The worst President in American history will finally be out of our lives in 53 days, and we can begin to undo the damage he’s done to our Constitution, our country and the world

We made history by electing America’s first African-American President, Barack Obama, who has vowed to not only restore the promise of America, which has been tarnished by 40 years of neglect, but to revive its spirit.

Prop 8, the anti-same sex marriage measure, whose recent passage was decried by everyone who believes in justice, equality and separation of church and state, is under assault. A post-election poll showed that it would be defeated if a second vote were held. Large anti-Prop 8 protests have been held all over the the country. Most significantly, the measure will be reviewed by the State Supreme Court. And serious legal questions have been raised about the role of the Mormon Church in funding and promoting Prop 8.

This glorious, sublimely idiosyncratic, iconic beach town that we inhabit still stands, despite City Hall’s continuing effort to subdue it, and turn it into a money mill.

The deeply flawed revision of the land use and circulation elements of the General Plan is still in the works, and so residents still have a shot at fixing it.

Tricia Crane’s valiant crusade, the intervention of City Council members Ken Genser, Bob Holbrook, Herb Katz and Bobby Shriver, over the continuing petty protests of their colleagues, Richard Bloom and Pam O’Connor, the courageous declaration of Rebecca Kennerly, who heads the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District’s PTA Council, the Council’s involvement, the Barber study, and, most recently, the first forum on special education and the publication of the long-awaited handbook for parents of children with special needs have ignited the effort to finally develop a complete, effective and substantive special education program, in spite of the continuing lassitude of the Board of Education.

In the late 1970s, TIME magazine reported that the primary role of the mass of Americans was to consume. So it was that the majority of us were reduced to mere customers in our own land, valued for what we spent, not for what we made.

It was a fundamental change, a downturn in our national aspirations, an enormous, ominous shift, but there it was.

From then to now, one idiot leader after another has inveighed us to shop. When the going gets tough, the tough go…shopping.

Remember, after 9/11, when it was still possible to pretend that President Bush had a measurable IQ, our Commander-in-chief said it was our patriotic duty to go shopping.

A hot wire from America’s reduction to a coast-to-coast shopping center plugs right into the current financial crisis. There is nothing about any of that to be thankful for, but there is this.

During his campaign, President-elect Obama spoke often and eloquently about writing a new leading role for the declining middle and working classes by creating new industries devoted to producing clean, cheap, renewable energy and fuels, and related “green” products – from automobiles to building materials. . With the onset of the financial crisis, he proposed employing more millions to reconstruct the nation’s crumbling infrastructure — highways, bridges, schools and the like.

If the financial crisis leads to the creation of new industries and millions of solid, challenging, well-paid new jobs, that, in turn, may lead to the mass of Americans becoming active producers again rather than passive consumers – mere puppets in someone else’s game, that would surely be something to be thankful for.