I feel uncomfortable telling people to vote for Barack Obama without tacking an asterisk onto the end of my plea. I feel disingenuous assuring my friends and family that Barack Obama is different than the other candidates and that once in office, he will automatically effect positive change. Responding to critiques that he is simply another established politician bent on maintaining the status quo, I am compelled to digress. My diatribe usually begins with the pundits…
When we turn on the television and hear a panel of snotty beltway jocks bickering over whether or not Obama is “black enough” to carry the 25 to 32 year old middle income Mississippi demographic, whether Hillary Clinton’s jingoistic language on Iran sways 35 to 42 year old homeowners, whether or not John McCain’s dental records should remain classified, its natural to feel alienated and simply tune out. But it’s not just the puerile media, it’s not just the sensationalized and commercialized rhetoric, it’s the very nature of my government that keeps me publically skeptical, or at worst, cynical.
Here is my asterisk: Do I want to elect Barack Obama King of America? No. Do I think that in a single term Barack Obama will overturn the patriarchy, establish global peace and eradicate economic exploitation the world over? Of course not. His stance on policy issues are well-known and one only has to check out his campaign webpage, voting record and public remarks to learn where he stands on health care, foreign policy, the economy, etc. Policy aside, the single greatest virtue I see in Barack Obama is his ability to motivate people to act, to believe – perhaps for the first time since John Kennedy – that government can be an instrument for good that is entirely accountable to the will of the people. Since January 1, 2008 there have been over 500,000 new registered Democrats in Indiana, Pennsylvania and North Carolina alone. In Oregon, 60,000 new Democrats, many of whom come from rural communities and 16,000 of whom were Republicans this time last year. America is responding. Do you think your average voter even knew what a super-delegate was in the 2004 Presidential Election? The malaise of voter apathy fostered by the last eight years of executive largesse (and possibly the eight years before that of blind, baby-boomer bliss) is giving way to a deluge of activity, motivation, something that smacks of a truly popular and, dare I say, united, political culture.
Barack Obama is the candidate who works for us, the American electorate. He is, by his own admission, a Washington outsider. This is not “politics as usual.” He has no lobbyist working for his campaign; he has not lined his pockets with money from the pharmaceutical, oil or ethanol industries. He owes no one but you, the American citizen. He understands that democracy is a never-ending process, not something that we “do” every four years. His campaign is inspiring millions of Americans to educate themselves and others about their government and the resultant political energy is almost palpable.
So what about Uncle Sam? If Obama spurs Americans to take a new look at their government, what are we seeing?
Looking at the last fifty years of US history, I see a government that concerns itself mainly with sustaining the primacy of the privileged classes, of fostering a military/industrial complex supported by a nexus of government contracts, military “aid” packages and sustained foreign war. I see a cabal of faceless demagogues shamelessly bartering away the material well-being of its population through deficit spending, treasury bond speculation and the cool calculus of geopolitical Machiavellianism. We hear of secret torture bases tucked away in the Balkan hinterlands, of foreign nationals stripped of their basic civil rights and detained indefinitely at an offshore chattel pen in Cuba, and, as the last eight years have made painfully clear, we as voters remain seemingly powerless in the face of dubious electoral math, suspect vote tallies and the closed-door machinations of the highest courts in the land. I struggle personally with being part of a middle class so addicted to consumption that it remains blind to the global consequences of its lifestyles. And if there is a direct link between “American prosperity” (whatever that is) and the world’s suffering, it would seem that we live in a society largely devoid of empathy or accountability.
So in this year’s presidential election, why vote for Barack Obama? Well…
Sigmund Freud and Albert Einstein maintained a short correspondence in the early 1930s on the relationship between Justice and Violence. Freud concluded that the Violence of a dictator, a madman or a government can only be broken by broad union of the people. For Freud, humanity makes an incredibly audacious statement every time that two or more individuals revolt against a singular power greater than each individual. Such a union overturns tyranny; the power of those united represents Justice in opposition to the Violence of the establishment…in short, Justice lies in the power of the Community. Barack Obama realizes this and has been working his entire life to spread such a message. If you agree even in part with my assessment of our government, I think you would agree that it is time for the American people to listen, to educate themselves and others, to hold their government accountable, to demand change. Such a development would be nothing short of a true revolution.
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One Comment
I agree! The…”ability to motivate people to act…” is the one quality that defines a great leader. I was fortunate enough to hear John F. Kennedy utter the words of his innaugural speech as they were telecast live. I can’t begin to describe how the famous “ask not…” phrase influenced our generation’s actions. It was the age of beginnings – the Peace Corp, the Civil Rights Movement, the focus on the environment and population growth, and, of course, the national debate over the morality of war.
Of course, Barack Obama is more conservative than suits many of us who feel the urgent need for meaningful change. But it seems to me that aside from intelligent decision making and surrounding himself with brilliant staff, the most important function of a President can do is to inspire us! We can do the rest. It isn’t so much the idea that “then government can be an instrument for good that is entirely accountable to the will of the people.” To me it is the hope that all of us will begin to feel once again that we ARE the government. Too long have we felt separate.
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of Senator Obama’s campaign speeches is the use of first person PLURAL, “we”, as opposed to Hillary Clinton’s use of first person SINGULAR, “I”. But now, for the first time in a long time, it feels as if “we” and “us” are the predominent pronouns in a politician’s oratory. And when all is said and done, it is only “we” who can accomplish the economic, social, and environmental changes that are critical at what feels like a pivital time in our global history.