A View from Island

This isn't mine, it is from a blog from www.grapevine.is and written by Valur Gunnarsson:

But the Decline of the United States is not as much cause for celebration as many who have criticized it would like to think. The rising powers are even less likely to take human rights into consideration than the US was. Russia supports a dictator next door in Belorussia while it invades Georgia, and the Chinese occupy Tibet while they do business with genocidal regimes such as Sudan. The American Hydra may be humbled, but other beasts will take its place. And they will be far less tolerant of criticism, from its own people as well as from abroad.

The tragedy of the American Century is not that so much power was concentrated in the US, but how badly that power was abused. It may not yet be time to forgive the United States. But perhaps we will soon start to miss them.

I'll be back later to comment on this.

I Received a Text this Morning...

I woke up at about 7:15 AM to a text from my dad which read like this:

Today I'm an American and it's time to support our new man and

  hold him accountable regardless of his race or his party

I found this very profound. Not many of my friends down at PLU know my father, but although he may not seem like it, he is a complex man. He is a Republican, as are most people from Alaska. At times throughout this election, I felt that he may lose faith in America if Obama was elected, not because he is African-American, but because he, I, and others, did not always feel that the things Obama said amounted to a true representation of what he was going to do, or how he was going to do it. 

However, to have awoken to this text message, I know that my father is a true American. Truer an American than all of those people, Republican or Democrat, who said that they would move to Canada/Mexico/any country other than America if their candidate was not elected. 

Those people who have said those things should take a look at Dietrich Bonhoeffer and follow his example. Dietrich, a German Lutheran Theologian during World War II, had the opportunity to flee Germany for the Union Theological Seminary in New York. However, Bonhoeffer stayed in Germany, saying "I cannot share in rebuilding Germany if I don't share in its destruction." Bonhoeffer was an integral part of the confessing church, and after struggling with his inner morals, ethics and convictions, took part in an attempt to assassinate Hitler that failed. He was discovered, and sent to a jail in Berlin, Buchenwald Concentration Camp, and finally, Flossenburg, where he was killed. 

We have all been together during the last 8 years of American history. We may not have all been in agreement on how it has played out, but some would say that we have been here for the destruction of America. Why would we then, in light of what has happened, want to flee when we have a chance to rebuild it, regardless of who is in charge?

Can we rebuild America? Yes We Can.

The 44th President of the USA

Barack Obama has just become the President-Elect of the USA. For the first time in the 232-year history of this land where "all men are created equal," an African-American man will be the President. He will be sworn into the highest office of the land, a position often equated with the leader of the free world, on January 20, 2009, just a few days shy of the 100-year anniversary of the NAACP, one of the oldest Civil Rights organizations in the USA. This organization finally formed out of the Springfield Race Riot of 1908. President-Elect Obama announced his intention of running for President in Springfield, where Abraham Lincoln delivered his "House Divided" speech. The importance of this move in American History and Politics cannot be understated, and the symbolism, from that which has been stated here, to President-Elect Obama's references to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I've Been to the Mountaintop" Speech, to things that I have missed, is more than noteworthy.

Now that we have attained this important step in politics, we must move forward. We must leave these two years of campaigning behind us. Regardless of where your vote fell on November 4th, 2008, we are looking at 4 years of President-Elect Obama's leadership. If we want it to succeed in the ways that we hope it will, we, Democrats, Republicans, and every other party, must move forward together. If we hope that President-Elect Obama will fail, he will. But if we hope together for success and something better, than it can be achieved. But we must face it together as citizens of the USA.