Today, Retired General and Former Secretary of State Colin Powell endorsed Senator Barak Obama’s bid for the Presidency. He did this despite the anger it will undoubtedly generate in the Republican party. While Powell was very respectfull of Senator McCain, the former Secretary of State said he felt that Obama was the best man to lead our nation through the upcoming time of transitional change. He also said he was disturbed by the decision of the McCain campaign to attack Senator Obama. McCain’s campaign has tried to tie Obama to former domestic terrorist William Ayers, and has even suggested that Obama is somehow secretly a Muslim, as if that would make any difference in Obama’s patriotism or loyalty to America.
You can see a transcript of Powell’s remarks here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/19/powell.transcript/
I applaud Colin Powell’s decision. I’m sure he’s well aware that he’ll be accused of making his decision on the basis of race and of being a traitor to his party, yet he’s had the strength of character to stay true to his own conscience. If only we had a few hundred more Colin Powells serving in our government.
I’ve always respected Colin Powell and had hoped he would run for President himself. He’s one of the few Republican leaders that I think I could have voted for. It appeared to me that he worked very hard to try to keep us from going to war with Iraq and was unflinching in saying what he believed. He’s served our country well, and does so again by speaking up for Obama and by taking the McCain campaign to task for their unconscionable attacks on Obama.
This week, the McCain smear machine is trying to label Obama a socialist. Perhaps they’ve chosen this tactic because people have started to realize we’ve always been a socialist nation. We provide socialism for the rich to protect their profits and capitalism for the rest of us. McCain has even fallen back on the tired old catch phrase “redistributing wealth.” As Powell points out, taxes are always a redistribution of wealth, with most of it going back to the people who paid the taxes in the form of roads, defense, police and fire protection, and other government services.
What bothers me the most about the McCain campaign is their willingness to incite hatred if they think it will help their candidate. When they fail to shutdown hate speech at their rallies, they are creating an environment where bad things can happen. Such a rally might be all some post-traumatic-shocked veteran needs to convince him that he’s got a mission to save the country by killing Obama. Can you imagine the terrible backlash of such an action? Can you imagine the sense of betrayal that would give to every African American in this country. It would set us back forty years.
It’s not just Obama they put at risk. When they incite hatred based on race and on religion, they attack the very foundations of this country. To me, trying to divide our nation along racial, ethnic, religious, or even sexual preference lines is about as unpatriotic as you can get. We are facing tough times. We are one nation with many different people, languages, skin tones, religions, ethnicities, sexual preferences, and favorite foods. We are the great melting pot of the world. THAT is what makes America the greatest nation. We should celebrate that diversity every day.
It’s time we stopped treating people who don’t share our exact ideologies as if they are pariahs. It’s time we decided that it’s alright to talk about politics and to have different opinions. We should all remember that the things that bind us together as a nation, such as the love of freedom, are far more important than the forces that try to tear us apart.
