Election Day 2008: Dr. King's Dream And Ours

I had one, final chance to reach South Carolina voters in my market this morning. One last attempt to prod them to look deeper, think more clearly and do the right thing rather than falling victim, again, to their longheld fears and biases. One final column on the op-ed page of my newspaper.

It was one of the hardest pieces I've ever had to write. I tell folks the only way a progressive columnist in the Deep South survives is with a wicked sense of humor. Most of my columns are snarky. My readers, most of them conservatives, stick with me only because they want to read the punchline. They may hate what I say, but they love the rhetorical slapstick. I couldn't deliver one today. This election is too important.

So, to paraphrase another writer, I sat down at the keyboard and opened a vein:

After a very long, ugly, and too often brutal campaign season, it seems we have arrived. Election Day. This is an election unlike any other in our history. This is a day in which we may well redefine who we are as a nation. In some ways, whatever the outcome, we already have.

Election Day 2008 falls exactly forty-five years, two months and seven days after Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke these compelling, prophetic words:

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed, 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...'

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character..."

Senator Barack Obama's candidacy alone has fulfilled Dr. King's dream of a better, more inclusive America, a nation in which racism no longer crushes the dream of any American child to grow up, make the most of his/her education, work hard for deeply held principles and become a successful public servant--one elected to office by voters of all creeds and colors.

An Obama victory today will mean more than a win for the Democratic Party. It will mean more than simply and end to the Bush Era of war, corporate cronyism, scandal and the near-death of the middle class.

An Obama win will mean there are far more Americans who respond to a message of positive change and humane governance than there are those who allow racism to determine their vote. We will have risen above the absolute, immutable black/white divide.

An Obama win will mean that most Americans, at long last, have found the moral character--and the conscience--to reject the old Atwater/Rove politics of the hate- and fear-mongering campaign; the vicious, distorted name-calling campaign. It will mean we're no longer buying the dishonest, frenzied, win-at-any-cost sales pitch. It will mean idealism trumps ideology, that intelligence trumps invective.

And it will mean, overnight, that the entire world sees we are better than our behavior in the last eight years indicates we are. The Bush-era age of belligerent rhetoric, unilateralism, pre-emptive war, defiance of the U.S.-inspired Geneva Conventions, and the loss of our international moral standing, will be ended. We will still have much work to do in repairing our image abroad, but an Obama victory will jump-start the process in a way no other candidate's rise to the presidency could have done.

The path ahead won't be an easy one. We'll face more economic woes before things improve. We'll have to dig deep, sacrifice and have a little patience while a new administration begins pulling us out of the chasm dug by the previous one.

But we will have sent out a clear signal to each other and to the world about who we are. About who we want to be.

Dr. King would be proud. We have touched the dream. What remains to be seen, at the end of Election Day 2008, is whether or not we have grasped it.

Comments

[MidMo]

Linda

Thank you

[ButterflyWeed]

The shell of me

is a-buzz

with fatigue-induced spiritual emission.

Personal reserve

long dam(ned) of anger

with Bush/Cheney/Rove

broken

upon the arc

of sweet victory

accomplished by so many

united in Change.



Yes, We Did!

And the world spun our news.

[littlequeenie]

Linda, this was perfect. Thank you for a beautiful post.

I cried when I voted today in my predominantly republican district that only first sent a democratic congressman to Washington 2 years ago. We have never voted for a democratic president. I hope this time we do.

As a very wise man said not long ago: "...there is something happening in America;...we are one people; we are one nation, and TOGETHER WE WILL BEGIN THE NEXT GREAT CHAPTER IN AMERICA'S STORY...YES WE CAN"

I am sorry, Linda, that with all your hard work and perseverence, we did not win SC; but we did win PA and OH.

Yes we can

[DeanieMills]

Linda girl, I told you privately and say now proudly and publicly, that this is PERFECT.

I've been embracing my black friends in town today, with tears in our eyes. I told one, "It's been a long, tough journey," and she said, "Ahhh, but it was sooo worth it."

Got a long way to go yet. In our family, we've been mind-blown at the idiocy we're hearing from otherwise intelligent people who choose to believe the most outrageous, unimaginable filth about a man who is, after all, a sitting United States Senator and a graduate of Harvard Law. They'd be the first to feign shock at being called "racist."

Even some of my white, right-wing friends have been horrified at the excess and refuse to play a part in it, God bless 'em.

I was thinking of Dr. King after I voted. And I cried.

[Kiku]

Obama has already changed us.

He has changed the way money will be raised for elections. He has changed how candidates reach out to the American people, with the MSM now following the internet for the stories and the facts.

He has changed who funds campaigns, no longer can the corporations keep pace with the deep pockets of the American people.

He has changed the way that Americans see minorities, and America, no longer a country just for whites.

He has changed the dreams of all children, the poor, and the black.

He has changed the way that we look at each other.

He has changed the way that politicians will speak to us, hopefully, they will continue to speak to us as adults.

He has given us hope, in a time when there is little hope left.

He has given us a future, in a time when it looked very bleak.

He has changed the worlds opinion of America. Here's what I found on Gana: "You used to drive through the streets and see posters everywhere of Osama bin Laden," he told us. "He was the first person people felt represented them in the world." Now all of the posters have been replaced -- with posters of Obama. "It makes them feel completely differently about America that a half-African black man could be elected president of this country."

He has helped us find our better angels.