Madeline Albright: Looking Back with Pride, Looking Forward with Hope

[babylonsister]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/madeleine-albright/looking-back-with-pride-l_b_142818.html


Looking Back with Pride, Looking Forward with Hope
Madeline Albright


Sixty years ago today, a ship carrying my family sailed around the Statue of Liberty into New York harbor. Having fled first Nazism then Communism, we had finally arrived in the United States. Aside from the birth dates of my children, it was the most important day of my life.

The America in which I grew up was known as a champion of international law, a builder of strong alliances, a defender of freedom, and an inspiration to those forced to live behind the Iron Curtain. Americans have good reason to look back with pride.

Last Tuesday, we were given good reason to look forward with hope.

There is a promise in Senator Obama's election that goes beyond any explicit pledge made during the campaign. That potential may be found in the reaffirmation of America's identity as a true land of opportunity and in the confounding of damaging assumptions about our country that have spread unchecked across the globe these past eight years.

snip//

It will take time for the next president to succeed, but the opportunity will be there. There is no doubt that a guiding hand is needed. That direction is unlikely to come from those now opposing our values: from radical populists, aggressive nationalists, autocratic modernizers, or the apostles of holy war.

Such guidance could well come from a new brand of American leader, a leader who listens and who blends Truman's judgment with an up to date sense not only of what is possible but of what can become possible through the right blend of energy and faith; and it could come from a country that has just voted freely and peacefully to choose its president for the 56th time.

We cannot go back to that distant day, three score years ago, when my family arrived on these shores. That world is gone. We can, however, hope to build a future of greater justice, broader prosperity, and larger freedom, with the United States once again serving as a cornerstone.

That will be President Obama's mandate -- and the responsibility of us all.

[yellowcanine]

1. NIce but I hope she is not part of the Obama team. Too much Soviet era/cold war thinking.

Condi Rice's problem also.