yes, we did.
And let's take a few things into consideration. I've been pretty up with the polls lately, but had absolutely no belief in the numbers ~ there's a point where fear, pessimism, and emotional guarding just take over. I think the negativity of this race has taken its toll on a lot of people, and in a lot of different ways, and not one way for the better.Now that it's over, I hope that the Americans on the red side of this election can take in John McCain's words from his concession speech, in one of the few bits of election speech he has given that I approve of, because Obama's election is a huge step in world affairs, and in a way I hadn't noticed before he actually got on stage to give his acceptance speech. It's not just a victory in blue over red (if it was going to be, I would have voted for Ralph Nader again.)
I'm fucking ecstatic about this victory,don't get me wrong, but you know what? I'm not even really thinking about health care, the ending of the war in Iraq, or the economy. People compare Obama to the Kennedy political legacy, and for a few reasons~ youth, race relations, ideas, political energy; but honestly, Kennedy was a Catholic~ that was his most major hurdle, and now we have a black man, with a Kenyan father, who went to school in Indonesia who will be sworn in come January.
I could have cared less about the election, actually, until my english friend in Japan had me read "The Audacity of Hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream" by Obama, and what is SO significant about this election is summed up when he said to me "You realize if Obama gets elected it will be so f***ing cool to be an American", which was a slap in the face after being afraid to announce my nationality in public for 2 years.
Do you actually know what that's like? To live over seas during the Bush presidency, and be afraid to even say you're NOT Canadian? And supposedly foreign policy was MCCAIN'S strong suit?? I see that as the president's chief duty, and I saw the tables flipped on that one. When I saw the Obama family walk out as "America's new first family" I was thinking of that, I was thinking about the people in Kenya sitting around watching the American election, the people in Japan writing and recording music videos about him, his 95% approval rating in Europe, the middle-eastern rulers who respect him and whom we need diplomacy with BADLY, the 280,000 people who came to watch an american presidential candidate in Berlin, despite our crushed international opinion and problems.
Not to mention seeing the whites and blacks literally crying over the importance of this. Jesse Jackson with tears actually streaming down his face~ To see pragmatism mixed with ideals makes me want to continue this more in the tone of a political pundit, because honestly it has been a long time since i've had faith in any american politics.
think about this, in 1908 who would have taken the odds that there would be a black president before the Chicago Cubs won the world series again?
The American ideal is that you can "pull yourself up from your bootstraps", which is generally a republican saying. We have just seen the American dream. That's cheesy, super cheesy, but especially in a growing global community it is especially true. this is a man whose father was a kenyan immigrant, grew up bi-racial, who was poor growing up raised by a single mother who died early, then a pair of white grandparents, who literally had everything stacked against him, worked hard, got into one of the best schools in the nation, became the first of his race to be the president of the harvard law and review, turned down a salary of millions to help poor people organize in a community, ran for public office and wrote books to pay off his school debt. Is that not the republican dream realized? Talk about tax policies, if you think Reagan was a communist as well, or if you think the Bush economic policies were successful, but don't slander what is possibly one of the greatest american stories in a generation.
posted by Dan @ 12:48 AM
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