After a horrid week of hate and fear mongering in our country’s politics I am weary.
The race has come down to hate on one side and hope on the other. Perhaps that is overstating it. Perhaps not.
I just want hope to win. I just do.
This is an impassioned plea to you all…the hate campaign must stop. The fear must be turned away at the door. No matter who you choose in this race to lead this country next, do not make that choice based upon fear or bigotry. Be wise. Choose kindness and mercy. Choose Respect.
Vote for the candidate who brings hope to you, not fear.
ann
October 14, 2008
oh angela, so beautifully said. choose hope.
angela
October 15, 2008
I’m on the hope train!
mrsmetaphor
October 15, 2008
You know, Ang…here’s what I think…I think that as long as we choose our candidate out of a place of hope, whether it be McCain or Obama then we’re ALL on the hope train! It might be Barack Obama’s chosen slogan but it really OUGHT to be the basis of all of our decisions…
(that being said, I’m sitting next to you on the particular train yer riding, babe…)
solobasssteve
October 20, 2008
That’s a really lovely thought, Ang. I’m not honestly sure where the hope is in any of this. There’s so little between the two candidates politically, that one is voting for a culture, a history, a ‘message’.
The important element, it seems, to hold onto with a message is that it’s something ‘we’ (by which I mean ‘you’, given that I’m not a US citizen
) can hold them to. With a candidate for a traditionally left leaning party (I don’t actually think Obama is remotely left-wing, but still…), you have a history you hold them to, a commitment to social justice, a historical association with the concerns of the poor.
Bizarrely, in the US, you HAD a connection between the republicans and social change, they having been the driving force behind the end of some of the inequities in US society in the earlier part of the 20th century, but all of those concerns have been trumped by the actions of the left over the last 50-odd years, and certainly in these post-Friedman times, since the Thatcher/Reagan years, any claims to social responsibility the Conservative party in the UK or the Republicans in the US may make are sounding pretty hollow.
So, I think Obama’s message is hyperbolic in the extreme, but it does seem to be considerably less cynical, crony-ish, divisive and BS-laden than the McCain camp.
So hope is a good word – we have no certainty either way, but my hope is for equality and a politic built on compassion and grace not rabid individualism and cynicism.
shalom,
Sx