America Rose

 

America rose to her full majesty on Tuesday, November 4, 2008, with the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States.  At a time when the country and the world found itself drifting without direction in the millstream of seemingly endless greed and selfishness, people came to the polls in record numbers to choose a different path.    Obama follows a long line of America's tradition-breaking elections when need is great and hope swells in the hearts of its citizens.  From FDR bound to his wheel chair through JFK with his Catholicism, Obama's election brought down yet another political barrier; that of the candidate's race.    Without a doubt, much, much more is signaled with the election of the nation's first African-American president.  Not only is Obama elected to office as a barrier-breaker candidate, he has been swept into office with a congress heavily weighted in favor of the Democratic Party.   In the face of the rancorous discord of the past eight years, where greed and corruption grew to historical levels not seen in the lives of most Americans, the promise of national redemption looms large.    What has brought the American electorate to the realization that things must change?       Some would say that the national debt squandered on an unjustified pre-emptive war in Iraq played the most prominent role.  Others would say that the power cliché that seized the government through surreptitious means, inclusive of disavowal of the elective choice of the voters by the supreme court in the election of 2000, brought about the people's response in this present election.  Still others would point to the economy, along with the rampant greed and unethical actions practiced by high officials of giant corporations, banks and others as the force driving the present response of our people.    There can be no doubt that ALL these things combined to bring about the election victory of Obama and the democrats in 2008.  It is just another stirring example of the power of democracy when the people are awakened from their normal state of apathy.   Now we go back to the promise of redemption for our nation and the world. What will it encompass?  Elements include the acceptance by some of our citizenry that redemption mandates an admission, or confession if you please, that greed is bad; that the rights of the individual can only exist in a society where the road runs both ways—to have individual rights, all must accept, recognize and respect those rights for others.  The narcissism of "rugged individualism" must yield to the ethical and rational directive that we are all in this boat together.  That a world of finite resources in order to provide accommodation for all the people must be governed and administered for everyone in a spirit of cooperation.  Competition to provide such cooperation is necessary, but competition to deny such an accommodation must be forgotten as we build a better future. --Don W. Davis --Nov 5, 2008