AMERICAN DESTINY Greg Sandora
I’ll never forget the look on my father’s face. We were stopped at a checkpoint by dangerous looking men in military uniform. There were soldiers yelling back and forth, waving weapons, searching through our belongings, taking anything they wanted. One guerilla was approached by an emaciated little boy with skin so strained it appeared to barely cover his veins. He was crying out, eyes bulging from hollow sockets, his spindly arms grasping for the soldier’s leg. This last desperate act was answered with the butt end of a rifle, sending the child violently to the ground. Semi-convulsing, blood gushing from his head, the boy curled up in a tiny brown ball and went to sleep. At least that’s what my mother told me.
That scene played out over and over in my head as I grew up. It made me sad but mostly furious that life could be so unfair. Our family missionary trip to Africa was meant to teach us love, compassion and understanding, and yet it burned an angry fire in my belly so intense that it became permanently lodged within my gut, woven into the fabric of my soul. Even at the tender age of ten I knew that someday I would change this cruel and unjust world. That was forty years ago.
A lengthy recession has brought desperate times. Many in the working middle-class are unemployed or have fallen below the poverty line. Millions have lost their homes. Those who are fortunate enough to have jobs are often doing triple the workload, burdened with anxiety, feeling worthless; disposable, fearing their next. In an ironic twist, "Big Business" and banks received bailout money from the government that could have, and should have, gone to help the people. Honest hard-working Americans are desperate, ashamed and hopeless. Suicides, domestic violence and homicides are climbing to all- time highs.
Oh sure, there are still plenty of guys buying Ferraris as the disparity between rich and poor becomes virtually obscene. The wealthy become fatter from picking the carcasses of the foreclosed-upon average family. The underlying greed is unconscionable.
Who am I? I’m the Senior Democratic Senator from Kentucky, John Canon, but people call me Jack. My once brown hair has turned a little gray in some places but I can’t complain, having served nearly three terms in the most powerful city on earth. I’ve gotten a bit softer around the middle and learned that a good suit can hide it. The biggest eye opener of my Political Career so far, an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency. It was a major shock to find out what it’s really going to take--to fulfill my destiny.
TO SOMEDAY HAVE THE POWER--TO DEDICATE THE HIGHEST OFFICE IN THE LAND--TO MAKE THINGS RIGHT. THIS TIME I’M ALL IN.
