Good morning All,
I happened upon this clip of Arianna Huffington voicing key important ethical questions that point to why so many people have responded to the Obama campaign. Please share it with folks around you. I really believe these are teh questions people care about.
ARIANNA ON CINDY McCAIN'S RNC COMMENTS
PREMISE: Mrs. McCain said that [during natural disasters] we must take off our Republican hats and put on out American hats.
Key excerpts of Arianna's questions:
These are some of the questions Barack Obama has put before the nation for over a year and a half because they are among the most importat ones that need to be addressed. (**See excerpt of his 2004 DNC Keynote Address below)
A lot of people, especially politicians, like to pick and choose when to remember that we are all in this together. Usually it is when they have no choice because to do otherwise would incite public outrage, or, seeming to care gets them brownie points. The rest of the time they prefer to barricade themselves in rigidly alienating ideology, refusing to acknowledge that anyone who feels differently can have any relevance to their lives. And the overwhelming attitudes are indifference or anatgonism, which is perhaps why you see such poeple use demeaning or scorched earth tactics against their opponents.
What of Empathy?
If you go back all the way to the 2004 DNC Keynote Address, you will find Senator Obama answering all of Arianna's questions: we are all in this together all the time**. Even if you prefer to strip away all religious connotations, you will find the fundamental principles of ethics as spelled out by Aristotle (my other favorite Greek) even 2500 years ago at the core of Obama's campaign.
So I maintain that whether or not we agree on big and small issues, your well being is inextricably tied to my well being; it is always in my best interest to make those choices that benefit us both, or at the very least refrain from inflicting gratuitous injury upon you, rather than those choices that cause you harm while ostensibly benefitting me.
You and I could disagree, but it does me no good to treat you badly.
Sincerely, Adoyo
** EXCERPT from Barack Obama's DNC Keynote Address, 2004 (Paragraphs 12, 13)
It's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
It's not enough for just some of us to prosper. For alongside our famous individualism, there's another ingredient in the American saga.
A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief - I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper - that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one.
Yet even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us, the spin masters and negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of anything goes. Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America - there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. The pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I've got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don't like federal agents poking around our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and have gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and patriots who supported it. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.
SOURCE: Barack Obama's DNC Keynote Address, 2004
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