Bill Clinton: We're all in this together

Thich Nhat Hanh (photo by pixaduc)

Echoing the sentiments of some of the world's greatest sages (Love one another - Jesus; An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind - Gandhi; We build too many walls and not enough bridges - Isaac Newton;  If one member suffers, all suffer - St. Paul;  In the long history of humankind (and animal kind,too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed - Charles Darwin; Union gives strength - Aesop), Bill Clinton emphasized the following philosophical premise during his 2012 Democratic National Convention speech:  We're all in this together.

He then went on to given example after example of how President Barack Obama has exemplified this mindset.  Clinton described Obama as "a man who believes we can build a new American Dream economy driven by innovation and creativity, education and cooperation" – a man who appointed Republicans to key positions such as Secretary of Defense, Army and Transportation - and a man who appointed Democratic rivals to key positions such as Vice President and Secretary of State.  Perhaps the most quotable of all Clinton's examples was this one:  Heck, he even appointed Hillary!

Clinton's "no man is an island" theme skillfully offsets notions of building a business (or anything else for that matter) singlehandedly.  As Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh has so often reminded us, there really is no such thing as a singlehanded venture.  Hanh's concept of Interbeing explains that even the production of a single sheet of paper is dependent upon trees, rain and sun – not to mention the talents and labor of a multitude of people.

Resources

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/transcript-bill-clintons-democratic-convention-speech/story?id=17164662

http://www.wisdomcommons.org/virtue/28-cooperation/quotes

http://www.croftonair.org/content/view/36/49/

Copyright September 7, 2012 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved