Hail, Hillary

by Madeleine Kando

Born on October 26, 1947, Hillary Rodham Clinton is four years younger than I am. That makes her a ‘baby boomer’, whereas technically, I am a member of the silent generation, since I was born in 1943. But I feel that we are of the same generation, since we both experienced the same world events.

Just to put Hillary in a historical perspective, I have put together the following list of world events that happened after Hillary was born:

NATO was created when she was just learning how to talk and walk. The first hydrogen bomb was tested when she was still playing with dolls. When the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional, she was finishing Kindergarten. The birth control pill became legal when she was 13. She was 17 when John F. Kennedy got assassinated. When she was 18, Johnson created Medicare, Medicaid, the Food Stamp program and dozens of other programs intended to lift Americans out of poverty. She was 21 when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated. When she was 26, Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. When she was 42, the Berlin Wall fell. During the Gulf War, she was 41. She was 45 when NAFTA was signed. She was 44 on 9/11. When she was 47, we invaded Iraq. She was 60 when she ran against Barack Obama. She is 69 years now, running against Trump.

It is easy to forget how much she has witnessed during her lifetime. She witnessed events of major historical significance. How can you not be marked by such events as segregation being declared unconstitutional or birth control becoming legal? How can these events not change the course of a woman’s life?

What I feel so passionate about is that Hillary not only is my soul mate as far as her life experience is concerned but that we are stamped by historical events in a similar way. We have both experienced the world for over half a century as WOMEN. That is significant, no matter how you look at it.

When she suffers insults thrown her way on a debate stage, not flinching for one second, I am in awe. I would end up in tears, but she only smiles. This simple act, of parring the vilest attacks with nothing more than her grit, her incredible ability to remove her emotions from the equation, is worthy of anyone’s admiration, male or female. With her comportment, she stands up for us, all the women of this world.

I confess that Joan of Arc was my childhood hero in Sunday school, when I was 6 years old. But that admiration was no match to what I feel now for Hillary Rodham Clinton.

When push comes to shove, when the entire hullabaloo is removed, the noise created by the press, the avalanche of opinions, the accusations, the gossip, it comes down to this: Hillary is a present day Joan of Arc. She is our savior. She stands on the path of history where we will either ‘do the right thing’ or go down in history as having missed the opportunity of a lifetime. If we she does not become our next President, we only have ourselves to blame.

And history will not forgive us. I will crawl into bed, assume a fetal position and wish that I had never emigrated to this country. leave comment here