Sunday, October 12, 2008

Honor

The other evening I watched John McCain take back the microphone from an elderly woman who had proclaimed Obama to be an Arab. McCain rebuked her ignorance and earned boos for calling for respect for his opponent. One has to assume that the woman came to the rally to be reassured that McCain shared her hatred of things different and foreign—one also has to assume that she was not the only one. McCain’s response was at least a step in the right direction toward being presidential, but it was also and only a fleeting glimpse of the decent man who once was.

I’d like to think that McCain had a shock of horror as he recognized his base in this woman. It must have been like seeing members of the Ku Klux Klan, Skin Heads, Neo-Nazis, and fascists sprinkled in the audience. Is this who he wanted to support him? How far he has fallen since giving in to the right wing of his party and since bringing on board a vice presidential candidate who has been told to raise the rabble. I shake my head as I watch the mayhem: how can we talk about extremism in the Middle East when we do such a good job of it here?

But it’s not just McCain—it’s the entire Republican Party that has become the home of the emotional, prejudiced, and unthoughtful, fanned on by those who fear a future where the leaders are not white and not evangelical Christian and by the self-interest of cynical political and corporate leaders who have between them brought this country almost to ruin and who fear a change in administrations because it will mean taxes and regulation.

Where is the honor of the Republican Party? Apparently it sold out to religious fanaticism and to economic greed.

How insignificant by comparison seems an undignified romp in a closet in the Oval Office. And where are the family values they hit Clinton with back then? We hear little about those anymore given Ms. Palin's own shotgun marriage and her daughter’s pregnancy. One can only imagine how this would have been used against Hillary Clinton. Things don’t have to be true anymore—only shouted loudly for the panic to begin.

One of the greatest ironies for me is listening to Alan Greenspan. He’s the one who, as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, opposed any regulation on Wall Street and who is now backpedaling fast. His explanation for the stock market decline is to shake his head like some sorrowing grandfather and say that deregulation would have worked if the banks had been honorable. Honorable? Where money’s concerned and obscene salaries and bonuses depend on profit with no questions asked? I want to scream back to him—who was it that destroyed that honor if not you?

Let’s be honest about this. Obama represents the future of this country. It is a minority future. It is not white and exclusively Christian. This scares the hell out of those who are. In my opinion they have to understand that they’ve had a good run, they courageously settled the country, and they’ve profited. Now they have to share. There were American Indians and Hispanics here long before the White settlers and there will be an increasingly mixed population in the next generations.

Change is never comfortable but neither is clinging to a past that no longer works. The honor I hope for in my president is not to hold rallies where people shout threats and scream insults but to provide the leadership to hold on to what is good from the past and also to turn to face America’s future with pride and hope. Most important to me, though, is to give that message to those who fear and to turn away from those who shout hate and ignorance.

May I indulge in one little nasty (I never said I was pefect)? My hope is that Ms. Palin goes back to Alaska after November and does not win re-election as governor.

1 comment:

Jeanie said...

WELL SAID, MY FRIEND!

THERE ARE MANY OF US CANADIANS THAT SHUDDER AT THE POSSIBILITY OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VOTING IN ANOTHER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT ......GOD HELP US ALL IF THAT'S THE CASE!

JEANIE