The euphoria from election night lingers. It’s like stepping from a subterranean cavern into the first light of a fresh morning. The way ahead may be difficult and perplexing, but at least we can feel proud of our President as he represents us to the world. Obama reads, studies history, and speaks in complete sentences – by themselves these attributes make him radically different from the current occupant of the White House.
On January 20, 2009, intelligence and rational thought make a triumphant return to the White House. One thing is certain: willful ignorance will not be a virtue in an Obama Administration.
The reaction from people around the globe to Barack Obama’s victory proves that the idea of America is alive and kicking. Perhaps the world is reacting so favorably to Obama because he appears calm, collected and sane, reasonable and reassuring; he doesn’t swagger like a gunslinger (Bush) or talk like a fascist (Cheney). We have yet to fully appreciate the damage done by Bush and Cheney to our standing in the world. It won’t happen overnight, but Obama has a window of opportunity to repair that damage and restore our credibility and moral authority.
Tuesday night’s historic results were a relief, a catharsis -- hope that had been dammed for nearly eight years escaped in a deluge. Americans know that we are better than the last eight years. We’re hungry to rebuild our country along more equitable lines, with a stronger foundation that supports more citizens; hungry to prove that we are more than slaves to the “free” market and mindless consumerism; hungry to relate to the rest of the world in less bellicose ways; hungry to find solutions for pressing human needs.
George W. Bush is an aristocrat and he governed like one, never asking the people to sacrifice or put their collective shoulder to the wheel. Even when it came to Iraq, Bush asked for nothing but our prayers and blind faith in his word. In Bush’s twisted, out-of-touch worldview, the people need not concern themselves with complex matters of policy; instead, they should shop, watch TV and let the chosen ones at the top run things. When the people spoke about their concerns, as when millions took to the streets to protest the Iraq invasion, Bush ignored us.
When Barack Obama takes his seat in the Oval Office for the first time, he will face a daunting array of inherited challenges. Obama is stepping into a house trashed by a bunch of spoiled frat boys – light fixtures dangle from the ceiling, every toilet is clogged, furniture is upended, the kitchen is wrecked and nobody ever bothered to take out the garbage or clean out the refrigerator. What the frat boys couldn’t carry off they destroyed.
One of the great reclamation projects in American history will begin with the deck stacked against it.
But perhaps Americans owe George W. Bush a debt of gratitude, for it was Bush’s utter incompetence and failure that made it possible for Barack Obama to become President, for Obama’s message of hope to echo across the wasteland Bush bequeathed to us, and resonate with millions.
When the people are ready, the leader will appear.
Showing posts with label Obama 08. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama 08. Show all posts
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Election Night, Historic Night
5:10 P.M. We just cast our votes at the Methodist Church on Anapamu Street. The lines were short and the poll workers chipper. During the day people kept asking me if I had voted; most of them had and wore stickers to prove it. Obviously, this is not a run-of-the-mill, ho-hum election; people are into it, hopeful. We waited until late in the day so we could take our kids with us.
At this moment MSNBC has Obama at 103 electoral votes and McCain at 58. I wonder what McCain is doing right now…probably taking a nap and hoping that he’ll wake up to a stunning upset. McCain clearly believes in fantasies and Hollywood endings, which is why he choose Sarah Palin as his running mate…I’m still trying to understand what his Brain Trust was snorting when they tapped Palin. It’s as if they tossed some names in a hat, closed their eyes, reached in…
Speaking of Palin, I saw that cipher on TV last night, regurgitating the same tired clichés that Republicans have employed for years, still straining, on the night before the election, to tar Obama with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, and to make the unconvincing claim – except to a cadre of die hard Republicans, rednecks, racists, and utter morons – that Obama is a socialist.
Why is MSNBC giving Tom Delay a forum? The prick is a criminal, a disgraced no-good unrepentant criminal who doesn’t deserve to speak to a national audience; of course the rat predicts that a Democratic majority in Congress will “ruin” the American economy. Huh? DeLay was a swaggering power broker in Bush’s first term and did a wonderful job terrorizing Democrats while transferring wealth to the richest Americans and pissing on the rest of us. DeLay wielded power like a Roman proconsul, sparing no one.
The Talking Heads are jabbering like barroom drunks, making projections, predictions and prognostications, most of which will be disproved by the time the night is through. But there’s air time to fill while the numbers trickle in so they need to say something.
The Big Board shows Obama at 175 and McCain at 76. Thousands of Obama supporters are gathering in Grant Park in Chicago. The Deep South goes for McCain – no surprise there -- old habits die hard.
I read this morning that Maya Angelou hoped that an Obama victory would signal that the people of the United States have finally grown up, thrown off the shackles of fear and racism and bigotry, and entered adulthood. Forty years after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. After RFK went down the same way.
The Talking Heads are now saying that Obama will win Ohio! This is a huge development. In 2004 I went to bed thinking John Kerry would squeak out a victory there and woke up to discover that Bush had taken the state – by fraud as we would later learn.
Virginia. Florida. North Carolina. Indiana. All too close to call at this hour, 7:03 P.M. on my end of the continent. Iowa goes for Obama with 7 electoral votes. Should the current trend hold and Obama win the election, I wonder what will become of the Republican Party. It will be a smaller party, even more right-wing and wacky than it is today, and just as apt to hitch its wagon to a wingnut like Sarah Palin. Or Huckabee. Or maybe they’ll pass the baton to Pat Buchanan.
I wonder what is going through John McCain’s mind right now. Is he working on his concession speech or maybe staring at the developing scene in Grant Park and wetting his Depends? Cindy is no doubt by his side, as she always is, now drug-free though still high-strung and as inclined to psychological meltdown as her hubby is. I have a hunch that she’s thinking: “You owe me old man, big time. I followed you from town to city to hamlet, from gated community to country club, from Wal-Mart to 7-11, from the Waldorf-Astoria to the Biltmore. I’m tired! I’m sick of politics, of your political aspirations, and of all the phony people that have surrounded us for the past year! I want to go home, but I can’t decide to which of our eight homes.”
MSNBC just called it for Barack Obama. Can it be true? Finally, an African-American in the White House! What a tremendous First Family the Obama’s will be -- bright man, smart woman, lovely children. And not white! Finally, finally, finally, after all these years, after all the lynchings and beatings and shootings, after all the dreams deferred and denied…now we can call ourselves Americans. Now we have an opportunity to live up to our most cherished ideals.
OK, the Talking Heads are getting mushy and teary-eyed. Rachel Maddow is crying like a baby. My 12-year-old son just commented that Sarah Palin is only a footnote now. The boy is so happy that the Era of Bush is nearly over that he’s bouncing off the walls. On the TV Jesse Jackson is teary-eyed. This is amazing. I almost can’t believe it. Not only did Obama win Ohio, he also won Florida! Florida – the Bush backyard.
The electoral count is 333 to 156. An emphatic statement. A dramatic repudiation of the last eight wasted years.
McCain is conceding now before his faithful, and actually sounding like a reasonable man, like a US Senator, like a gracious statesman. Where has this version of John McCain been since August? McCain’s crowd in Arizona is so lily white that I need my Ray-Bans. McCain’s people are chanting “USA! USA!”
Waiting for the man now, for Barack Obama to take the stage before a throng estimated at 100,000. What does it mean that the voters of America have elected an African-American man president? What does it mean for our tomorrow?
And here he is, conjuring FDR and Martin Luther King Jr., and RFK. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. After eight years of being told that only some of us can, that only some of us are worthy, that only some of us matter. Yes we can. Yes we can. Together as Americans. All of us.
That’s worth thinking about on this unbelievable night.
At this moment MSNBC has Obama at 103 electoral votes and McCain at 58. I wonder what McCain is doing right now…probably taking a nap and hoping that he’ll wake up to a stunning upset. McCain clearly believes in fantasies and Hollywood endings, which is why he choose Sarah Palin as his running mate…I’m still trying to understand what his Brain Trust was snorting when they tapped Palin. It’s as if they tossed some names in a hat, closed their eyes, reached in…
Speaking of Palin, I saw that cipher on TV last night, regurgitating the same tired clichés that Republicans have employed for years, still straining, on the night before the election, to tar Obama with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, and to make the unconvincing claim – except to a cadre of die hard Republicans, rednecks, racists, and utter morons – that Obama is a socialist.
Why is MSNBC giving Tom Delay a forum? The prick is a criminal, a disgraced no-good unrepentant criminal who doesn’t deserve to speak to a national audience; of course the rat predicts that a Democratic majority in Congress will “ruin” the American economy. Huh? DeLay was a swaggering power broker in Bush’s first term and did a wonderful job terrorizing Democrats while transferring wealth to the richest Americans and pissing on the rest of us. DeLay wielded power like a Roman proconsul, sparing no one.
