For most of the course of human events, we've all been witnesses to history. The few and the powerful, the kings and businessmen, warlords and pharaohs have been the actors and the rest of us, their audience. We've fought in their wars, died of starvation from their poor planning, and have been enslaved both literally and figuratively in their quests to make profit. This was the way of the world until a new nation arose upon the premise that all of us are bound to one another -- that all of us deserve the same opportunity. It's the great promise of America -- and far more than our vast resources or military power -- this promise is what has made this nation great in the eyes of its citizens and in the eyes of a world that believed that it could not be done.
Think about that promise for a moment and it just doesn't seem audacious, it seems like a folly- how could you or I be real agents of history? How could your neighbor, your mother, father or deli store clerk have the power to move the world? From King George III's laughter upon receiving to the Declaration to the nation ripping itself asunder over the inhumanity of slavery or the robber-baron's dismissal of the cries of the coal worker who slogged in a poisonous pit 18 hours a day for less than a dollar, the promise of America has always been in danger of turning into flash paper; ignited for a brief moment before vanishing forever. In our own time, it is fashionable to say that the dream's time is over: that we are too interconnected with the rest of the world, that too much blood and scandal has been spilled on the founding documents to make them legible, that politics is a dead-end contact sport that is available only to the wealthy and which only the most cynical hard-edged and scarred can hope to succeed. In short, we're told that the promise now belongs only to the few: to special interest groups who fund political dynasties. We're told that we can't be actors in our own history.
Today, we have the opportunity to say, "Yes, We Can." Through a confluence of events none of us could have foreseen, each of us stand in the doorway of history, with the choice of what path we will set this nation on resting on each of us.
Those of you, who have known me for years, know that I often have had a gloomy view of the future of our country. I see the challenges facing this nation and facing the world and look down the road a few years and shudder. The planet our generation inherits will be unlike any in the past 50,000 years of human existence. The upheaval we are beginning to see and will see in the coming years will dwarf that of the Industrial Revolution a thousand times over. Already, because of the vast planetary changes we have recently wrought, scientists are lobbying to call the time we live in a new geologic era: The Anthropocene-- which means, "new human". America is no longer a sole superpower, but part of a triumvirate, balanced between the EU and China. The economy and the heretofore never before seen disparity between rich and poor, how we communicate, new diseases and the prospect of extending our life through new technologies and above all, the unrelenting pace of this new world we are rushing towards has many convinced that that we must ride the tide and accept whatever may happen next. We're told that the old promises of America cannot be fulfilled in such a time.
Today, we have the opportunity to say, "Yes, We Can."
There are those who argue that Barack Obama cannot possibly save the country on speeches alone. They're right. Barack Obama can't change this country; neither can Hillary Clinton or John McCain. What Barack Obama asks, and why I believe he's not just the best choice for 2008, but the best choice for the long-term future of this nation, is for all of us to be agents of change. He calls us to public service like no statesman has done in my lifetime. He embodies the notion that idealism is not naiveté. He gives voice to the truth that idealism comes not from a lack of experience, but a lifetime of it. He answers those who say that in the face of great challenges we must sublimate our values and divide our enemies and friends and says, "No! The greater the challenge the more valuable and powerful our principles become." Barack Obama's campaign isn't about him. It's about a man who can say to this nation, "Do we still believe we can fulfill the promise of this nation?" and who calls on us to shout loudly, as one people, "YES, WE CAN!"
Because
this is how change happens in America.
Labels: politics
