Being Democratic

So one day before Reverend Martin Luther King’s historic “I have a dream” speech, “Senator Barack Obama, the Hawaiian-born son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, officially [became] the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party” (NY Times News Alert) of the United States of America (USA). On the day of the historic “dream” speech, Obama gave his acceptance speech. Wow.

Today (can you believe I’m actually blogging on the day of the event, albeit late in the day?), we hear of the Republican vice presedential nominee, and we see that the lines are drawn.

On the Republican side:

• Drill, tunnel, scrape, and plant to extract the energy Mother Earth has to offer for the benefit of citizens of the USA;
• Arm, plan, and fight for what we, in the USA, believe we have the right to seek;
• Share our bounty, developed from our free market economy and necessary USA government protection, with those less fortunate; and
• Change the USA’s healthcare system cautiously and carefully, protecting those in need within the framework of the larger economic and social needs.

On the Democratic side:

• Remove dependence on foreign energy resources by spending now on Mother Earth’s solar, wind, and geothermal resources for our energy needs;
• Use diplomacy to bring the global focus back to our shared needs so we can assure what the USA needs for our political, economic, and societal safety;
• Restore economic stability and tax equity and support free enterprise for small or start-up operations rather than for national or global corporations; and
• Improve healthcare for the most needy and make the cost of healthcare affordable for the average citizen in the USA.

I tried to sound unbiased, guys, really I did.

It’s not easy being green.

Or promoting social justice.

Or trying to stay healthy on a fixed income, for that matter.

So while I think of the speech that Martin Luther King, Jr., made so many years ago yesterday, other memories come back to swamp my little pleasure boat:

• When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I went on my annual outing to the State Fair of Texas. This year represented a first: instead of three restrooms (“men,” “women,” and “colored”), there were two (“men” and “women”). In my naïve, pubescent mind, the idea of sharing a restroom with the opposite sex was apalling, so I welcomed the change. However, the two women (generally referred to as “negro” at the time) who were there when I walked in were clearly angry with me. What had I done? Ruined their chance to use a “comfort station” comfortably by my very need to do the same. My 80 pound presence was a real threat to them. They were scared; I felt the need – but didn’t have the guts – to apologize. Silence reigned. What a world.

• Around the time of the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago – with all its chaos and drama – my friend Butch (still identified as “negro”) was reminiscing about his supposed friend who was referring to himself and some other white friends as “Americans.” Butch had pointed out that he, too, was an American, to which his “friend” had replied, “You know, real Americans.” I still couldn’t think of anything to say.

So my sense of history is that we’ve come a long way in the last half-century. And I still, all too frequently, can’t think of anything to say. And I still welcome the change. Maybe, someday, we could even do the same for women. You know, real humans…;-))