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Now, I don't OP much. There are so many people who are just simply better writers around here. There's too much uncontrolled emotion in my head to really get it all to line up right in a post. Even if I manage to get that far, someone always manages to just say it better than me anyway. But occasionally, just ever so occasionally, I feel the need to say something that's at least important to me, no matter the ineloquence. So here goes.
Obama must win... for all our sakes.
Rarely in my lifetime has a true leader shown him or herself. Not just a politician who wants your vote, but a person who wants to earn your respect as well. Well, here he is, ladies and gentlemen. A person with the intelligence, the charisma, and the will to not only start repairing the rifts and mending the breaks in our society, but also the desire to engage all of us to want to do the same.
How long have YOU been told that when it comes to your government that, not only should you NOT pay attention to the man behind the curtain, but there is something incipiently wrong with you for WANTING to know about what levers that guy's pulling? Not in so many words, of course. Every election we hear the entreaties to vote and how we are all part of the process, yada yada yada. Then on the first Wednesday after the first Tuesday of November every couple of years, the ship of state launches itself back into the open sea, with all of us left at the dock, entrusting the people who boarded it to keep us in the loop, when usually, once the coastline is out of sight, we aren't even in their THOUGHTS.
So why do I think Obama's different? Why should he be? We've already been conditioned to think that everyone who seeks government office is probably some shiftless entitlement jerk looking for a payday for himself and his friends, and that was even long before Shrub proved to all of us that there was more than a little merit to that sentiment.
Because he impresses me with his candor. This, more than any other thing, is the reason why I don't think he's going to be some figurehead placeholder for his party like Shrub is and McPalin wants to be. Candor. Just a word, but fraught with meaning. What is candor? Candor is the ability to be honest when it would be just as easy (and perhaps more personally profitable) to hide the truth. Having it indicates that he TRUSTS US WITH THE TRUTH and has a desire to give it to us. When's the last time a politician trusted YOU with the truth?
Now, why would he? Why would he trust us with the truth when he could very easily just tell us the things to make us just want to vote for him? Why not embellish? Why not obfuscate? Why not just do the same very thing that politicians have done for as long as I can remember?
Because we can HANDLE the truth. One needs but look around at the 95% of the country who have to go to work or look for a job every morning. Look into their sullen eyes and see the uncertainty about their futures. Look at their glum countenances depicting a people who are not only burdened by the weight of their own responsibilities, but also by a future that looks bleak at best. Go ahead everyone, just look and trust what you see. We are ALREADY HANDLING THE TRUTH. Horrible, fateful truths... not about some philosophical abstraction or the happenings of faraway lands, no... truths which slam at the very core of our everyday lives, basic and concrete.
These simple truths are those that those who have had the greatest hand in our devolution as a nation would have us ignore, even at our own peril. We've allowed our "leaders" to abscond with our birthright, the right to take a participatory view of our national character and the right to know what's going on so that WE may make GOOD DECISIONS CONCERNING OUR OWN LIVES. We've allowed the media to enframe and determine our culture, making it up as they go, continually hiding the truth behind a CIRCUS OF SPINTERTAINMENT. We've listened to them say "trust us" for so long, we have stopped asking them to trust US!
All because we've allowed the liars and the cheats at the controls for so long... they offered us the twin placebos of false patriotism and blind nationalism, and allowed us to believe it was just as effective as the real thing: honest solutions to real problems... and many of us took them to feel a false euphoria while the sickness just worsened.
Most of us know this now. Even some of the most ardent partisans can't avoid the truth anymore. Though they wish things HAD turned out better, and in so doing vindicated their philosophy, such as it is, the contrarian truth is as simple as it is obvious. It's entering the daily lives of those who have denied it, just as it has entered the daily lives of those of us who have seen it all along. It's the elephant in the living room whose constant defecation has now made such an awful stink that, despite the best efforts of some, it can no longer be tolerated.
I do feel bad for people who still buy into the idea that the policies that have been shoved down our throats these past 8 years were good ones. But I've got some news for them that might make them feel a little bit better.
Obama's got your back just like he's got mine. He's not going to carve you off from relevance just because you differ in your opinion. He's not going to shove you to the cultural margins and call you a traitor when you disagree with what he's doing. Knowing him, I'm sure he'd welcome the discourse. Hell, when it comes right down to it, you're probably one of the people in that less-than-$250,000 bunch making up that 95% who are going to be the direct beneficiaries of his tax relief. You're probably one of the people who will be the direct beneficiary of the beginnings of a legitimate national health care system.
Even the opposition reaps the rewards of Obama's successes... now that's leadership... and it is why he must win... for ALL our sakes.
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