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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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(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:27 am (UTC)Thank you so much for this. We Californians are with you one hundred percent.
Know hope.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:45 am (UTC)i am so hoping that some of my faith in the masses is restored tomorrow.
I quite concur!!
Date: 2008-11-04 03:50 am (UTC)I approve of this message.
Date: 2008-11-04 03:51 am (UTC)The last time I voted in a presidential election, my wife and I walked across the street to our polling place knowing our son would likely be born later that day. He was, and it was the only good thing to come of it. It's so exciting to think that tomorrow we will walk to the same place and cast our votes, and that maybe as much hope and promise and love will be brought into our nation and the world as into our lives that day four years ago.
If not, I'm the one that will need the anesthesiologist this time.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 03:59 am (UTC)His grandmother's death just before the biggest day of his life is truly tragic.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 04:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 04:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 04:14 am (UTC)*shiver*
I may never see the day of masses of people in the streets celebrating together because of a full-on cure for AIDS, but if this election goes our way, it's gonna be close. It's gonna be close.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 04:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 04:32 am (UTC)I'm...uncertain.
Date: 2008-11-04 04:51 am (UTC)I'm at odds whether I should vote for this man, however. While it is obvious that when compared to the opposition he presents a much more desirable image of America to the international community and to this nation, I do not believe that he would be the most fitting individual to hold the position and properly carry out the established responsibilities of the office.
As commander and chief of the combined armed forces, McCain would prove to be a far more competent commander, and he is well aware of the logistical issues and the backlash that may be received if America does not properly rectify the quagmire that the administration placed us into when they chose to invade a particular section of Mesopotamia. While I wish for the withdrawl of troops in that region to be immediate, the timetables laid out by Obama and those in the democratic congress are asinine.
Both candidates lack a coherent understanding of the economy and how the current financial crisis came about, which also bothers me. In every debate and speech that I have seen Obama participate in, he claims that the problems facing the American economy today are the result of "trickle-down economics", which could not be further from the truth. It is due to the utter incompetence of the banks and poor decisions on the part of the investors in subprime mortgages that have resulted in the current fiscal debacle, and people seem to have forgotten that the banks were also vital contributors to a particular depression which transpired close to eighty years ago in this nation. I'm growing tired of the liberals taking stabs at Reaganomics when the model doesn't apply today, and especially when the enormous benefits of the model could be easily observed a decade after the Gipper presented it to the nation.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm in agreement with a number of the man's ideologies far more so than McCain's increasingly ludicrous positions, but I have many issues as to how he advocates their implementation.
But regardless of which candidate is placed in office, I suppose I can rest easy in the fact that the capabilities of the individual which holds the position are greatly exaggerated.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 05:02 am (UTC)Either way, the UN really should be supervising our election.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 05:32 am (UTC)Re: I'm...uncertain.
Date: 2008-11-04 05:55 am (UTC)You are an idiot if you don't believe that sea change takes faith, hope, and a newly-minted resolve to work for solutions together as a country. It takes a rebirth as a citizen, akin to baptism.
I am voting for Barack Obama tomorrow not because he has all the answers, but because he instills in me that very resolve.
How come you don't get it?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 05:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 06:51 am (UTC)Mind you, they did - or tried to - last time, but were barred a lot of access.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 06:56 am (UTC)One man who will appoint other highly qualified men and women to important positions.
Imagine that.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 07:14 am (UTC)Re: I'm...uncertain.
Date: 2008-11-04 07:15 am (UTC)But you say that you are voting for Obama because he instills within you a "resolve"?
The fact that you advocate a candidate based on such an emotional factor is astounding.
If the man's charisma takes precedence over every other determining factor when you make your decision, than you are an individual whose character is devoid of true strength and conviction.
If your choice is so utterly lacking in any semblance of objectivity, then you are truly an idiot.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 08:03 am (UTC)End of the great American conspiracy theories?
Date: 2008-11-04 08:05 am (UTC)If there is sophisticated manipulation by an elite and unaccountable force, why was McCain the best candidate it could muster?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 08:30 am (UTC), and that you were merely... reporting.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 08:57 am (UTC)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."
Re: End of the great American conspiracy theories?
Date: 2008-11-04 09:50 am (UTC)Ah, no. I'm thinking of Sinistar.