Stump Speech of Hope

September, 2008

If you want to see this, you can view it here.

Hi Everybody!

So, a lot of my friends are scared of Sarah Palin.  I've received the No To Palin email at least half a dozen times – which is great!  I’m glad it’s getting out there.

And I’ll admit it.  The Republicans seem to have gotten themselves a real A-plus ticket. 

But actually, it’s more like A-minus ticket.  Why A-minus?  Because A-minus means “Anti”:

Anti-Choice

Anti-Environment

Anti-Sustainable Energy

Anti-Education

Anti-Universal Health Care

Anti-Living Wage

Anti-Truth

But most of all, they’re Anti-Hope.

The Republican ticket has its arms wide open to two very specific segments of society; the one which agrees – in total and without debate or dissent – to everything they say and every idea they promote, and the one which mistakenly believes their lies of maverickness and their baseless assassinations of character.

To everyone else, they say, “Here’s your fear pill and your cave of despair. Move in.”  Fear is a fantastic tactic for undermining your opponents, because it taps right into the lizard-level of your brain, puts you into fight-or-flight, and makes you see danger and doom around every corner.  It makes you doubt what you believe.  It might even make you doubt your chosen candidate.  Which is exactly what the Republican Machine wants.

But what they forget is that we have Barack Obama as our candidate.  WE chose him, and we know why we chose him.  We chose Barack because of his message of hope and inclusiveness, and his fierce intelligence.  We love the fact that he thinks, he reasons, he can consider two opposing ideas at the same time and not have his brain explode.   We chose Barack because of his opposition to the war and his commitment to helping the most underserved communities.  We chose Barack because he’s pro-choice and pro-alternative energy and because he knows drill drill drill is dumb dumb dumb.  We chose Barack because of his desire – not to be President OF a small segment of society, but to be President FOR everyone – even the people who don’t agree with him.

Barack wants to engage the entire American community in constructing a society where there is room and opportunity for all.  Does the Republican machine want that?  I don’t think so.

And to those folks who say they don’t know who Barack really is because he hasn’t shown enough emotion and fire (Thomas Friedman), I say two things.  One: The measure of a human is in their actions.  Look at what Barack has done.  Listen to what he’s said and the positions he’s put forth.  He couldn’t have gotten this far if he didn’t have passion and determination and commitment.  And two: Ask former Presidential candidate Howard Dean how the whole showing emotion and fire thing worked out for him. 

Now, despite the superior candidacy of Barack Obama, there is still a chance the Republicans could win in November.  Why?  Because their political machine is very, very good at three things: 

1. Lying
2. Manipulating Your Lizard Brain
3. Stealing Elections

But you know what?  Lie, manipulate, steal, because we’re not afraid.  We see you where you live, we call you out, and we say to you either grow up and exercise a little maturity and leadership on behalf of the greater good, or get out of the game.  There is no room anymore for your selfishness and your cruelty, your craven manipulations of science and justice and your water-boarding of our Constitution.

Meanwhile, the rest of us, all the community organizers and activists, all the world-tending people the Republican Machine would like to denigrate and disparage are going to continue their work no matter what happens.

We don’t live in fear. We’re not cowed.  And fueled by our blazing love for this world, we fight for an amazing vision of what this world could be.  We believe it’s possible.  We’ve all seen, over and over, that anything is possible. Anything Is Possible. We've seen it in South Africa and Northern Ireland. We saw it in the end of the slave trade.  

We've seen Anything Is Possible in Philippe Petit who walked a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center. We've seen it in Wangari Maatthai who won a Nobel Prize for planting trees and in Eve Ensler, who launched a theatrical Vagina Revolution.

 We've seen it in the Apollo Program and in the work of Picasso.  We've heard Anything Is Possible in the voice of kd lang and the horn of Miles Davis and watched it blinking out a novel from the left eyelid of Jean-Dominique Bauby. We've seen it in stories of unlikely survival in concentration camps and the killing fields of Cambodia. We've seen it in the insights of Einstein and the inventions of Edison and in pretty much anyone who ever made it to the Olympics.

We’ve seen it in Barack Obama.  And we’ve seen it in ourselves.  Each of us, in our own lives, have had a few of those miraculous moments when we know in our bones that Anything Is Possible.  We know that we can be our best selves.  We can make a better, healthier, more sustainable, more peaceful world.  We believe it.  We believe it right now, this minute, and we will remind each other in this moment and every day – to the election and beyond. 

 And even more than believing it, we LIVE it.  We inhale it and breathe it back to each other.  We sing it to our children and we skritch it into the fur of our pets and we smile it to each other on the street.  We pray it in our holy houses and we hike it on our favorite mountain trails and we ride it on our bikes and watch it whirling in our windmills and shining on our solar panels.  We dance it and cook it and bathe it and bake it and dig it and read it and mop it and build it and love it.

 Still, we also need some actual tactics, right?  Ok, so along with phone banking and door-knocking and letter-writing and voter registration and t-shirt wearing and money-donating and bumper sticker sporting, and all that regular election season action, we’re going to do a little Manifesting.  We’re going to set a clear intention and infuse ourselves with it.  We’re going to create some magic.

 How?  When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we’ll say is: “President Obama.”  We’ll greet each other over breakfast by saying, “President Obama.”  We’ll wave to our neighbors and shout, “President Obama!”  When someone asks us for directions, we’ll respond, “President Obama.”  If we have a weak moment and feel some fear, we’ll put it out like an old campfire by flooding ourselves with “President Obama.”

Try it.  President Obama.  President Obama.  Doesn’t that make you feel good?  Especially in your belly?  Aren’t you tired of a President whose name gives you acid reflux?  A President who exacerbates your eczema and deepens your constipation?  You can digest better with President Obama.  You can fall asleep sooner and sleep deeper with President Obama.  You can drop your shoulders away from your ears and stand taller and travel overseas with President Obama.

So.  Repeat it:  Hope.  Possibility.  President Obama.  Listen to Winston Churchill when he said: “Never give up, never give up, never, ever, give up!”  Listen to Harriet Tubman when she said: “Don’t ever stop.  Keep going.  If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.” 

And spread the love.