Almost Over

It’s the Monday before Election Day and for some of us the responsibility is done. We’ve voted, but for others tomorrow is the day to exercise their right of choice in the most important election in fifty years.

I say fifty because I didn’t appreciate politics before the 1960 election of John F. Kennedy. Roosevelt was President when I was born and I remember Harry Truman and it wasn’t until 1964 that I was old enough to vote. I do remember the 1960 election as a teenager in college listening to the election returns on a small radio in my college dorm.

As I recall, JFK excited many of us to participate in the future of America. It was not a bad time for Americans, but we wanted something more. We were coming off eight Eisenhower years of peace and prosperity after the terrible years of austerity during World War Two. JFK energized the patriotic genome in many political neophytes and we became involved.

I think the political dichotomy of Barrack Obama and John McCain has excited the same latent genome switch in many Americans and whether the vote elects Obama or elects McCain that switch stays on for more Americans than ever before and politics is changed forever.

Important choices remind me of the great Iroquois Indian Nation who never made major decisions without first meeting and extrapolating the consequence of their decision to seven generations hence. Other interesting rules of the Iroquois were that only women could elect a chief or depose one. Only women could declare war.

We often forget living in this liberty melting pot that to get the pure red, white and blue of democracy you mix colors and beliefs and cultures together.

America began as a nation with a noble destiny to show a divergent and burgeoning world that freedom coupled with democracy is a noble path to greatness and from that greatness comes power and success.

America’s new President must make a commitment to be of service, not just to serve. America has not yet finished her revolutionary pledge to the integrity of an ideal. She is not done being a positive example of responsible and participatory government, nor is she finished being an inspiration to the oppressed of the world and imbuing perennial hope within a global citizenry. The inner covenant of Democracy, through equal opportunity and the pursuit of happiness, is still valid and universal.