The Reasons Not To Wait

We are at the threshold of a national crisis.

Our allies, once proud to stand with us in moments of trial, are drawing away from us as a superpower on the verge of toxic decay.

Our armies toil valiantly in a conflict that drags them down, lacking leadership with the vision to adapt and change.

Our oceans are rising and our air is roiling with deadly winds that tear apart our cities, while polluters ride off with impunity and our government stands by in silence.

Our children are denied the chance to learn under a preposterous mandate to test, and our economy suffers the consequences of lost creativity and potential.

Our rights have been violated, our laws cast aside, and our very values and dignity as a people—to serve the common good, to visit justice on our enemies and help the vulnerable among us—have been stripped away in the service of a political agenda that satisfies the secret interests of a privileged few.

We have been fed a tape loop of cynicism telling us this is the way it has to be. We have been told for seven years that there is nothing we can do. Today, we are being told that believing we can change this with our own hands is a false hope.

The point of this blog, though, and the reason I am supporting Barack Obama, is that as a nation we have one last alternative to being swallowed by this apathy and the slow destruction of our ideals. And I believe, in this country that has always refused to settle for the passive darkness of fate, that we are brave and smart enough to take it. I’m not talking just about the Obama presidency, although that’s clearly a primary goal. I’m talking about the transformations underlying an Obama presidency, that go before and after and beyond it and that represent something Obama has that no other candidate at this crucial moment can offer.

Obama is the candidate who is calling on us. He knows that the challenges we face are too big for one leader to blast aside and too deep for the federal government to shoulder without crushing individual communities. He knows that this country is about more than the White House, and he is the only one realistic enough to say it. Recovering from the atrophy of our broken political system is going to take every ounce of potential the American spirit possesses. We can only succeed when every American accepts the challenge of responsible self-government and steps up to the day-to-day heroisms of the Golden Rule, of hard work, of independence and integrity and of passion and action. It is going to take all of us.

This is not the easy way out of our problems. The easy way is to promise that a change in administration will overthrow years of atrophied local control, that pledges made on the campaign trail will translate at once into new laws, and that a new face behind the desk in the Oval Office will erase all the damage that’s been done. The easy way says that we can change our country by going out and voting on one day, and then relaxing while a new president waves magic wands over our debts, and our failing schools, and our environmental meltdowns, and our foreign policy nightmares. It's easy, but it's also wrong. This is the solution the establishment candidates are offering this year, and increasingly people are realizing the foolishness of this promise. Shifting power from one president to another, especially when they are both beholden to the same blueblood interests that have a stranglehold on political dealings in Washington, is not going to put government back in the hands of the people where it belongs. With the looming shadow of disaster looming on us from every direction, we no longer have time for a politics limited to what one president can or cannot do. We need the leadership of a president whose vision reminds all of us of the great people we have always been, and the greater future that we can create.

We are the same people who marched on Washington, who stood up to firehoses in Birmingham, who took to the skies and walked on the moon, who saved the world twice in the last century for democracy. We are the people who waited long months in the hold of a ship for the chance to pass beneath Liberty’s torch, who braved frontiers with hope and ingenuity, who followed the North Star to freedom, whose sons and daughters have given, again and again, measure after measure of devotion to the dream of a better dawn. We are the people who pledged, two hundred and thirty years ago, to form a more perfect Union, and who are still keeping that promise today. We are that same people, and the days of our dreaming are not gone, and our voices are needed more urgently than ever.

Barack Obama will be the president who inspires, who leads by the example of pragmatism, responsibility, and progressive hope. I’m standing behind Obama because he has more than sound policies and trustworthy judgment: he has enough faith in his fellow Americans to call on each of us to do our part. In coming entries I’m sure I’ll have plenty of space to spell out what I think those parts can be, and how they fit into the platform Obama is building with the help of an amazing coalition of regular, dedicated people. This really is the moment for change; the chance for action is approaching fast and we can’t afford to wait for another.