HERE AT LAST! ELECTION 2008 Chair, Paulie Brading’s New Year Resolution…
The public’s low opinion of Washington and growing concern about the direction of the country point to 2008 as a pivotal election. We’ve endured George Bush with his, “China’s big and so is Russia” understanding of the world. We’ve borrowed huge amounts of money from China to buy oil from the most unstable region of the world, and then brought it home and burnt it up contributing to global warming. I can hear Al Gore murmuring, “It’s nuts!”.
Despite the overwhelming unpopularity of the Bush administration, we must remember that millennial year,2000, when the Republicans were too clever for Democrats in the Florida balloting. Al Gore won that popular vote and we all know who went to the White House – which reminds me of a story about a genie.*
24 hours before you are born. A genie appears and says, “You get to set the rules of the society into which you will be born. You can set the economic rules and the social rules. The rules you set will apply during your lifetime and for the lifetime of your children and grandchildren. Just imagine how thrilled you are with this offer! But you’re smart. You ask, “What’s the catch?” and the genie says, “You don’t know if you are going to be born poor or rich, white or of color, infirm or able-bodied, retarded or intelligent, homosexual or heterosexual, or female or male.”
Since we can’t know ahead of time about the circumstance we face, it is up to us Democrats to try to create a country of fairness. We see economic and social injustice, educational inequality, racism, sexism and homophobia around us every day. We cannot take 2008 lightly, and must resolve to put our hearts into the effort to turn the country around. I’ve found the instrument to promote Democratic ideals and it’s the Jackson County Democratic organization. Here among the grassroots our hard work will make change possible. Let’s look forward to November as every one of us volunteers time and energy to turn our country on that pivot moving us beyond the mess of these last eight years. Success depends on our walking the talk with our feet on the street! Join up!
* The genie story is from "A Theory of Justice" by John Rawls, 1971, as told by Warren Buffet and modified somewhat by Joyaux.
