THINKING FOR OURSELVES

The World is Changing

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, feb. 3-9, 2008

This week the nation endured George W. Bush’s last State of the Union address. It was vintage Bush, scolding Congress, talking tough, lacking in reflection. Bound by an ideology wrapped in self-interest and fear, Bush offered little new, nothing inspiring.

As I watched the speech, I couldn’t help thinking about the differences between this man and the one who claimed victory after the primary campaign in South Carolina.

Barack Obama offered the nation a new way to look at itself, to think about our present and to imagine our future. On an occasion much less grand than that of a president addressing a joint session of Congress, he gave us a vision of our better selves and the possibilities of what we can yet become. He said:

…Over two weeks ago, we saw the people of Iowa proclaim that our time for change has come. …Well, tonight, the cynics who believed that what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion were told a different story by the good people of South Carolina.

After four — after four great contests, in every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the most delegates, and the most diverse coalition of Americans that we’ve seen in a long, long time.

… We are looking for more than just a change of party in the White House. We’re looking to fundamentally change the status quo in Washington.

…What we’ve seen in these last weeks is that we’re also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign, but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation. It’s the politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won’t cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don’t vote, the assumption that African-Americans can’t support the white candidate, whites can’t support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.

We are here tonight to say that that is not the America we believe in.

...Because in the end, we’re not just against the ingrained and destructive habits of Washington, we’re also struggling with our own doubts, our own fears, our own cynicism. The change we seek has always required great struggle and great sacrifice. And so this is a battle in our own hearts and minds about what kind of country we want and how hard we’re willing to work for it.

...This election is about the past vs. the future. It’s about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today or whether we reach for a politics of common sense and innovation, a politics of shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.

… Yes, we can heal this nation. Yes, we can seize our future. And as we leave this great state with a new wind at our backs and we take this journey across this great country, a country we love, with the message we carry from the plains of Iowa to the hills of New Hampshire, from the Nevada desert to the South Carolina coast, the same message we had when we were up and when we were down, that out of many, we are one; that while we breath, we will hope.

Indeed, as John Kennedy said, “The world is changing. The old ways will not do. It’s time for a new generation of leadership.”

Email Shea Boggs Center,