End of Semester: Not the End of You-Know-Who

We have one week or so left in the Spring term. Southern Illinois is proving a good place to study and live, for which I continue to be grateful. Naturally, I write in an effort to avoid my papers (both grading and writing), but I've also been somewhat wistful about the semester ending. I will miss the mostly relaxed atmosphere in my classes and the laughter that accompanies much of our discussions. I do not expect my students to write like Ph.D candidates in English (some of whom cannot write coherently in the first place) and, aside from some frustration about them completing their assigments in relative proximity to the due date, most of them have done as well as I had hoped.
The end of our semester, however, does raise the specter of George Bush continuing to sit in the Oval Office. At last, with his proposal to destroy Social Security (and make no mistake, the Republicans have been trying to do so since it was enacted seventy years ago), the Congressional Democrats have developed some backbone coupled with an awareness that the Republican mantra of "bi-partisianship" always has and always will mean the raw pursuit, acquisition and maintenance of power. In effect, Democrats have finally decided to say "no." The Bush people continue to use their well-practiced tricks and rhetorical techniques of demonization, but ultimately, their efforts resemble some of my former parishioners who stomped their feet, screamed their voices and threatened to take their marbles and go play in another congregational sandbox if they did not get their way. I wish, retrospectively, to have taken those parishioners up on their offer (they wouldn't have left as their power and ability to get attention was dysfunctionally tied to their membership) and, with equal wistfulness, I wish Al Gore had developed an understanding about what Bush and Rove actually desire. If, however, the Congressional Democrats can prevent disaster through next year's elections, perhaps we can pick up enough seats to make Bush's last two years an essential standoff and prepare ourselves for what will be an extremely important election in 2008. Democrats, in other words, have the necessary understanding: I hope they can utilize it.