History again

It’s not every day you get to witness something truly historic, but today was one of those days. Today Barack Obama officially became the nominee of the Democratic Party to be the next president of the United States. He’s the first African American to win a major party nomination, and he did so after his chief rival for the nomination—who, if successful, would’ve been the first woman to be nominated—move to make it by acclamation.

It was at the beginning of June when I last wrote about witnessing history being made, but this feels even bigger. It wasn’t that long ago that some states were openly and officially doing everything in their power to prevent African Americans from voting. It was just forty-five years ago tomorrow that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. famously declared, “I have a dream”. Today we saw a bit of that dream fulfilled.

I’m often critical of my homeland’s government, and certainly the past seven years have given me plenty to be critical about. I’ve also been critical of the man who next week will become the nominee of the Republican Party, because all he promises is four more years of the same Bush-Cheney failures I’ve criticised.

But there are times that transcend all the truly horrible things done to America, not just by this administration, but also by bad people going all the way back to the nation’s founding. At transcendent moments like this, many of those wounds are healed. I’m proud of my party, and I’m proud that despite the best efforts of the enemies of freedom overseas and within America, good things like this nomination can still happen.

There’s still much work to be done, not just to win the election, but to finish restoring freedom and democracy to America. When he takes that oath of office as President, Barack Obama will move America one giant leap forward. And we know that John “More of the Same” McCain can’t.

That work can pause for one day, though, as we savour the feeling of history being made.