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CITYWATCH TODAY—This has been an election campaign like no other. It has been a long, loud, mean journey. I wish I could promise that it will end November 8 but … it will not!
America is too divided. The political parties are too divided. The pain is too deep. The anger too charged. No one is listening. No one is capable of listening.
I would like to tell you that November 9 is the beginning of recovery but recovery is impossible until we have reversed this divisive cancer that eats at the heart of the very thing that united us … respect for the equality ideal. Equal opportunity to speak freely. Equal opportunity to pursue happiness. Equal opportunity to worship freely. Equal opportunity for upward mobility. Americans were seldom in agreement on how best to accomplish equality but were almost always in agreement on the equality ideal.
As Frank Gibbons wrote, America has never been a country in true sense of the word. America is an idea. And, as Winston Churchill said … to paraphrase … it may not be the perfect idea but it’s better than anything that comes in second. But, at the end of this horrendous political campaign, for the first time since the Civil War, Americans are questioning whether we even understand the ‘idea’ or not. Will we ever again figure out that if we angrily and stubbornly usurp the equal rights of those we disagree with, we usurp our own rights and constitutional entitlements and … in the process, destroy the very ‘idea’ itself.
We will have a new president on November 8th but we will not have a new America. A healed America. That journey begins … or continues … November 9th and each of us must do our part … and that begins with … listening.
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I would like to also suggest that, if you have not already done so, you vote. No matter how angry you are, how cynical, how apathetic … not participating in a participatory democracy is what those who would destroy the ‘idea’ want. Don’t allow them to put a gag on your voice. Speak up.
Ken Draper-Editor, CityWatch
