Why Obama

Why Obama?

You probably aren't going to be reading this as you leave this morning, and you probably already voted, and you probably won't be influenced, but lemmee give this a shot.

Obama's policies aren't that exciting. If I was going solely off of policies I'd be really sore that John Edwards isn't the one on the ballot, and so those massive crowds are not showing up to hear him give a policy talk. It is about Change.

Change, especially to my Republican friends seems like a dumb cliche, and it may be totally empty, but let's wait and see about that. Change may be something that he says, but it's really something that he knows. As if one day he put his head to the ground and heard it rumbling down the tracks. Change, what we need, what we talk about is real.

And so is Hope. Another cornball phrase that makes you wonder if Frank Capra is the one running for president, but like Capra, it's true. War. Torture. Decline. Unhappiness. Collapse. Recession. Failure. I talked about this kind of stuff, three, two years ago, and what I heard back was that it wasn't going to change, that it was hopeless. But things are changing, there is hope. The government, though it will never really be "by the people of the people for the people" it can still hold off the encroachment of other powers, there is still some possibility that our representatives will actually represent us. What seemed impossible, is now looking possible, if not probable, or doable, or done.

Once a upon a time Bob Dylan sang sbout times changing and he was right. He didn't say anything specific really, but doesn't matter much, because things really did change, and probably in ways that he didn't expect. War came, but there also came people who resisted war, and society's apparent compulsion to fight wars, and I think something similar is happening with Obama.

He represents a change in American thinking, american thinking about itself. No longer is America the top dog that can do everything by herself. She is humbled. Also, She is no longer the representative of a certain class only, or a sort of breeding. The US can now welcome the world back as she did at the turn of the 20th century, or after the Second World War. Also she can open up her doors and welcome in the world, she can open herself, listen to the world, and actually care and consider what others are saying. This doesn't detract from her greatness, though greatness is just the best excuse for being a bastard. This helps to restore her goodness. This helps to insure that the part of the country that sometimes decides to carry around pitchforks and torches for the heck of it will not be deciding the country, and that they will not be ruling it.

Obama is not doing any of this all by himself. He could just be a figurehead for all I know and care, but he's a figurehead, a totem, talisman of everything that I want to see in this country. And from this, his guidance, and from others in his party (though not everyone in that party, good grief! there's some real chicken-livers in that bunch. But Jim Webb? Dreamy. :)

I don't have much more to say. Just I hope when I wake up on Wednesday that it'll be to the news that Obama is our new president.