Last night I was present, along with about 300 people, at the Hawaii Democratic Party rally held at Mo’oheau Park in downtown Hilo. This year marked the 54th time this rally has been held. As you can see Barack Obama was present and his sister Maya Soetoro-Ng was guest speaker.
Small events such as these are now taking place all over the United States. All politics are local, as the saying goes. And no less in our small town of Hilo, Hawaii. Maya Soetoro-Ng decribed her brother’s candidacy for President as “as act of love”. Now, this might sound over the top for sure but as I scanned the faces in the crowd and as I listened carefully to what she was saying and as I was contemplating the state of affairs that my country has fallen to I had to agree with her. Barack Obama never, in a thousand years, needed to do what he is attempting now. The easy thing would be to forget it all and go back to living a quiet life. And if (hopefully when) he is elected he faces the unprecedented problems of a wrecked economy, an energy crisis, and two wars. Who would want that?
I have seen how Jakarta families hold together in troubled times, which is almost all the time. Here we call it aloha. At the very core of it all, when it is all said and done, all we have is each other.
OBAMA 08!
