Posts
One day this poet and Kentucky farmer will be the object of essays written by schoolchildren.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
My Take on the Election
I think you would have to be made of wood not to have been affected by last night's results. Even though Obama's win was largely expected and as the evening went on, clearly inevitable, there was something electrifying and moving about the official announcement of his victory. The elated reactions of people throughout the country and around the world were spontaneous, genuine, and overpowering, akin to the jubilation one typically only sees expressed by the winners of epic sporting events.
For blacks, there was obviously special significance in the election of a black man to the highest office in the land and the most powerful position in the world. They are justifiably proud and amazed at this event and I think all of us can celebrate the progress it represents and the hope it offers that a crippling blow has been struck against the plague of racial prejudice. But I am dismayed by the narrative that has taken hold in the media in which Obama's election is viewed first and foremost as a milestone of racial progress. Yes, the racial aspect of Obama's victory is important. But it is, in my view, a footnote to something broader and more profound.
Last night's cathartic outpouring of joy and goodwill came primarily because Americans are preternaturally optimistic people, famously unwilling to accept life as a tragic enterprise. The past eight years have put the squeeze on our optimism as first we endured the shock of an attack on our shores and then struggled with how to respond. We found ourselves lead into wars and then forced to confront both the barbarism that war engenders and the challenges that a siege mentality presents to the liberties we claim to hold dear. We saw the trendline of our political discourse - already dropping as a result of the contentiousness of the Clinton years - accelerate sharply downward, resulting in a bitter and poisonous climate in which we became dangerously balkanized into irreconcilable shades of red and blue. Our differences were exacerbated, in my view, by an administration that found it politically expedient to amplify them by fanning the flames of fear.
In the midst of the political tensions and ill will spawned by the "war on terror," we experienced the emergence of problems of unprecedented scope that seemed not only to threaten our way of life, if not our very survival itself, but to elude any conceivable political solution: intractable wars, global warming, rising inequity, increasing economic anxiety, skyrocketing health costs, decaying infrastructure, porous borders, etc., etc. It all combined to coat our core optimism with a thick shellac of pessimism and to make us angry, bitter, and cynical.
In the midst of this came the long agony of the Presidential campaign, during which we were constantly subjected to the exasperating superficiality of the he said/she said, who's up/who's down trivia that passes as informed political coverage. Honorable people suffered the ritual humiliation to which we subject citizens who aspire to public office and our serious social and political problems were reduced to disingenuous slogans and distorted caricatures. As the campaign approached its denouement, we were treated to the disgusting spectacle of McCarthyite labeling and character assassinations at the very same time that the tidal wave of the financial crisis threatened to plunge us into another Great Depression.
Thus as election day came, we were a people sorely in need of a jolt of positive energy. Mercifully, the result was clear and decisive - no stupid hanging chads or Supreme Court refereeing, no suspicions of vote fraud or conspiracies. Suddenly, the full realization hit that an ugly and divisive chapter had come to a close and America's suppressed optimism burst forth in a collective spasm. We suddenly saw Obama as what he is - a young and immensely talented man who perfectly represents the classic American success story; a politician who won by appealing to our hopes and not our fears; a man who despite his clear mandate, reached out immediately to those who did not vote for him; a President whose election sent shock waves around the world, reassuring friends and foes that America remains a place where amazing things are possible. This was bigger than a landmark in racial relations, bigger than a mere swing of the political pendulum, and bigger than the passing of the torch to a new generation. It was reassurance that democracy can still work and that the ideals that we so often and hypocritically betray can still find expression in special ways.
For blacks, there was obviously special significance in the election of a black man to the highest office in the land and the most powerful position in the world. They are justifiably proud and amazed at this event and I think all of us can celebrate the progress it represents and the hope it offers that a crippling blow has been struck against the plague of racial prejudice. But I am dismayed by the narrative that has taken hold in the media in which Obama's election is viewed first and foremost as a milestone of racial progress. Yes, the racial aspect of Obama's victory is important. But it is, in my view, a footnote to something broader and more profound.
Last night's cathartic outpouring of joy and goodwill came primarily because Americans are preternaturally optimistic people, famously unwilling to accept life as a tragic enterprise. The past eight years have put the squeeze on our optimism as first we endured the shock of an attack on our shores and then struggled with how to respond. We found ourselves lead into wars and then forced to confront both the barbarism that war engenders and the challenges that a siege mentality presents to the liberties we claim to hold dear. We saw the trendline of our political discourse - already dropping as a result of the contentiousness of the Clinton years - accelerate sharply downward, resulting in a bitter and poisonous climate in which we became dangerously balkanized into irreconcilable shades of red and blue. Our differences were exacerbated, in my view, by an administration that found it politically expedient to amplify them by fanning the flames of fear.
