I say, Why not?

Reading over President Kennedy's Inaugural Address, I found it really interesting, the way he said things -- the use of language, and there were a couple of weird things that I didn't expect.

Like -- he says the energy, faith, and devotion people bring to the project of defending freedom will "light our country and all who serve it."  Then he said, the glow from that fire can truly "light the world."

Oprah used to encourage her audiences to "light the world" -- I thought she made that up!  Now I guess she was probably quoting President Kennedy.

And then just as I'm really enjoying these rocking images and rolling metaphors, I come to:

And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both...

(Wait a minute! -- the who of the what??)

If the
beachhead of cooperation
may
push back the
jungle of suspicion...

(Okay.  Gotta watch those jungles of suspicion....)

If I were good at drawing, I would (respectfully) make a cartoon of a
beachhead of cooperation
giving some hell to a
jungle of suspicion.

I'll bet one of Kennedy's more creative speechwriters, on a sort of post-election high-good-mood, wrote that, and JFK probably read it and said -- Hmmh, do I want to...?  Oh what the hell let it stay in....

------------------------- So, it says:

"And, if a beachhead of cooperation may push back the jungle of suspicion, let both sides join in creating a new endeavor -- not a new balance of power, but a new world of law --

where the strong are just,

and the weak secure,

and the peace preserved."

---------------------------------
And further on it says,
-------------- "In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.

I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it.

I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world."


I like that where he says, "I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it."  (If communists were coming after me, I would probably feel shrink-y.  [If a person were to run-screaming-from-the-room, would that count as "shrinking" from it?  Probably.])

Is that why we need leaders?
To say brave things even if they don't always feel them --
so that we the people can
feel brave even if we don't always
say it?

-30-