Four more years, because Bain-think is Budweiser-think with fewer letters.

In many varied ways, 2008 was the worst year of my life in purely personal terms, and just prior to the presidential election that autumn, pretty much the whole country decided to join me in a state of dazed, depressed confusion. But then something unexpected happened, and Barack Obama got himself elected. Even my reliably fascistic state of Indiana landed in the blue column, a moment for cherishing during Nurnberg rallies to come.

Of course, four years of crazed opposition to modernity have followed, with America's right-wing nutjob cadres constructing a network of trenches to rival those zig-zagging across the Western Front in 1915, and now the element most directly responsible for impeding the cause of American progress demands that we reward its conniving intransigence by handing it the keys, ensuring that the title to the nation remains in the hands of the 1%.

No thanks. I'd just as soon drink Bud Light.

I'm constantly reminded by conservatives that a Randian, self-referential greed is the only barometer of such matters, and so, am I better off now than in 2008?

You bet your ass I am, and on all fronts, except the predictably shallow standards of my own aging, confused generation. I might be whining, moaning and mocking, because in dollar terms, my pay packet actually has diminished somewhat since 2008, and my personal wealth as measured by unnecessary objects also has declined, but these are conditions I can tolerate precisely because I've been busy investing everything I have, and several things I don't, into my brewing dream. In short, I've been following the conventional small business wisdom as touted by those most critical of my politics, and remaining leftist all the while.

And it drives them bat shit crazy.

We continue working hard to bring our business dreams to fruition, which parasitical socialist leftists like me supposedly are incapable of doing. Yes, it's slower than we thought it would be, but NABC moves forward. The growth has been incremental. We make first downs, and the work is both sustainable and honest. We never laid off an employee during the recession. We made numerous mistakes, try to learn from them, and keep fighting.

At no single point during any of it have I even once been tempted to say that Barack Obama's big government has kept me down. To the contrary, and yet again on the Democratic Convention's final night, the president has inspired me to believe in the future, to trust my instincts, to remain a part of the collective community -- in it together, as implied in any pursuit of a more perfect union. NABC was built not just by its owners, but also by the employees, the customers, the vendors ... the list goes on, and on, and it never implies a sense of unbridled, individualistic egoism. I may be an egotistical bastard, and yet I never doubt that the larger stage upon which one performs is collectively built.

Furthermore, neither hidebound conservatism nor antebellum throwbacks are options in the craft beer world. Rebelling against them is why the craft beer world exists. Times and economies have changed, and while no economic segment is perfect, I'm prepared to argue that craft beer's ongoing prosperity illustrates that we've adapted better than most.

Of course, for me it goes even deeper than lessons of my chosen field.

When right-wingers froth at the mouth in their insistence that big government -- that Obama's big government -- is so very bad that I must fall to my knees and beg for the intervention of big corporations, big religion and big lies as chosen curatives, or risk straight white males like me being doomed ... well, I won't get fooled again. I smile and grin, because they're just plain wrong.

Their medicine is far, far worse than the disease, because in every breath, one can hear the the unmistakable sound of padlocks connecting chains binding conscience. I can't imagine a time when for me, like for most of them, it'll be strictly about the profits, and the use of that money as a means of hierarchical, societal control. I'll struggle with them to the last gasp when it comes to their visions of capitulation through theocracy, and if I can figure out a way to use good beer towards this end, you can bet I will.

It's neither 2008, nor 1859. It's 2012, and I've into a sixth decade on the planet. I'm looking forward to the final third of my life, to whatever time remains allotted, as I continue to think and act in a manner to disprove the tired, sad bromide about people necessarily becoming ever more conservative with advancing age. What's the use is knowledge and experience if all you wish to do is turn back clocks?

Can't we just make better clocks?

This post's got no title, just words and a tune ... (November 1, 2008)

... Axiomatically, the people screaming anti-Obama epithets at Republican rallies identify themselves as religious people. They go to church. What’s more, it isn’t that they’re somehow guilty of incomprehension, or of misunderstanding the sermons they hear while awaiting the collection plate. In general terms, they’re grasping the point perfectly well: It’s us, and them. “They” must convert. “We” must proselytize. The message is clear. If you’re not one of them, you’re not really American.

And that’s bullshit. Always has been, and always will be.