The Miniblog

On Obama

In regards to the many criticisms of Obama as an unproven spinner of fine rhetoric: I said this before and I'll say it again here - what Obama holds out, for me, is indeed Hope. And I don't mean that as some sort of abstract concept, like "Golly gee-willikers I hope things will be better tomorrow than they were today. I hope someone takes care of this stuff..."

No I mean in the sense that I again have hope that what I say and do, and what every fellow citizen around me says and does matter. He is a populist in this sense. Since the Reagan years I have seen a steady divorce of citizens from their government here in the US. Kennedy's admonition to "..ask what you can do for your country" is merely a Hallmark card these days, given lip-service, but little else. There is so much cynicism and distraction, and it's a cynicism not born of the populace but beaten into it.

It seriously is the attitude not of freemen in a free society but one of a cowed citizenry under a growing oligarchy, one which fosters an attitude of "Well, what can you do about it, you can't fight the powers that be."

I have never felt so low as under the fear-mongering of the current Bush administration. From the daily inconveniences of Security Theater - it drips and drops into our life until it actually seems normal - to the shadowy existential feeling that the country can go to war without anyone clamoring for it, that it can wreck lives, in human scale through vast economic policy that no citizen of free people would accept. It reeks to me of something Soviet, something sinister. And while it has reared it's head so arrogantly under Bush II, it was certainly going on under Clinton - the Rise of NAFTA and the illusion of a "global free market" - where exactly DID those midwest jobs go and cui bono? There was no citizen referendum on this, even as Reagan, Bush I and the Clinton years saw the rise of Corporate power at the expense of the Unions. Who exactly was that Gulf War fought for, anyway?

Now Obama in office might prove to be another corporate shill, or maybe a hamstrung reformer dealing with a monster beyond his abilities, but I think his campaign and his message has and will continue to let loose forces that have been far too long bottled up in the United States. A McCain or Clinton presidency would only hasten along this slow tumble into a society that surrenders it's freedoms, it's hopes and it's vitality for the delusion of some "shining city on a hill" that was never anything more than oligarchic rhetoric. Who gets to live in that Shining City? You? Me? I don't think so. A presidency by either of those two would merely continue to put a free citizenry further into sleep, although probably by different means. This whole idea that Government is something outside the influence of the Common man. Obama was right - this is something that creates bitterness, it makes people cling to small things like strange, life-negating interpretations of religion, cults of petty violence and hatred of the Other just so they can maintain some sense of "control" over reality, because the real levers of power are moved farther and farther away from their grasp.

What good is a government for and by the people if the people are absent?

Freedom and Democracy are not default things in human society. They are fought for and never guaranteed. America has been lulled into this false delusion that it can have the fruits of Democracy without the work. They are even tricked with the rhetoric that we somehow can impose "freedom and democracy" on another country through force, because they falsely believe in what this patently false idea of what "freedom" and "democracy" means.

Nothing new under the sun here. This is the same struggle that the Enlightenment fought against, that the US Constitution was written for. But the Enemies of such things have lulled so many of us to sleep, made us feel hopeless.

Obama has made me really feel that I could actually do something about what defines what it means to be an American, an actual living breathing American, in the world today rather than settling for buying a flag pin and sticking a yellow ribbon on my car and praying to God that all our boys come home safe and calling that doing my duty as an American.

Hope baby, that's what he gives us. And it can be a fearsome uncontrollable beast. It scares many, many people who are trying to make sure you have no say in your destiny.

Hope.

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