I have hesitated to say much about the elections, for fear of making Outreach International look like a partisan organization. And today I realized something...Barack is our president (elect) now and there is nothing partisan about loving your president!
There are so many things to be excited about this election, so I am just going to mention a couple, and I want to hear what you are excited about in the comments section. I am excited that we have elected the first African American as president! I am excited that we have elected a man that lived in Indonesia for a few years during his childhood! I am excited that we have elected someone who knows the constitution!
And most of all, I am excited that this was the most participatory election in my lifetime! I am excited that WE elected him. We elected a community organizer--someone that knows that if anything is going to change in this country we are all going to have to be involved. And he got us involved. He mobilized the masses. And now we have to continue to mobilize him.
Amy Goodman, the co-host of Democracy Now!, pointed out something very true: "There's a force more powerful than the president, the force of everyone joining together." I am not talking about everyone joining hands and singing (although that is nice too), I am talking about an active movement of committed activists (you and me) that will help Barack to accomplish the things he talked about on the camaign trail...and more! We must not forget that everyone participating in this election is what made Barack win. We all need to think about what is most important to us and then help Barack to create the world we seek.
The world I seek, the vision I hope for, is a world where no one is starving, where every child has a chance to go to school, where children are no longer dying from completely preventable diseases. Global poverty is still not on the national consciousness. We here all about climate change from our politicians and media (and I am glad that people care about that). But we don't hear about global poverty on NBC nightly news. We don't here Barack talking about the "Jose the chronically poor" of this world, about the people that live not from paycheck to paycheck, but from meal to meal, struggling simply to survive. These are the people that WE have to talk about. And WE have to encourage our media to talk about them. And WE have to encourage our president to talk about them. And WE can work to create a more just, peaceful society.
Check out this interesting story on Democracy Now! that looks at Barack's economic policy as one of the things we need to push against.
Remember, comment below about your post-election feelings! What are you going to do to mobilize our president?
-Stephen Donahoe
I saw this story in Outreach International's eNews and thought it was interesting to think about our right to vote compared to other countries. Hopefully, in the next four years we can help make the world more just for everyone!
http://www.outreach-international.org/site/PageServer?pagename=what_stories_vote
Posted by: Stephen Donahoe | November 11, 2008 at 08:37 PM