The Talking Heads are jabbering like barroom drunks, making projections, predictions and prognostications, most of which will be disproved by the time the night is through. But there’s air time to fill while the numbers trickle in so they need to say something.
The Big Board shows Obama at 175 and McCain at 76. Thousands of Obama supporters are gathering in Grant Park in Chicago. The Deep South goes for McCain – no surprise there -- old habits die hard.
I read this morning that Maya Angelou hoped that an Obama victory would signal that the people of the United States have finally grown up, thrown off the shackles of fear and racism and bigotry, and entered adulthood. Forty years after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. After RFK went down the same way.
The Talking Heads are now saying that Obama will win Ohio! This is a huge development. In 2004 I went to bed thinking John Kerry would squeak out a victory there and woke up to discover that Bush had taken the state – by fraud as we would later learn.
Virginia. Florida. North Carolina. Indiana. All too close to call at this hour, 7:03 P.M. on my end of the continent. Iowa goes for Obama with 7 electoral votes. Should the current trend hold and Obama win the election, I wonder what will become of the Republican Party. It will be a smaller party, even more right-wing and wacky than it is today, and just as apt to hitch its wagon to a wingnut like Sarah Palin. Or Huckabee. Or maybe they’ll pass the baton to Pat Buchanan.
I wonder what is going through John McCain’s mind right now. Is he working on his concession speech or maybe staring at the developing scene in Grant Park and wetting his Depends? Cindy is no doubt by his side, as she always is, now drug-free though still high-strung and as inclined to psychological meltdown as her hubby is. I have a hunch that she’s thinking: “You owe me old man, big time. I followed you from town to city to hamlet, from gated community to country club, from Wal-Mart to 7-11, from the Waldorf-Astoria to the Biltmore. I’m tired! I’m sick of politics, of your political aspirations, and of all the phony people that have surrounded us for the past year! I want to go home, but I can’t decide to which of our eight homes.”
MSNBC just called it for Barack Obama. Can it be true? Finally, an African-American in the White House! What a tremendous First Family the Obama’s will be -- bright man, smart woman, lovely children. And not white! Finally, finally, finally, after all these years, after all the lynchings and beatings and shootings, after all the dreams deferred and denied…now we can call ourselves Americans. Now we have an opportunity to live up to our most cherished ideals.
OK, the Talking Heads are getting mushy and teary-eyed. Rachel Maddow is crying like a baby. My 12-year-old son just commented that Sarah Palin is only a footnote now. The boy is so happy that the Era of Bush is nearly over that he’s bouncing off the walls. On the TV Jesse Jackson is teary-eyed. This is amazing. I almost can’t believe it. Not only did Obama win Ohio, he also won Florida! Florida – the Bush backyard.
The electoral count is 333 to 156. An emphatic statement. A dramatic repudiation of the last eight wasted years.
McCain is conceding now before his faithful, and actually sounding like a reasonable man, like a US Senator, like a gracious statesman. Where has this version of John McCain been since August? McCain’s crowd in Arizona is so lily white that I need my Ray-Bans. McCain’s people are chanting “USA! USA!”
Waiting for the man now, for Barack Obama to take the stage before a throng estimated at 100,000. What does it mean that the voters of America have elected an African-American man president? What does it mean for our tomorrow?
And here he is, conjuring FDR and Martin Luther King Jr., and RFK. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. After eight years of being told that only some of us can, that only some of us are worthy, that only some of us matter. Yes we can. Yes we can. Together as Americans. All of us.
That’s worth thinking about on this unbelievable night.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
The 9th Inning
Waiting for Tuesday, November 4, is like watching the seventh game of the World Series where the home team – a franchise with a storied history of failure – is six outs away from erasing a decade of pain and frustration. The home crowd is delirious, on the one hand, and yet a palpable current of apprehension ripples through the stands; these fans have been here before, standing so close to the post-game victory celebration that they could feel the spray of champagne in their faces, only to watch in disbelief as the home team stumbled, bumbled and fumbled it all away.
The clock atop the centerfield scoreboard seems frozen and the interval between each pitch stretches like an eternity. The home team has its ace closer on the mound, but the opposing batters keep fouling his best pitches into the stands. A base hit and a walk, a sacrifice bunt, and suddenly the pesky, never-say-die visiting team is threatening, a hit away from being right back in the contest. From the outfield bleachers to the luxury boxes above home plate, the current of apprehension becomes a wave of fear. Is another historic collapse about to happen?
