America Is A Great Country and The People Have Spoken

America is a great country and the people have spoken.

America is a great country with patriotism that comes in many profiles and a people who want a society in which we lift each other up, treat each other with respect, live up to our highest ideals, and always remember that in this country we are all in this together.

America is a melting pot of diverse people, alternately united and uplifted by the positive spirit, or divided and brought down by lesser instincts of leadership and institutional elites.

America has spoken against the abuses, corruption and politics of destruction and in favor of a new respect for our diversity, our freedoms, common sense and the rule of law.

In the real America today, the 80% feel alienated and insulted by political elites, media elites, and economic elites who inter-act with each other, and treat the rest of us as bystanders, idiots or objects for manipulation.

America has spoken and wants a renewal of integrity and respect in our foreign and domestic affairs, and has given Democrats a moment not only to win a powerful victory, but build a historic political realignment as a majority party that lifts America up, and brings America together.

Literally every average American I talk to outside Washington asks: what is wrong with all of you, in our capital? How many times have you thought of television: so many channels, so litte to watch? Whole new markets and homes for alternative media attract gigantic numbers of people looking for content and community they can call their own.

Will America's ultimate answer to 9-11 be a descent into our national divisions and exploitation of escalating discontents?

Or will Americans rise to the occasion again, befitting the country created by the Declaration of Independence, a diverse people who come together in common cause, shared patriotism, where great dreams still come true, and the American Idea remains a beacon for the world? America has spoken with a mighty voice.

Lets step back, and consider the real America in which good and decent people are making our country and world a better place, quietly and nobly, in their families, communities and daily lives. They are not recognized by our political elites nor supported by the media moguls or most of our mega-wealthy, who seem to believe in noblesse oblige, without the oblige.

America is blessed with young people who so generously give their time and money to fight genocide in Darfur and per capita are infintely more generous than our lengthening list of billionaires. There are waitresses and cab drivers who give generously to fight hunger when the collection plate is passed, who are far more generous than the owners and the publishers of our great cable networks, and our declining-circulation newspapers.

America is a great country, and patriotism comes in many colors. There is a national hunger throughout the land for a bringing back together of the American nation and the American people.

This broad, wide, unifying, All-American spirit of patriotism is so quintessentially American that is incomprehensible to many in the real America, why it is held in contempt, or merely ignored, by the power elites who live in their own alternative universe and treat the rest of us, as aliens in our own country.

Once upon a time in the real America, the whole nation gathered around our television sets to watch the courage, daring and vision of John Glenn going into orbit, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, and Sally Ride being the first woman in space.

Our entire nation stood applauding with awe, as one. The entire world watched with us, cheering the great achievements of a good and united America that was the beacon of hope, and the standard of excellence, for the world.

I was talking a year ago with an elderly gentleman who had lived through the heroism of the Great Generation in the Second World War. He happened to be on vacation in Spain on the day John Glenn went into orbit. Sitting at the bar of a Spanish Hotel when the picture of Glenn flashed across the television screen.

The crowd burst into spontaneous applause, and this good man of the great generation found his eyes glistening with tears of joy and pride.

America is a great country.

Patriotism comes in many profiles.

The politicians treat voters like idiots with endless attacks on each other. The major media treats audiences like dullards with steady streams of superficiality, slanders and senationalism. The so-called experts talk down to average Americans, telling us what we are supposed to think. It seems as though everything and everyone in this alternative universe highiltes the negative, the angry,and the things that divide us from each other.

Yet every hour, every day, in every community in America good people are working together to make things better.

One of the most important and under-reported events is that leadership of conservative evangelical Christians, inspired by young people in their Churches, are beginning to work together with progressives in the battle against global warming.

The danger that global warming poses to our earth is one of the great moral and environmental issues of our times, and there is a coming together in a unifying spirit from the great diversity of American points of view.

Lets have a revival of shared patriotism from men and women of all faiths and beliefs that ends practices such as torture and begins a historic victory to end the danger of global warming.

After freedom defeated Hitler and those concentration camps were closed, the whole said: never again. But it keeps happening again, most recently in Darfur. But for every Darfur that proves that darks night of the soul still live in our world, there are men and women of faith and hope, working to stop it.

Last year I went to the rally against genocide in Darfur, and was moved by the goodness and goodwill of the speakers and crowd that brought together virtually every religion.

Prominent conservatives and liberals stood side by side. It was extraordinary to walk among the crowd and chat with young people representing all races and every conceivable religious and secular point of view.

That moment was a coming together. Catholic schools and young evangelical Christians.

Jewish youth groups side by side with young Americans who believe in Islam. A Marine Corps captain side by side with the movie star George Clooney, who is beginning to rise to the role of Frank Sinatra, who brought together entertainers in support of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Lets end the politics of destruction and begin a new politics in which the rising tide will lift all boats and God's work will truly be our own.

Lets inaugurate a new era of activism and engagement that mobilizes the actors, writers, artists, and athletes of our times to use the talent that God gave them for the work that God has put here to do.

The extraordinary potential of artists is shown by the diversity of performers that travel the world in tours for the U.S.O.

From Al Franken and Robin Williams to the galaxy of country and western stars that always show great generosity. From many on talk radio including conservatives such as Sean Hannity and progressives such Randi Rhodes on Air America. We are not divided about everything. There is tremendous commitment and goodwill that transcends the differences that tear us apart.

The politicians divide us, the media dramatize the latest local murder, the dance contests of the famous, the sick and the sensational. But every day, in every community, Americans are manning the soup kitchens and visiting our wounded troops in hospitals. Americans of every background and faith are working to help our homeless heroes, those who served our country bravely but face hard times on the grates of our streets and the shelters of our cities.

I have been championing this cause of the homeless heroes, and while I have not had much success with the billiionares and famous broadcasters it has been extraordinary and moving to receive letters from waitresses and cab drivers and the local pastor, priest and rabbi asking how they can help, or telling me what they are doing in their communities today.

This is a cause that can mobilize more than a hundred million veterans, military families and believers from all houses of worship. Imagine what is possible if we mobilize the millionaires and movie stars to match the generosity of cab drivers and waitresses.

Lets have Democrats and Republicans work together for new policies and Iraq and national that save the policy from disaster, while men and women of goodwill and faith work to feed the hungry, cure the ill and help the homeless.

Imagine what is possible if we mobilize the power of the progressive blogosphere with the power of conservative talk radio in the common causes shared by so many good people, from so many different backgrounds, already, today.

America is a great country.

Patriotism comes in many profiles.

It is time for a renaissance of the national spirit, a coming together of the American people with our national leaders and national institutions to restore the American idea that we, as a melting pot of diverse people, are in this together.

If there is one magic moment that describes America it was July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the signing of the great Declaration.

On that day, Thomas Jefferson and John

Adams rested in different places in America, breathing their last breaths on earth, paying tribute to each other.

Jefferson spoke of Adams.

Adams spoke of Jefferson.

And that day, after those words, they left us, together.

Exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed, their last great words as Americans reminded us of the spirit that makes America America.

Dare we believe it was a sign from God that they both died that day, with those words? America is a great country, and patriotism comes in many profiles, and so long as we remember that, with all of our challenges, America will always be the land of big dreams and happy endings.

America is a great country, patriotism comes in many profiles, and America has spoken once again that our people want a country that lives up to our highest ideas, our people want leaders who live up to our highest standards, our people want a nation that lifts us to reach for our highest hopes.

America is a great country, and the American people have spoken. Patriotism comes in many profiles. The American people have rejected the politics of destruction and division, and have demanded in which we all ask what we can do for our country, together, and then do it, together.