility of retribution for my beliefs.  Another cause for grief. - 

The future is now and it is in our hands. 

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Gordon at the Café

Hope is in our hands