Tuesday can’t get here quickly enough. If I have to watch another clip of stiff, ridiculous John McCain making that robotic thumbs-up gesture I’m going to puke on the living room rug; if I have to hear Sarah Palin contorting logic and twisting truth in order to link Barack Obama to the PLO, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army or Osama bin Laden himself, I’m going to become violent; and if I see Karl Rove – that disgraced, corrupt and lying toad –one more time, well, there’s no telling what I’m capable of.
Yes, it’s the top of the ninth and the home club has the lead, its ace closer on the mound, and its first world championship in sixteen long years in sight. Nothing can go wrong, right? It’s OK to breathe, to leave the room to get a cold beer from the fridge, to take the dog for a stroll…
No, hell no, don’t you dare move except to get out and cast your ballot. Don’t be misled by polls or pundits. Keep rolling those prayer beads in your hands, keep promising the Gods that you will turn yourself around if they just have mercy and let us win, keep lighting candles and burning incense until the decent voters of America drive a splintered baseball bat through the hearts of John McCain and Sarah Palin. But even when that happens – and it must happen or the dream of America is dead – don’t rejoice until the coroner pronounces McCain and Palin officially deceased.
The clock atop the centerfield scoreboard seems frozen and the interval between each pitch stretches like an eternity. The home team has its ace closer on the mound, but the opposing batters keep fouling his best pitches into the stands. A base hit and a walk, a sacrifice bunt, and suddenly the pesky, never-say-die visiting team is threatening, a hit away from being right back in the contest. From the outfield bleachers to the luxury boxes above home plate, the current of apprehension becomes a wave of fear. Is another historic collapse about to happen?
Tuesday can’t get here quickly enough. If I have to watch another clip of stiff, ridiculous John McCain making that robotic thumbs-up gesture I’m going to puke on the living room rug; if I have to hear Sarah Palin contorting logic and twisting truth in order to link Barack Obama to the PLO, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army or Osama bin Laden himself, I’m going to become violent; and if I see Karl Rove – that disgraced, corrupt and lying toad –one more time, well, there’s no telling what I’m capable of.
Yes, it’s the top of the ninth and the home club has the lead, its ace closer on the mound, and its first world championship in sixteen long years in sight. Nothing can go wrong, right? It’s OK to breathe, to leave the room to get a cold beer from the fridge, to take the dog for a stroll…
No, hell no, don’t you dare move except to get out and cast your ballot. Don’t be misled by polls or pundits. Keep rolling those prayer beads in your hands, keep promising the Gods that you will turn yourself around if they just have mercy and let us win, keep lighting candles and burning incense until the decent voters of America drive a splintered baseball bat through the hearts of John McCain and Sarah Palin. But even when that happens – and it must happen or the dream of America is dead – don’t rejoice until the coroner pronounces McCain and Palin officially deceased.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Racists, Rednecks and Rove
This is a big week for the Republicans, even though the Democrats and Barack Obama are center-stage. You can bet the GOP brain trust – led by Karl Rove – is camped around a massive Plasma TV screen, drinking whiskey neat and recording everything that happens, everything that is said, reading between the lines and below the lines, seeking to uncover the story beneath the story -- all for the purpose of storing ammo for the general election.
If Barack Obama thinks he has seen the worst of the GOP attack machine he is sadly mistaken. Rove and his minions will pull out all the stops once Obama and McCain are officially anointed; oh yes, that’s when the big guns will be wheeled into position, and come September and October, the GOP will launch a major assault on the Truth, and millions of American voters will be cut down and left for dead. From now until then, Rove and his people will be working OT to paint Obama as too Liberal, too Foreign, and too much of a Muslim sympathizer. And if that PR offensive doesn’t gain traction, bet heavy that Rove and Co. will call their pals at Diebold and see about rigging voting machines to record votes for Obama as votes for John McCain.
Rednecks, racists and big money Chamber of Commerce types are worried about Barack Obama -- the idea that a black man with a strange name might take up residence in the White House makes a lot of white folks nervous. The cowboys at the county fair are talking about the possibility of an Obama presidency in apocalyptic terms. This isn’t the same as when Jesse Jackson ran because Jackson didn’t stand a chance of winning. Jesse was, frankly, too black to win over white voters. Not so with Obama, who is smart, articulate and charismatic.
