One Tough vonCookie

After my morning whine, I started poking around my feeds on Netvibes, and I stumbled on an article linked to the blog at Glass Booth that discusses the makings of a good president, stopping with a quote from John McCain about how JFK inspired people to go dig ditches in Africa with the Peace Corps. I didn’t believe the article could end so abruptly, so I went to the source at AlterNet. As it turns out, it wasn’t an article about McCain. It was an article about Barack Obama, the general gist being that Obama has the stuff that will get us out of ourselves and back to the ditches we must dig worldwide in the next 50 years that will put us back on the Good Side of the Force.

And then, after this positive message about Obama’s capacity to inspire, the following paragraph that nearly brought me to tears:

“After the dark, uninspiring — indeed deeply alienating — years of the Bush presidency, the feeling that I took away from these conversations resonates even more profoundly today: that it is time we recognize that our search for a great president is also a search for our better selves. Finally, a political litmus test that matters: Which presidential candidate can lead us to do more good than we think we’re capable of?”

It was the first sentence with its adjectives of “dark”, “uninspiring” and “deeply alienating” that moved me so deeply, and partially explained to me why I’ve hopped on board the Obama Momentum Wagon.

Because these years have been intolerably dark, and the alienation I’ve felt from my Proverbial Neighbor (even from my own family and friends) has been so strong, damaging and nearly insurmountable (without the intervention of sheer Denial) that it makes me want to weep on a daily basis.

Now, first, let me say that I do not believe that all of this alienation is a result of George W. Bush acting alone. As a nation, we suffered a horrendous trauma back in 2001. As with all traumas, it initially unified us, and then as we dealt with its aftermath, with the collective PTSD affecting all of us, we became pulled apart. And the actions of Bush did absolutely nothing to try and heal us.

And now we need a healer. And we all know who I think can jump-start that process.

I am tired of people saying that an Obama supporter is a little bit cultish; that we supporters revere him as some sort of Messianic figure. (Even on NPR’s “Wait… Wait… Don’t Tell Me”, which is usually pretty damn liberal, Peter Segel took a pot shot at Obama-supporters the other day. Unfortunate that we’re getting the reputation for being a bunch of Moonies.)

I have not lost my objectivity. I realize that this country may in fact be too deeply divided to recover with the simple election of a president who is tainted with Mere Optimism.

But why not root for hope? Why submit to the same old pessimism that results in conflict, strife and bitterness? We have a chance here to look beyond our own needs and desires. We have a chance to be more than we actually are. And so what if this is all “mere rhetoric” as John McCain implied in a recent speech? Rhetoric—Words—these are the weapons of peace. Let us not forget what is truly mightier than the sword, after all.

::stepping down from soapbox::

Yes.

Tags: politics

This entry was posted by voncookie on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 9:10 am and is filed under The Political Machine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.