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mary rochat

 From: "Roger Rochat" <rrochat@sph.emory.edu>

To: "MARY ROCHAT" <maryrochat@charter.neF;"Marilee Mittelstadt" <mjmittel@comcast.net>;"John Rochat" <AlohaJ-R@yahoo.com>; "David & Dorothy Weeks" <daviddorothy@gmail.com>; "Melanie Rochat <raftgoddessl@yahoo.com>; "David Rochat" <davidrochat@nite-sky.net>

Sent: Thursday, November 06, 2008 8:51 AM

Subject: Fw: Great essay-well worth reading-whether you agree with all or not.

 Commentary for the BBC World News Service

November 5,2008

 Re: The 2008 Presidential Election

By: Glenn C. Loury  Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences  Department of Economics, Brown University

[The remarks that follow have been recorded for broadcast throughout the world on the British

Broadcasting Corporation's news programs. GL]

 It is often said that the United States of America is a nation defined not by kinship, ethnicity, religion. or tribal connection, but by ideas - ideas about freedom, democracy and the self-evident truths that all persons are created equal, and that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.

 A plain fact, too often forgotten, is that America is, always has been, and always will be a nation of immigrants.

 Last night this nation of immigrants elected a son of Africa - a black man whose father was born in Kenya and who goes by the name Barack Hussein Obama- to be our 14th president. "Historic" hardly begins to describe just how momentous, how remarkable, how improbable is President-Elect Obama's achievement.

I cannot now claim fully to fathom the significance of this event. But, as a black man who grew to maturity on the South Side of Chicago in the 1960s and who was inspired by the words and deeds of the

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., one thing is clear to me: we have entered a new world, and there is no going back.

 In saying this, I do not mean to imply that the great historic stains on American democracy have been

entirely blotted-out. Our nation was mired in the original sin of slavery at its founding. Full citizenship rights for the descendants of those slaves have been attained only within living memory. And, even to this day, the remnants of the system of racial caste which was constructed to buttress and legitimate the abomination of African slavery are evident all about us: in our prisons and jails; in our racially segregated public schools; and in the poverty and despair of the racial ghettos of our great cities. These horrid realities were not reversed last night. The work of reform remains yet to be done.

 But, something fundamental has changed with Barack Hussein Obama's elevation to the highest office in this land. And, to repeat, because it bears repeating: there is no going back.

What changed is that the project of political reform has been made credible in an entirely new way.

I admit to having been one of those cynics who didn't believe it possible - who thought the "audacity of

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hope" was just an empty phrase. Even as I witnessed millions of believers rallying around this cause, even as I saw people of all races bending themselves to this historic task, even as I observed the vast increase in voter registration in African American communities and amongst the young across all this land - I remained doubtful. h did not seem possible to me that the deep structure of American power would permit the ascent of this son of Africa to its pinnacle.

When the hopeful would regale me with their visions, I would cite the election of 2004, which returned

George W. Bush to the White House despite what seemed to me to be his obvious inadequacy. I would

recall how Senator John Kerry - a genuine war hero -was maligned in that election, and even made to

seem un-American, by the Republican attack machine. I sat waiting for the same thing to happen again.

But, I was wrong, thank God. It never happened. And, 2004 seems now to have been a long, long time ago.

 America has elected a leader for the 2Ist century. This eloquent and brilliant young black man, this representative of the Chicago neighborhoods that I have known so well, this usurper of power from a complacent establishment, this proponent of "change" - is now set to become the next president of the United States of America. Hallelujah!

 We Americans have just elected a leader who, in his victory speech, took time to address himself to those "huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world" - so as to tell them that "our stories are singular, but our destinies are shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand."

How remarkable! American voters, by a comfortable margin, have just anointed a leader who is

unembarrassed to declare that "America's beacon still burns as bright, " and yet who understands that "the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals. " How inspiring!

 Somewhere in the Christian bible it says that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. " For me, last night's election outcome has given new meaning to those words.