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imomusOn any other day, count me with the contrarians. Count me, on any other day, with the provocateurs, the losers, the indecent, the ironists, the elitists, the outsiders, the anti-populists, and with perverse gods of sarcasm and perpetual despair. But not today. Today I'm not a Momus but a person who stands together with the vast undifferentiated mass of people, not just in America but all over the world, who have a single, simple, fervent wish, hope and desire: that this man should become the next president of the United States of America.
By some fluke, freak, or piece of incredibly lucky fortune, a good, intelligent, sane, enlightened, cosmopolitan and potentially great man has come to the fore in American politics, perhaps as much despite the system as because of it. All the evidence suggests that he will win this election, perhaps as much despite the conservatism of the American electorate as because of it.
It feels wonderful, for once, to be so unoriginal, to be lost in this enormous planetary crowd and to share this crowd's wishes, its excitement, its probable coming delight. This, at last, is our prodigal moment, the moment when it all starts swinging back our way.
I'm not an American, though I do write for an American paper -- the American "paper of record", and the paper the Republicans despise more than any other. I don't have a vote in this election, but I certainly have a stake in its outcome, as does the entire world. At a crucial moment in history, the stakes could hardly be higher.
Like everyone else I know, I like this man. I want this man to win a great victory, and return America -- as much as any single man can, with the will of the world behind him and the wind filling his sails -- to the place of honour and standing and decency it has so sadly and signally lost over the course of these last eight appalling, disgraceful, banal, toxic, tortuous, murderous and war-mongering years, years in which that exemplary Enlightenment document, the American Constitution, has been mocked, menaced and mangled.
I say it without a trace of irony, a smidgen of decadence, or a whiff of doubt: Viva Barack Hussein Obama -- may the land truly slide for you today! Americans, do the right thing and elect this excellent candidate with thunderous certitude and righteous rectitude. And tomorrow, let a better era begin.
By some fluke, freak, or piece of incredibly lucky fortune, a good, intelligent, sane, enlightened, cosmopolitan and potentially great man has come to the fore in American politics, perhaps as much despite the system as because of it. All the evidence suggests that he will win this election, perhaps as much despite the conservatism of the American electorate as because of it.
It feels wonderful, for once, to be so unoriginal, to be lost in this enormous planetary crowd and to share this crowd's wishes, its excitement, its probable coming delight. This, at last, is our prodigal moment, the moment when it all starts swinging back our way.
I'm not an American, though I do write for an American paper -- the American "paper of record", and the paper the Republicans despise more than any other. I don't have a vote in this election, but I certainly have a stake in its outcome, as does the entire world. At a crucial moment in history, the stakes could hardly be higher.
Like everyone else I know, I like this man. I want this man to win a great victory, and return America -- as much as any single man can, with the will of the world behind him and the wind filling his sails -- to the place of honour and standing and decency it has so sadly and signally lost over the course of these last eight appalling, disgraceful, banal, toxic, tortuous, murderous and war-mongering years, years in which that exemplary Enlightenment document, the American Constitution, has been mocked, menaced and mangled.
I say it without a trace of irony, a smidgen of decadence, or a whiff of doubt: Viva Barack Hussein Obama -- may the land truly slide for you today! Americans, do the right thing and elect this excellent candidate with thunderous certitude and righteous rectitude. And tomorrow, let a better era begin.
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Re: I'm...uncertain.
Date: 2008-11-04 09:49 am (UTC)"The damage to the Forrestal was far more grievous: The explosion set off a chain reaction of bombs, creating a devastating inferno that would kill 134 of the carrier's 5,000-man crew, injure 161 and threaten to sink the ship.
"These are the moments that test men's mettle. Where leaders are born. Leaders like . . . Lt. Cmdr. Herb Hope, pilot of the A-4 three planes down from McCain's....
"... McCain displayed little of Hope's valor. Although he would soon regale The New York Times with tales of the heroism of the brave enlisted men who "stayed to help the pilots fight the fire," McCain took no part in dousing the flames himself. After going belowdecks and briefly helping sailors who were frantically trying to unload bombs from an elevator to the flight deck, McCain retreated to the safety of the "ready room," where off-duty pilots spent their noncombat hours talking trash and playing poker. There, McCain watched the conflagration unfold on the room's closed-circuit television — bearing distant witness to the valiant self-sacrifice of others who died trying to save the ship, pushing jets into the sea to keep their bombs from exploding on deck."