This was my first diary at Dkos; it received 11 comments.
It was written at the height of the primary wars in April of 2008.
I am re-publishing this for all of us who have been with Barack Obama since the beginning and suffered through being called "cultists" and "kool-aid" drinkers.
We did it. Yes, we did.
After reading PittsburghPete's diary this evening and all the wonderful responses, I realized that I was not alone in thinking that something significant had happened this week.
It was not just the media narrative, the myriad collection of polls showing that Obama is surging, the drip-drip of the Super Delegates crossing over to Obama's pond, or even the backlash against the Wright "controversy" as the mostly white leaders of the Trinity United Church of Christ asked the media to back out of their "sacred space." It was not only the steady stream of diaries calling for reconciliation with Clinton supporters, or the news that Clinton was running out of money.
There was something else. Something expressed in Pittsburgh Pete's diary and the many thought-provoking responses that were posted there. There was a feeling that something--something that we couldn't put our fingers on--happened this week.
A little-known eighteenth-century German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhaur, wrote that: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
I believe we have all collectively noticed a tiny tremble as we passed out of stage two of this saga and into an intermediary period before we arrive into stage three. It is that brief moment after the first fall frost when the broad leaves have died, yet remain green. In the days to come, as the foilage of the political landscape changes its hues and colors, we will be able to turn back and identify that moment as "self-evident."
But, not yet.
Clio is at work filling in the pages unbeknownst to us. Although, Hillary Clinton's lips continue to move, her words are not being recorded.
The tide is rising on this watershed moment. We look out across the sea of hope that is Pennsylvania, together our naked toes in the sand, and we await the coming catharsis.
It approaches.
For November 7 will come sooner than we think...and then we'll only have a few more months to wait before we all stand transfixed upon our televisions watching Barack, Michelle, and their two young daughters in their heavy overcoats as they stand upon that high pedestal, their breath hanging in the air on that cold day in January of 2009.
Before we know it, we shall hear Barack Obama says, "I do solemnly swear..."
We will not be alone. There will be many ghosts looking over our shoulders. Martin Luther King, Jr's epilogue will be written, Abraham Lincoln can finally slumber as the Civil War will, once and for all, become a memory, Jefferson and the Founding Fathers will find a pardon in the realization of a more perfect union, and our beleagured troops will be able to come home from another foreign folly.
Then I'll be able to look at my daughter, and Pittsburgh Pete can look at his children as you will all look at your own progeny, white, black, yellow, and brown, and we'll be able to say that the darkness has receded and they truly can be whatever they wish to be.
No, this race isn't over.
There is still a lot of work to be done. But, something did happen this week. Hope has become a bit less ethereal and amorphous. Through a diaphanous haze we can all perceive the promise that Clio has prepared for us on the next page of America’s history.
Yes, we can.