The New Rainbow Coalition: Just Smoking Hopium?

Today (Saturday) I volunteered at the Obama headquarters in Van Nuys, California. It was raining when I arrived, good symbolism for the rainbow of volunteers who filled the big, rambling HQ rooms wall to wall.

I’ve been volunteering since 1992, and have never seen anything like the professional level of organization at this volunteer center. It is worthy of a shuttle launch! I was greeted the second I walked through the door and asked to sign in… on a keyboard which displayed the data I entered on an oversized monitor. Then I was directed to a phone-bank training class, preparing me in less than 15 minutes to begin making my calls with confidence.

There were so many volunteers that space was limited at the many phone-banking tables, so I joined those who sat on the floor to make their calls rather than wait on a table. There were white volunteers. Black volunteers. Hispanic and Asian volunteers. Some were in their early teens, making calls side-by-side with their parents. Some were young Moms, whose children sat beside them on the floor with their coloring books while they called. Others were old and infirm, making calls from their wheelchairs. And in the coffee and cookie room, where I wandered in search of caffeine after calling for two hours, there was a table where all the volunteers were speaking in Spanish.

We were too busy to chit-chat, but I overheard more than one volunteer express the hope that an Obama victory would result in expanded opportunities to give even more time, enabling a broad participation in the restoration of America’s potential.

I am beyond impressed. I am humbled and grateful. This level of inspired volunteer service makes me hope, after eight years of resigned isolation under the shadow of the Bush administration, that fellow citizens care, and that we are part of an increasingly vocal community in which our better selves can triumph against fear and hate.

I confess I felt so much hope (and pride) at Obama Headquarters today that my chest swelled and my eyes filled with tears. Does this mean, as one of my Lefty friends characterizes Obama supporters, that I am just smoking Hopium?

Well…

Americans are good-natured, so we gave Bush the benefit of the doubt as we watched him send our children off to die in a war with ill-defined objectives. We accepted his national security justification for suspending many of our Constitutional rights under the Patriot Act. We watched in horror as Abu Graib unfolded, suspending our disbelief that his administration did not authorize the torture. We said, “surely not,” when allegations were made that his Justice Department issued wholesale pink slips to judges who refused to slant their decisions in support of his political agenda. And while we hoped for the best from Bush, he betrayed us… again and again and again.

The weight of so many cumulative Bush betrayals has had a crushing effect, leading many Americans to despair. Anger is of limited use in extricating ourselves from despair… it can lift us out, but does not offer a new direction forward. That, I think, is the purpose of hope. Curious to know how others define hope, I went online in search of quotes, and found an ocean of them. Here are some of my favorites:

ELIE WIESEL:
Just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY:
If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

MOHANDAS K. GANDHI:
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

PIERRE TEILHARD DE CHARDIN:
The future belongs to those who give the next generation reason for hope.

BARACK OBAMA (Yes, he popped up on my Internet search):
We've been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope. But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope.

So, fellow members of the newer, wider, brighter rainbow coalition: Let’s refuse to be embarrassed by hope. In the past eight years we surrendered to fear… and It diminished us. We indulged in hate… and it dishonored us. Now hope appears on shining new wings and beckons to us.

Don’t bogart that hope. Pass it over to me.