| | Politics of FearI am feeling the need to vent after watching, listening, reading, and being inspired by Barack Obama and then watching as Hillary Clinton brings out the politics of fear in the primaries. After reading that recorded messages were sent out to voters drawing attention the fact that Obama's middle name is Hussein four times and that Mr. Bill is involving himself again by stating that Obama's campaign has been urging voter suppression, I'm just a little annoyed and frustrated. I might expect such tactics and allegations from some (not all) Republican candidates but actually this round through, there's far more dignity on that side than in 2000 or 2004. But this is ridiculous. This is more than "a reality check," this is about greed. It's not simply that Hillary's vision of the future of our country and our world is insufficient for a majority of people who crave and are prepared to do more, it's that she will not have the chance to become President. Shouldn't all politics have the former in mind? Shouldn't a party be working together to create a vision and to develop policies to make it so, all while listening to every voice in the conversation? Apparently not. Not when that might come at the cost of one person's dream. Isn't that the irony of America and her politics?
We've never been afraid to hope, but it seems that we are all too fearful of what hope could bring.
And it seems to me that the task of a leader is not to tell us what can't be done and list all of the reasons as to how and when it's been tried and failed before; that is the task of the skeptic. The task of a leader is not to instill fear in attempt to obscure the facts or to submit the citizenry to a higher authority; that is the task of a bully or tyrant.
The task of a leader is to portray a future of possibility and lead us beyond our own limits into that vision. The task of a leader is to imagine a better reality and to collaborate and to urge us to become what we can be.
It plain out urks me that a Clinton, who has been "working for change her entire life" and who "is so impatient for change" would resort to such cheap, old, and vested tactics as these.
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."
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| | Posted 1/19/2008 5:08 PM - 0 comments
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