This election year is, as everyone has noted, historic. As an Obama supporter, you go through ups and downs according to the news cycle, the attack modes of the candidates, and the polls. I often think to myself "how could they!?", when the McCain campaign introduces a dangerous and inept vice-presidential candidate, or when the candidate herself uses inflammatory comments that seek to incite anger and divisiveness, or when they degrade the national conversation by focusing on sterotypes of 'tax reform' and 'bad government'. Lately, though, i've been much more calm about the petty back and forth that has defined the larger debate. Why? Because if you think about this race in terms of the American history of colonization and manifest destiny, and the rise of American global imperalism today, to elect a progressive, articulate person who is black and named Barack Obama is only going to happen through petty back and forth arguments, slander, and accusations. In a country that has a long history with oppression, where Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered only 40 years ago, 40 years ago, I think we have to accept that the only way this is going to happen is by confronting the entrenched politics of beligerent nationalism. The only way that this could happen is through an up-hill battle, fighting tooth and nail to overcome the status quo. This sense of entitlement that white men have had for so long is on the verge of being broken. And not just white men, but the philosphies of domination and secret wars, the politics of fear and oppression, the marginalization of minorities and alternative cultures and viewpoints.
The Bush administration's wars have been fought by dumbing down the ideas and the conversations that Americans have been allowed to have. The question was not "what does Iraq have to do with this", but instead "you're with us or your with terrorism." Well, given only these two options, what choice did we have? It took years of reflection, bad news, and suicide bombs for Americans to realize that the world is more complicated than us or them, black or white, christian or muslim. The electorate, the same electorate that voted for Bush twice, has been reduced to knee-jerk reactions to almost all aspects of our lives. It is not a coincidence that Republicans and Democrats will vote almost entirely opposite of eachother. How is this possible? Out of 100 issues, how is is possible to disagree with the other party on every single one? Because the decions are not based on issues, not based on reflection or thought. Instead, they are based on emotional responses to values and fear. This is what Karl Rove has done to us, and what we have allowed to happen to us. The complex world has been replaced with this notion of one or the other, with us or against us, good or evil.
This is why this election is so historical. This change in the way we want to discuss the world, in the way we want to see the world, is incredible. It's isn't just that Obama is black, although this is an enormous change in of itself, but it is also that this is a person who wants to talk about issues, who wants to keep policies in the open, and who wants to walk away from the politics of fear and blind nationalism. When compared to our history of hoarding power and money for the few and the privileged, this can only be seen as a dramatic change. And there is just no way that these same ideas of privilege and domination are going to go quietly. So when I hear someone yell "kill him!" and "terrorist!" at a McCain rally, or when Hillary Clinton's aides and Sarah Palin say that Obama is not fundamentally "American", I am no longer surprised. Instead, I now understand that these are the death throes of a terrible beast, screaming and yelling as their reality of entitlement and ownership is shattered.
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