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Original Content at https://www.opednews.com/articles/-The-Torch-is-Being-Passed-by-Charles-L-Riccill-081024-799.html (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). |
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October 24, 2008
"The Torch is Being Passed"
By Charles L. Riccillo
Leadership, foreign policy, wealth, taxes, employment, unemployment, job loss, Republican obstructionism, Republican lies, foreign policy, Darfur, Afghanistan, family, wealth,entertainment, optimism, Russia, Afghanistan, health care, health insurance, bail-out,new leadership, change
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In his Inaugural Address, John F. Kennedy exhorted us: 'Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country!"And in his golden voice, with its Massachusetts's accent and ringing timbre, he also intoned, "Let the word go forth...that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans..."
Now it's time to transfer the ownership of that flame with all that it signifies yet again.
Who will bear the torch, keep the flame burning, and renew the promise of this great nation?
Who but Barack Obama and Joe Biden?!
Only they prove fit and able to step up to the challenge.
The Republican taste of nasty, accusatory rhetoric has dried with a horrible aftertaste in America's mouths. Too many years of bloodshed, haggard diplomacy, and financial disaster have taught us the harsh lessons of this early millennium.
Let's get real - down dirty and personal!
Sarah Palin's new wardrobe has earned her no respect, as she continues to make gaff after gaff in speech after speech.
John McCain's orations remain replete with ragged mentions of "Joe the plumber."
But another Joe, Senator Biden, hit the nail on the head with a heavy hammer here in Pueblo, Colorado when he said to the nation, as his father had said to him: "Get up, champ, and get back in the game! America, get up!"
The game he was referring to is, of course, that of how we run this country, with a government not just for it, but by it.
We've come to a unique crossroads at a time unparalleled in our history.
Pretty much the entirety of the State of the Union stinks with the odor of mismanagement. I reference the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, our beleaguered diplomatic relations, the threat of Iran to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, our dependence upon foreign oil, Putin's new alliances with Venezuela's Hugo Chavéz and war games with arms sales to compliment it, the ongoing ethnic cleansing in Georgia next to Russia, the lethal atrocities of Dar Fur, the starvation and disease in not just third world countries but our own, the North Korean threat, worldwide inflation, and the beleaguered environment becoming ever yet more violent with its weather.
Of course, I could go on, but I would find myself applying the same damning epithets to every other situation I could conceive of mentioning.
Where will it all end?
It's my hope that it will all come to terms with a new, and Democratic term in the White House and both Congressional houses!
As Colin Powell endorsed Obama, it became my fervent hope that he would serve in the most useful possible capacity in a cabinet post. The same is my desire with respect to Hillary and Bill Clinton. Senator Clinton could then, at last, bring to issue health care reform, denied in Bill's first term by Republican obstructionism and medical plus pharmaceutical interests. I hope Barack's hand will be extended to whomever can best serve this country within his administration - no matter what party, race, creed, or age!
As for the currently meddlesome Supreme Court, aging will likely necessitate the appointment of two Judges within the two presidential terms to come.
With those pivotal appointments, likely will be decided the fate of the right of free choice. Whether you be pro-choice or pro-life, surely the religious doctrine of free choice of a human being, between man or woman and their Maker, should not be legislated or infringed upon. However we conceive Deity, it has no place in the state in an official form.
Every matter at hand comes down to choice!
Do we choose war or peace? Do we opt for prosperity, or wallow in economic adversity? Do we insure the education of our children, whether child, adolescent, or adult, with sufficient financial support and competent, dedicated teachers? Do we insure all Americans with health care, or allow people to die, while stem cell research is thwarted? Do we look away where abuses of wire tapping and torture are committed in the name of the Patriot Act, or do we open our eyes and correct misjudgments? Do we, like the statue of Justice, wear a blindfold or instead open our eyes? Do we discern, therefore, between perpetrators of terrorism and common American citizens of Arabic descent, or do we become a color blind nation of truth and merit?
The questions abound!
The answers cannot be simple, of course. But make answer we must, and soon!
Will American labor regain its prominence in the world, or will we continue to reward multi-national corporations who ship our jobs overseas?
The Americans I write about are bright, determined, and sick of watching jobs disappear to foreign lands!
Will we allow tax laws favoring the most wealthy to stand, as well as a bankruptcy law that punishes common Americans with a horrendous period of more than thirteen years of wait time to reestablish credit?
How many of you out there, like myself, live a scant ninety days out of bankruptcy, counting your pennies and praying for relief!?
Care and help, in the form of food stamps, assists me in keeping body and soul together, as does Medicaid. But I shudder to think that, should I not succeed with my God given talents, the Federal Government or Mortgage Bank will take all I own!
Where is the leadership I learned in forensics and sports in high school, and cemented with two university degrees?
Having recovered to some extent from ill health, I am stepping back out into the world, and intend to make my presence there felt, perhaps not just by the ballot box, but even by seeking office locally.
A wealth of experience living in Colorado, Wyoming, Vermont, Florida, Washington D.C., North Carolina, Nevada, Virginia - and visiting far more states - tells me that the time for change - however painful - has arrived.
Change doesn't please me, because I view it with more than a little apprehension. But in Obama and McCain, I am finding ample reassurance. No matter how I labor, and at whatever task, I will do so with hope, love, and determination.
Since I believe in lifetime learning, I may, in my late fifties, finally obtain the law degree I originally set out to get in my early twenties.
Why not?
As the little boy says in the movie, "Angels in the Outfield;" "It could happen!"
I choose optimism and faith over pessimism and doubt. I may be, as in the song from "South Pacific", a "cock-eyed optimist," but I'll likely remain so all my life.
So I keep a flame burning inside my heart and soul - as I hope - so also do you!
Yes, the eternal flame of liberty and promise of freedom is being passed.
What say we pass this torch to Barack and Joe?!