well sort of. I came across this snipit from our first President's farewell address:
The first part is excerpted to get to the main point. I highly recommend you read the whole thing....(A) solicitude for your welfare ... and the apprehension of danger ... urge me to offer ... some sentiments ... which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a people....
The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
Now compare Washington's admonitions and advice to Obama's 2004 DNC speech:This year, in this election we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we're measuring up to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations....
Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us -- the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of "anything goes." Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America.
The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an "awesome God" in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
In the end -- In the end -- In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?
.
Though the historical circumstances have changed, it is startling how akin the two messages are across two centuries of American History.
President Washington ended his tenure as our nation's first President by urging us to stand in solidarity as a
People united by a common idea, an ideal that amidst so many pernicious forces both within and outside our shores, that even then our collective and individual survival, livelihood, and prosperity are dependent on the integrity of our convictions that a greater truth, perhaps the greatest truth of humanity's intrinsic good and dignity, which themselves guarantee and foster our independence and happiness, that this greatest truth depends on the unity of the American body politic.
There may be differences of opinion, belief, and even ideology amongst us, but we all share a common creed and vision that lends conviction to our trust in the great potential our nation offers not just its citizens but humanity and history.
In potential at least. History is giving that potential the ultimate test right now, and I believe what we have been witnessing despite all the distortion distraction and dissembling is a truth re-asserting itself---our truth---and it will not be silenced. The potential is actualizing: everywhere, all 50 states. There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come (my sig below).
And so I believe Obama was in his speech and is in his candidacy striving to articulate and actuate a correspondent ideal. Yes we can --- the
we is ultimate and can preserve that dignity and uphold the great integrity we still have within us despite all that has happened this past decade, to sustain us through the dire straits of Washington's "covert and insidious artifices" and Obama's "spin masters and pundits." Don't forget the wise words of Lisa and Homer Simpson: "Dad, Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for ‘crisis’ as they do for ‘opportunity?’” Homer: "yes! Cristunity...." ;)
The current critical moment provides us with a ripe opportunity to achieve, collectively, something more than any one "I", to bring about a better "US". This past year I have seen it happening everywhere across this great country, and I an both humbled and made proud by it. We as Americans are taking, are seizing that momentous and uniquely American opportunity to renew ourselves for a better future, and neither growing pains nor the selfish sycophants in our midst nor the tired strifes of our recent past can stop this irresistible force, whose impetus has now gained its full and profoundest momentum.
yes we can --- When enough of us believe it and enact it as one nation, as I wholly believe is happening, it will be so. Keep the faith fellow patriots on DU! :)
:patriot:
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