As Kathy is in deep with the Democratic Party, we were in the inner
perimeter at the Obama rally last night (but very far from the stage). As
many of you know, I am sceptical about Obama/Biden and see all this through
the light of the Kennedy-era charisma- what with its let downs. For a
start, there is the big debt to be paid by 'Team Obama' to some big boys who
financed this show. See the article by the great Bill Moyers on that very
big stumbling block to real change which I sent to many of you. Still, the
experience was amazing. Obama has raised a lot of hope in a lot of people
and given a lot of people more dignity as well as made a lot of Chicagoans
very, very proud.
Scenes of people of all races and all national origins brought close to
tears was amazing. I know Il Duce, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and many other 'less
than desirable' leaders have been able to do the same thing, but the energy
and honest hope was very real. People talking as strangers to one another
was wonderful- something Americans have been notoriously bad at doing since
the emergence of the automobile society in the Truman-Eisenhower days and
the media/legalistic scare culture beginning from the Reagan era. One
incident last night struck home for me more than others. While walking down
Michigan Avenue (something you can't do every night in Chicago) a Black
couple just opened up four or five huge aluminium trays of barbeque chicken
wings they had cooked for this event. They just started handing them out to
everybody saying 'have an Obama wing'.
All around the world, food is used as a gift of friendship, pride,
sustenance and other deep cultural feelings of good will. While America has
no more solved its racial problems with the election of Obama than it
stopped its religious wars with the election of John F. Kennedy, the signal
to me is that many people really want to try. People's belief in themselves
has been renewed by this symbolic change.
Whether people came to this election to regain freedoms legally taken away
over the last 8 years, end racial prejudice, restore America's dignity in
the world, end religious bigotry, or restore some sense of a fairer income
balance in the country- hope for all of these things has been raised.
Thus the expectations are huge and Obama is doomed to fail at some of them
if not all of them. Even if this administration fails or even if it
succeeds and then (as is very likely) America goes off track (pun very much
intended) again, this has been a moment of rejuvenation. We also are having
an 'evolutionary' if not 'revolutionary' change for the better in the White
House. Enjoy it while it lasts!
R
3 years ago
