America can be better

To see America with eyes wide open is to see her faults as well as her promise. How can we ever get better as a country if we as a people delude ourselves into thinking we are already a perfect union.

Why would we think we have such moral superiority when our own history identifies such dramatic moral failures as the slaughter of the native Americans, the horror of chattel slavery (where men and women were thought to be no more than cattle or hogs, with no more rights), the only country to use nuclear weapons in war (even though our President at the time knew the Japanese were ready to surrender anyway), and recently the killing of over 100,000 civilians in Iraq . . . in a war that we all know was unnecessary.

Many of us are caught up in the "Leave it to Beaver" fantasy past. One that completely white washes the struggles of the poor and blacks in the recent past.

Well, I for one am not satisfied that America is all she can be. I believe we can, indeed must do better. We "can" be a moral compass for the world, but only once we have found our own way at home. Only when we have the guts to recognize that all is not well in America. Only when we begin to view the value of all human life, and not just American lives, and come to the defense of people based on humanitarian objectives (Darfur anyone) and not just based on strategic and economic interest. Only when we have recognized the value of every American child and committed ourselves to education based on intellectual capability and not financial wherewithal.

Rev. Wright recognizes many of our faults as a country, having lived in the segregated south, fought for a free South Africa and simply been born black in America. We may not like what he says, but prophets rarely tell us what we want to hear. But what we need to hear.

So you can keep your blinders on if you want. But if there are any false prophets in the room, they are those that are deceiving you with ideas that everything is just fine in America. That we "have" the perfect union. That the "status quo" need not change.

Think about it. Since when did any biblical prophet talk about how good things are, to, as President Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld, would say "just stay the course".

America can and must do better. It is up to "we the people" to make it so. And we can . . . Yes We Can.