In the midst of the political tensions and ill will spawned by the "war on terror," we experienced the emergence of problems of unprecedented scope that seemed not only to threaten our way of life, if not our very survival itself, but to elude any conceivable political solution: intractable wars, global warming, rising inequity, increasing economic anxiety, skyrocketing health costs, decaying infrastructure, porous borders, etc., etc. It all combined to coat our core optimism with a thick shellac of pessimism and to make us angry, bitter, and cynical.
In the midst of this came the long agony of the Presidential campaign, during which we were constantly subjected to the exasperating superficiality of the he said/she said, who's up/who's down trivia that passes as informed political coverage. Honorable people suffered the ritual humiliation to which we subject citizens who aspire to public office and our serious social and political problems were reduced to disingenuous slogans and distorted caricatures. As the campaign approached its denouement, we were treated to the disgusting spectacle of McCarthyite labeling and character assassinations at the very same time that the tidal wave of the financial crisis threatened to plunge us into another Great Depression.
Thus as election day came, we were a people sorely in need of a jolt of positive energy. Mercifully, the result was clear and decisive - no stupid hanging chads or Supreme Court refereeing, no suspicions of vote fraud or conspiracies. Suddenly, the full realization hit that an ugly and divisive chapter had come to a close and America's suppressed optimism burst forth in a collective spasm. We suddenly saw Obama as what he is - a young and immensely talented man who perfectly represents the classic American success story; a politician who won by appealing to our hopes and not our fears; a man who despite his clear mandate, reached out immediately to those who did not vote for him; a President whose election sent shock waves around the world, reassuring friends and foes that America remains a place where amazing things are possible. This was bigger than a landmark in racial relations, bigger than a mere swing of the political pendulum, and bigger than the passing of the torch to a new generation. It was reassurance that democracy can still work and that the ideals that we so often and hypocritically betray can still find expression in special ways.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Twenty-five Reasons Why I Will Vote for Barack Obama
- Because he is my age and I can measure his worldview by my own.
- Because he neither fought in Vietnam nor in the streets against Vietnam and at long last, it is time we exorcise the ghost of Vietnam.
- Because he struggled to come to terms with religion and still struggles to come to terms with religion and I don't trust those who have never struggled to come to terms with religion.
- Because he is more intelligent than I, as a President should be.
- Because he went to Harvard on his merits and not, like the current occupant of the White House, because of affirmative action.
- Because he is black and he is white and he understands the prejudices of each.
- Because he used his Harvard Law degree to help people, not corporations.
- Because he not only reads books, he writes them - himself.
- Because he is neither warrior nor business tycoon and we need to get over the false belief that either makes a good President.
- Because he appeals to hope and I do not care if some people prefer fear.
- Because he comes from Hawaii, an exotic state that is not steeped in the prejudices of the Deep South, nor the hubris of Texas, nor the false modesty of the Midwest, nor the blue blood of the East Coast, nor the machismo of Alaska, nor the self-importance of California.
- Because he adopted Chicago as his home, as did I.
- Because he lost an election to Bobby Rush, a former sixties radical, and therefore learned that there are times when a mature man might have to interact with a former sixties radical.
- Because he does not try to claim that Sarah Palin is against dental care for kids because she is a hockey mom and many hockey players lose teeth.
- Because he has not stooped to question McCain's associations with G. Gordon Liddy or Charles Keating, both convicted felons.
- Because his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright brings discomfort to people who are comfortable with Pat Robertson and I am glad they now feel what I have long felt.
- Because he is cool and smooth and unflappable, qualities that will serve us well in the tough times ahead.
- Because unlike Bush, he can pronounce the name of Iran's president, and unlike Palin, he could do so without requiring a tutor.
- Because his father was not a President, nor an admiral.
- Because he was neither born into money nor married into it.
- Because I love the irony by which a black-skinned man born of modest means and raised in a broken, multi-racial family can be accused of elitism by those suckered into believing that the prodigal son of a long line of Yankee blue-bloods is "just folks."
- Because even if he is not a Muslim, I wish he were, since it would be nice to have a President who could betray the principles of a different religion for a change.
- Because it amuses me to see people foam at the mouth at the "socialism" of returning the top marginal tax rate to 39% but not at the "socialism" of spreading their wealth to undeserving banks and auto companies.
- Because it amuses me that after seeing him vetted and tested before their very eyes over two years, people still do not trust him, but trust instead emails that show up in their inboxes from unknown sources.
- Because he is skinny whereas the world thinks of Americans as fat; he is black whereas the world thinks of Americans as white; he is smart whereas the world thinks of Americans as dumb; he is calm and reserved whereas the world thinks of Americans as loud braggarts. His very being will confound the world and upset its preconceptions of our country, as well as our own.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
k. d. lang
My wife and I enjoyed a memorable concert last night at the Chicago Theater. One of her covers that never ceases to give us chills:
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