THE INCONCEIVABLE AMERICA
I remember when I was a boy growing up in an America that is no more - in so many more ways than time - in our small town, walking home from grade school with the guys and talking about politics in the cold war age of Eisenhower and Kefauver, wondering in our playful boyish ways whether there would ever be such an inconceivable thing as a woman president. Staggering-off-the-sidewalkly impossible was the immediate, instinctive response.Infinitely beyond the edges of comprehension, let alone mention, was the possibility of a black president. To the child that cores me even now, it is inconceivable.
Somehow, though, for what remains of the country I remember - mostly the good parts - the inconceivable may well be the only hope for once again even approaching the future to which America's founders, in their singular congress, opened the doors to the future of history: humane, life-filled integrity, with equality for all.
As much as I would love to see a woman president, I must confess that the ancient horizon-seeker in me (a quality we all share), would trade every horizon to attain the ideal our fathers fought and died for, an America that will genuinely, originally grow as it was intended and hope-fully foreseen to grow - far beyond the ancient struggle that all mankind has borne throughout history - an America created in hope of surpassing even the furthest dreams of its founders, if humanity itself has any chance at a future of freedom beyond the mindset of schoolboys.
When Obama today says "So help me God," that America has a chance to be.
2 comments:
Thomas Paine clearly envisioned that America back in 1791. It's been a long time since then, and his thoughts still seem revolutionary. I'd love to share your optimism, and I leave the door open a crack for it.
Yet how near are we to this?
"When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good."
I also note that you still don't have, and perhaps are not much closer to, a woman president.
If each generation is just a tiny bit more enlightened than the last, we will get there one day... As to the woman president, we're way closer than when I was a schoolboy...
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