The Melting World

My husband and I waited outside in the cold for 1 hour and 45 minutes to get inside the sold-out rally held today in downtown Minneapolis. Then another hour inside thawing out until he began to speak to a packed concert hall. I saw a baby probably two months old and an dude with a carved cane well into his eighties and everyone in-between from where we sat in our nosebleed seats.

The line to get in the Target Center stretched at least a mile and a half when we first got in line and then thousands more people got in line behind us. I have never seen anything like this before–people from all ages, ethnicities, shapes, and sizes; absolutely BEAUTIFUL sight for me and I realized visually, tangibly, how Barack Obama has tapped into something unique by attracting so many different folks. This was by far more moving to me than anything Barack Obama himself said–I was simply proud that Minnesotans of every creed and color were out there together in the *&*$% cold. I know I am witnessing an awakening of sorts at the grassroots level, really. I thought the anti-Iraq war protest in Detroit with some 5,000 strong in 2002 was amazing, but this—over 20,000 people! Breathtaking….

I am hopeful that Sen. Obama can inspire our country onto a path of hope and spark the common folk to all work toward positive change for all of us in society–the people need some inspiration to get rolling. Then we all need the commitment and perseverance to do the hard work and walk the hard road to get what needs to get done, finally move forward instead of backward.

His speech was uplifting: my favorite part was when he said that he believed we as a people had the energy now to start reclaiming our role in the political process and change the apathetic mindset of Americans: the child in an urban school was not somebody else’s child, but everybody’s child, the child in rural America was not somebody’s child, but everybody’s child, and the child on the reservation was not somebody’s else’s child, but everybody’s child, that our education system needed to be repaired from the families on up to the policymakers, all of us needed to get into the community to make it right for these kids.

His strength was when he spoke specifically about how to get us engaged in repairing the damage to our country, especially getting young people engaged in the community in return for tuition assistance, then I felt he was the most powerful, more than the sound bytes you see/hear in the media–he said it was us who ultimately could create the changes we needed, no lobbyist could match our collective might. I like to believe, to set aside my cynic’s sunglasses for a short day, and believe that enough Americans are ready and willing to fight to put an end to stupid insane wars, that we are ready and willing to fight instead toward a better, more hopeful future. Maybe then I won’t need to keep dreaming of a move to Canada?!