Can We Lead Again?

In the echoes of what happened today, in the shadows of this transfer of power was the shift of generations. As it has been widely discussed, this campaign and this presidency will be seen as the throngs of the baby boomer generation wielding their power and influence to those of the post-boomer generation. However you want to categorize them; Generation X, Generation Y, The Millennials, The Joneses, etc… The significance of this transformation should not be overlooked, for good or for bad.

The post-boomer generation has the syndication of a movement towards post partisan politics; it has fermented the stamina to erase those divisions of its earlier generations that sought to drive the wedge between right and left ideologies. But what has always shown bright in this generation - that has been perilously coerced from the right by the implosions of the past administration and the party which begat its arrogance and disobedience - was its ability to draw its prosperity on the hopes of accomplishments in the future, and not by what its predecessors have stood on in the past.

There is a lot that will be asked of this post-boomer generation, and even more that will be pushed upon this generation of Millennials, specifically, but my hesitation rests in questioning this group's impetus to give to its country.

Can we work for a candidate that we believe in, that inspires us, that gives us hope for a better future of our country from the one we have been brought up to understand? Yes. But can we give, motivate, endure, and truly engage in a stimulus of service? Can those of us who have had the fortune to be given so much in our lives - privileged childhoods, countless material possessions, superior educations, and immunization to real sacrifice – reinvigorate a passion and a commitment to helping those less fortunate than us? Those who have never met or had the opportunity to truly encounter a person less fortunate than them. Can we find the provocation to sacrifice a night home parsing Facebook or enthralled in the shallowness of American Idol to instead give those hours to a local charity or non-profit, engaging with citizens with the same rights we have, but with less of a privilege to capitalize on them?

It is hard to say whether this generation can act on this call to sacrifice or how much it may be forced to. As the cliche says, time will tell. But in the backgrounds of President Obama’s calling for responsibility, sacrifice and commitment to rebuilding our nation on service and dedication in the cause and spirit of our countries history, are pauses to evaluate and articulate those who are being called. It is my hope that my generation can fill its history and legacy on the foundation that it had the same impulses of similar generations before it that understood sacrifice down to a cup of soup and a piece of bread… I haven’t felt this campaign 'hope' transfer to 'hope' in commiting to service towards a country and its citizens rather than a candidate and his rhetoric. I saw it in working to elect a man that we are privileged to have at this moment far and above any other. But I want to feel its hope in following his call to show a world that the United States will always breed those citizens who in times in which they are stirred by causality and crisis respond no different than generations before. There is a book written on the greatest generation – those of our grandparents – what will ours say?

I leave with this from President Obama's Inaugural Address:

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages.

We honor them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

My Generation Spoke

I wrote this after the Iowa Caucus (before I entered the blogosphere) and as we look back, we see that night as the launch of the legitimacy and competency of the Obama candidacy. Last night that candidacy was affirmed and celebrated, rightfully so, it was the largest and most sophisticated of any political campaign in the history of our country, and its not over yet...

January 3, 2008

I sat here tonight watching my generation stand up (in whatever small part) to make their voice heard on a national (in some parts global) level. I write to you as a 24 year old lifelong conservative, who much like yourself supported Bush in his early years but grew weary of his faith based motives suffocating our basic faiths in the American system domestically and abroad. I guess the biggest thing that made me smile tonight is that hope for a united America seemed to win for once. I have watched politicians (in my short life of following politics) get up and tell me they will get past partisan politics, but there was something inside of me, deep down, from I don't know where, that told me not to believe it. It told me they couldn't escape the chains and shackles of our modern Political system. Something that told me it could never happen with the type of country we had morphed into. The type of country that could give more daily hits to people.com than thenytimes.com. That is what saddened me about my generation, its what saddened me about the American political system its what I thought I would have to witness the remaining years of my life.

 

But tonight sitting here watching that Senator from my hometown of Chicago, I smiled wide and hard, and I felt that joy release from that uneasy feeling I had deep down inside me... I don't know if you can put a price on that. It was that joy that completely reversed the tables, that made that cynicism I had for my generation turn to optimism. I sit here accepting the notion that the people of my generation may not read, understand, and discuss the headlines of the New York Times more than they do People Magazine (at least for the near future). But I think what happened in Iowa tonight deserves a turn of the head, a raise of the eyebrow, a pause... from us young voters outside of Iowa to those who stood up for a valuable democratic process inside Iowa. It deserves that because it shows us the meaning of a voice in democracy, the power it can have within our nation and within our world. That's what came out of me tonight, my HOPE is that it was mutual.