After a week of inflammatory political verbiage, I tuned in to something different today. Some old songs I still enjoy, time with the kids and Bill Moyers. Moyers had a touching segment about an organisation called "Playing for change". The producer, Mark Johnson, spoke eloquently about the idea that what unites as humans is greater than what divides us.
When I listen to Palin and her ilk describe Obama as a terrorist and talk about the "pro-America" parts of the country, it does bring up negative feelings (to put it mildly) towards her and those in her camp. It is so easy to get caught up in the negative destructive spiral. This hateful language also reminds me of people in my own life who no matter what you do to make peace, or to try and understand, to placate, still go on being mean and hateful. First you try to understand why? then to appease and after many years you reach a point where you realise that you need to cut off from them just to live your own life in peace.
http://www.playingforchange.com/
I do not know how to embed their video, but it was beautiful to watch musicians from around the world connecting through soulful music. It gives me hope that there is more good than bad or as I tell my kids, "there are more good guys in the world than bad guys". Many times in my life where I have been in different countries and not spoken the language well and landed in sticky situations, I have invariably been helped very kindly by strangers. Sometimes, it is in those critical moments, that we have our deepest connections with the humanity in most of us. When I listen to Obama and hear the stories about him, I think he gets that. That the world is bigger than one country, one people, one race or one religion. Obama may not have all the answers starting on day one but he is the kind of leader who can unite the country and to a certain degree the rest of the world to ameliorate universal problems such as poverty, disease and climate change. Obama's life story inspires me to do more, be more than I thought I could be. Now compare that to McCain/Palin, what does the world need at this moment in time?
It would be so awesome (to quote my 5 yr old) if Obama would use their video for either "Stand by me" or "One love". Obama does speak about being "my brother's keeper" and when I saw him in Ohio, the song playing as I entered was U2's "One".