Wall Street movers and their armies of K Street lobbyists are girding for war in the corridors of power. Money is already flowing to grease palms and buy loyalty, just in case Obama gets elected and proposes something sensible like re-regulating the banking system so that middle-class and working-class Americans are protected from predatory Titans of Finance.
The same siege mentality prevails in the health care industry, lest Obama get uppity and use his bully pulpit to promote Universal health care. The Privileged and the Profit Makers know that the time is now to inoculate themselves against an assault on everything they’ve gained during Bush’s reign.
There are, of course, a few realists in the McCain camp who know their man is a corrupt stiff with a liability-laden resume; all they can do is stoke the fears of the masses – fears about Mexicans swarming across the border to rape and rob defenseless white suburbanites; fears of socialized medicine; fears of reverse discrimination; fears of high taxes; and the Numero Uno Fear -- bearded Muslims.
McCain’s operatives know that peddling Fear is all they’ve got. When it comes to policy McCain is Bush Redux, and even the thickest, dumbest, shit-kicking, tattooed American has figured out that Bush and the GOP are responsible for the shit-storm sweeping the country. When citizens are weaned on TV you can fool most of them most of the time, but sooner or later even dolts wake up and realize that George W. Bush and his cronies are guilty of sodomizing the United States of America.
More to the point, McCain’s people know their man can’t hold his own against Barack Obama in a televised debate – even one with cream-puff questions lobbed by journalists infatuated with McCain. “I was a POW” is a statement of historical fact, not a policy position. Moreover, “I was a POW” is irrelevant to this election. This thing is about pulling us out of the open sewer Republican greed, corruption and incompetence put us in.
If Barack Obama thinks he has seen the worst of the GOP attack machine he is sadly mistaken. Rove and his minions will pull out all the stops once Obama and McCain are officially anointed; oh yes, that’s when the big guns will be wheeled into position, and come September and October, the GOP will launch a major assault on the Truth, and millions of American voters will be cut down and left for dead. From now until then, Rove and his people will be working OT to paint Obama as too Liberal, too Foreign, and too much of a Muslim sympathizer. And if that PR offensive doesn’t gain traction, bet heavy that Rove and Co. will call their pals at Diebold and see about rigging voting machines to record votes for Obama as votes for John McCain.
Rednecks, racists and big money Chamber of Commerce types are worried about Barack Obama -- the idea that a black man with a strange name might take up residence in the White House makes a lot of white folks nervous. The cowboys at the county fair are talking about the possibility of an Obama presidency in apocalyptic terms. This isn’t the same as when Jesse Jackson ran because Jackson didn’t stand a chance of winning. Jesse was, frankly, too black to win over white voters. Not so with Obama, who is smart, articulate and charismatic.
Wall Street movers and their armies of K Street lobbyists are girding for war in the corridors of power. Money is already flowing to grease palms and buy loyalty, just in case Obama gets elected and proposes something sensible like re-regulating the banking system so that middle-class and working-class Americans are protected from predatory Titans of Finance.
The same siege mentality prevails in the health care industry, lest Obama get uppity and use his bully pulpit to promote Universal health care. The Privileged and the Profit Makers know that the time is now to inoculate themselves against an assault on everything they’ve gained during Bush’s reign.
There are, of course, a few realists in the McCain camp who know their man is a corrupt stiff with a liability-laden resume; all they can do is stoke the fears of the masses – fears about Mexicans swarming across the border to rape and rob defenseless white suburbanites; fears of socialized medicine; fears of reverse discrimination; fears of high taxes; and the Numero Uno Fear -- bearded Muslims.
McCain’s operatives know that peddling Fear is all they’ve got. When it comes to policy McCain is Bush Redux, and even the thickest, dumbest, shit-kicking, tattooed American has figured out that Bush and the GOP are responsible for the shit-storm sweeping the country. When citizens are weaned on TV you can fool most of them most of the time, but sooner or later even dolts wake up and realize that George W. Bush and his cronies are guilty of sodomizing the United States of America.
More to the point, McCain’s people know their man can’t hold his own against Barack Obama in a televised debate – even one with cream-puff questions lobbed by journalists infatuated with McCain. “I was a POW” is a statement of historical fact, not a policy position. Moreover, “I was a POW” is irrelevant to this election. This thing is about pulling us out of the open sewer Republican greed, corruption and incompetence put us in.
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