Division vs Unity

Either John Edwards wants to be the next vice president or even he actually believes in Obama. In any case, in a few months, Barack Obama will have his endorsement. And Obama will be the next American president. I realize the timing of this statement is dubious. Obama has only won Iowa. Clinton came back and took New Hampshire.
If Barack Obama is who he says he is, however, if he actually can and will bring about change, then I believe that electing him will be the most significant election since Abraham Lincoln was voted into office. Our country, our world, is facing a most critical period. Since the turn of the millennium, our country has been divided. And Hillary Clinton is one of the most divisive figures in America.
We have been embroiled in partisan politics and media spin as our soldiers are fighting at war, as our economy has followed the course of failed states that favored corporate interest above those of the ordinary citizen, and as our environment is deteriorating to a point that my grandchildren might not get the chance to live on this Earth. Obama hopes to unify our country on several causes; he believes that hope will inspire us to make these changes.
"There is a moment in the life of every generation when, if we are to make our mark on history, this spirit must break through," he said. "This is the moment. This is our time."
"We will change the course of history, and the real journey to heal the nation and repair the world – will have truly begun."

My mother and my sister's boyfriend Hernan believe that Obama will never get to make changes. They believe an idealistic black man will be assassinated before he gets that chance. My fear is that they are right. He talks about facing powerful interests, about facing lobbyists and stripping away their power, but unfortunately these interests just might be more powerful than even the American president. If these interests take Obama seriously, he might never be sworn into office. Still, he talks about hope in a way that makes me want to shed my fear. It makes me want to hope that we can change the course of history.
"Hope is not blind optimism," Obama said in Iowa on December 27. "It's not ignoring the enormity of the task before us. Or the roadblocks that stand in our path. Yes, the lobbyists will fight us....Yes the problems of poverty and climate change and failing schools will resist easy repair."
Is Obama idealistic? He certainly portrays himself as someone who dreams of the change the American founders laid out in the 18th century. In Obama's autobiographies, particularly his second book, The Audacity of Hope, he shows a tremendous love for American history and respect for the tradition of law. As I read this book on an airplane to Egypt from France, I was nearly in tears. I could not believe that a politician could actually believe what Obama was saying. Yet if he is an idealist, then he is also a realist.
"I've been on the streets," he said during the same speech in Iowa, named "Our Moment is Now" posted on Youtube.
"I’ve watched legislation die because the powerful held sway and good intentions weren’t fortified by political will. I’ve watched a nation get mislead into war because no one had the judgment or the courage to ask the hard questions before we sent our troops to fight. I know this will be hard. I know it. But I also know this: I know that hope has been the guiding force behind the most improbable changes this country has ever made. I know that in the face of tyranny, it’s what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire. In the face of slavery, it’s what fueled the resistance of the slave and the abolitionist, and what allowed a president to chart a treacherous course."
Some people compare Obama to JFK. In some ways it's fair. For many years, Irish Catholics were worth little more in America than slaves. And just as Kennedy was the first to break this barrier, Obama could be the next to break another.
"That’s the power of hope – to imagine, and then work for, what had seemed impossible before."
"That’s what hope is – that thing inside us that insists, despite all evidence to the contrary, that something better is waiting for us around the corner. But only if we’re willing to work for it and fight for it. To shed our fears and our doubts and our cynicism."
My mother and her family once believed in Kennedy, and their hope was crushed when he was killed. I never had the chance to believe in a politician. I've never seen a great leader in my lifetime that inspires me. I have only been able to look to the past.

I have hoped for too long that someone will come along to change our country and our world. I have fallen in the hands of pessimism and doubt. I do believe we are at a point in history when we have run out of time. When our very existence is in question. I wish someone might be our hope.