MY AUDACITY TO HOPE by (me!) sandra, ttgp
ORIGINALLY POSTED PRIOR TO OBAMAS FIRST TERM ELECTION. RE-POSTED IN HONOR & CELEBRATION OF HIS 2ND TERM WIN. November 07, 2012
my dad,
who i love and respect enormously,
has lectured me twice now on how the whole world is going to fall apart if obama wins this election. "please don't vote for him!" he begs me, "he does not have the experience.. he will make decisions that will send us back one hundred years.. he will destroy us.. think about it.."
my dad,
who i love and respect enormously,
has his wall filled with pictures of family & friends: children, grandchildren, and then three or four pictures of george and laura bush.
so we don't exactly see eye to eye in the political arena. often times, in fact most times, i avoid engaging in any political discussions, because like religion, once people have their point of view established (cemented) in their brain, all the talk seems an unneccesary waste of energy.
i am very conservative when it comes to my own energy.
but a couple things aligned to change my mind recently. for one, i had just read some of barack obama's book, the audacity of hope and had it marked, labeled, decorated with notes to myself, and for two, my children were both present when my dad started in
"tell me you are not going to vote for obama" he says with great passion. "he's never passed a law! he has no experience! he'll ruin the united states of america" (something like that)
and i started singing, "i have evidence to the contrary, i have evidence to the contrary"
and mostly for the benefit of my children, i took his bait.
" i love political debates" my daughter says. -and that sealed the deal.
so i went and picked up the audacity, and said to my dad, "what i love about obama is how he can take people with completely opposite points of view -polar opposite points of view- and rise above the conflict.. hear each sides point of view... find the common denominator.. and bring them all together. that's what we need in a leader. that's what i want in a leader. he does not instigate, intimidate, or weaken.. he is not provoked easily.. he rises above and brings people TO-GETH-ER"
and my dad threw out some more anti-obama thoughts and suggestions, and then was kind enough to give me the floor and allow me the time and space to read aloud from my book
i retype here what i read:
the audacity of hope, pg 58/59 hardcover:
i believe there are some crimes -- mass murder, the rape and murder of a child -- so heinous, so beyond the pale, that the community is jusitified in expressing the full measure of its outrage by meting out the ultimate punishment. on the other hand, the way capital cases were tried in illinois at the time was so rife with error, questionable police tactics, racial bias and shoddy lawyering that thirteen death row inmates had been exonerated and a republican governor had decided to institute a moratorium on all executions.
despite what appeared to be a death penalty system ripe for reform, few people gave my bill much chance of passing. the state prosecutors and police organizations were adamantly opposed, believing that videotaping would be expensive and cumbersome, and would hamstring their ability to close cases. some who favored abolishing the death penalty feared that any efforts at reform would detract from their larger cause. my fellow legislators were skittish about appearing in any way to be soft on crime. and the newly elected democratic governor had announced his opposition to videotaping of interrogations during the course of his campaign.
it would have been typical of today's politics for each side to draw a line in the sand: for death penalty opponents to harp on racism and police misconduct and for law enforcement to suggest that my bill coddled criminals. instead, over the course of several weeks, we convened sometimes daily meetings between prosecutors, public defenders, police organizations, and death penalty opponents, keeping our negotiations as much as possible out of the press
( i think that's key)
instead of focusing on the serious disagreements around the table, i talked about the common value that i believed everyone shared, regardless of how each of us might feel about the death penalty: that is, the basic principle that no innocent person should end up on death row, and that no person guilty of a capital offense should go free. when police representatives presented concrete problems with the bill's design that would have impeded their investigations, we modified the bill. when police representatives offered to videotape only confessions, we held firm, pointing out that the whole purpose of the bill was to give the public confidence that confessions were obtained free of coercion. at the end of the process, the bill had the support of all the parties involved. it passed unanimously in the illinois senate and was signed into law.
***
and i don't think for a second anything i read changed my dad's mind about his vote, but he respectfully listened.
that's what i wanted my children to see.
later my son would ask, "what is a democrat and republican anyway?"
and i can't remember how i answered except to emphasize, that in some families, you are whatever your parents are.. it is dictated to you
but in our family, as you grow and learn more and read and have your own life experiences, you can decide on your own.
i am an independent proudly voting for barack obama. my dad, who i love and respect enormously,
is not.
posted by SHE @ 1:07 PM
6 Comments:
You are so the coolest my friend ;)
I'm a big obama fan, because of the reasons you mentioned... but also because this is no longer about the united states of america. This is about the welfare of the world.
Obama has multi-billion dollar plans to address the issues which kill more people each day than anything else on this planet... extreme poverty and HIV.
Mccain does not.
I pray for our worlds sake that Obama will win in November,
So much love to you,
lllooo, M
my3: thank you! your point here is so correct and THE reason i think we are best represented by barack obama
"This is about the welfare of the world."
and p.s. blogger friend,
wonderful to read TWO stories authored by you in the social cause diet
"to great people & great books!"
lllooo, ~s.
I am still undecided, after listening to both of them, I really don’t know. If I had to vote today it would be Obama, only because Mccain scares me more.
8": made me smile. obama for me, is an inspired vote,
not so much "least scary"
but best qualified.
i made my decision some time ago, and everything i've seen and read, confirms my decision, deepens my respect and admiration
it is safe to hope again.
LMAO!!! Oh girl, your Dad actually has pictures of the Bush's on the wall? That's a freaking riot. It really is.
Then again, I have a picture of Henry David Thoreau on my wall. I guess that makes ME a little weird.
I pray if Obama gets in, he can make the changes he encourages us to believe in. In the meantime, we should all be making the changes ourselves. Never depend on anyone to do that for you.
kmg/bbf: true, true, true:
you bring gandhi to mind
"we must be the change we wish to see in the world"
-and- yeah, i've heard rumors about you thoreauvians..
mostly good of course.
AND this just in:
saw obama on the ellen show yesterday
the man is not only one of the world's best communicators
he's hot on the dance floor too.
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