What Barry is doing (already) for America.
A vast majority of my friends and social contacts are what one could label "progressives" and have thus grown into an understandable cynicism about the efficacy and supposed benevolence of the power structures in our society. Getting these people to ponder at length on the subject of social injustice is simple, getting them to believe that you are capable and honestly interested in fighting on behalf of it is an entirely different story.
Throughout human history, those who have sought power have promised that their genocides and wars were in our best interest. To find myself in a place where I trust in, believe in, and actually support a politician(?!) is strange indeed. What's even stranger is seeing the apparently global effect this man is having. It's not just radical progressives that suddenly see a viable candidate that speaks honestly and has been embraced by a majority of the country. What is happening here is far greater than our previous hundreds of years of various leaders preaching to their respective choirs.
What Senator Obama has brought to our country is an integral and holistic philosophy. He has brought highly evolved thought to the masses like no one has in years, simultaneously not dumbing himself down and not pandering to elite erudite sects while leaving the average man out of the conversation. Obama has presented ideas in a way that we call 'transpersonal', 'integral', or 'second-tier' in Integral Theory. He has managed to frame issues in a systems context like no public speaker has before him, in a way that embraces all levels of consciousness present in our society. Rather than use our disparaging elements as ammunition to victory, he has presented a world where we can mutually live in freedom and respect of each other. He presents a picture of America where half the population doesn't inherently contradict the other half, a picture we all experientially know to be true. At the grocery store, I cannot usually tell if the cashier is a Baptist, a Jew, liberal, conservative, gay or straight. These stark lines and distinctions and ego and ethno-centric perceptions of ourselves create unnecessary false dichotomies.
Barack speaks not about making our differences disappear, or of some magical transformation where we will all fully accept each others viewpoint. What he presents is the codification and government support of a reality that is already occurring: the mutual existence Americans share and the, albeit often segregated, melding of people from all walks of life. Obama is not simply giving off some lip-service when he says that his story could ONLY have happened in the United States of America.
We can once again be the light in the heart of an abused prisoner rather than the torturous imperialists that have hijacked our government. The American people actually are decent and hardworking and kind, as are all humans. Obama has allowed me and so many others to once again think of our nation in the transcendent.
I moved to this country when I was four years old and since then the idea of a nationalistic or patriotic identity has always been a foreign concept to me. Andrés was too Venezuelan for the Americans but surely what I had become was something distinctly different than where I was born. I grew up in this country constantly and distinctly making an effort to never truly identify as one of its citizens (a measure I would later found out was ironically taken by some of my friends born into eight-generation American families in the deep south). We both tried to separate from that identification for the same reason, because we were painfully aware of the abuses committed in the name of patriotism over the years and were staggered by the ignorance and violence perpetrated in its name. It became a synonym for greed and abuse, an American flag had one context: support of the Evil Empire.
And yet, that wasn't the America that my family back in Venezuela knew at all. Sure, they were aware that our government (like all of them, they would say) was driven by greed and quite often corrupt, but compared to theirs it was downright democratic and egalitarian. Mostly there was a staggering admiration for that elusive American "cool", that unimaginably exportable commodity that has been the anchor of our growth and cultural influence since the classic era of Hollywood. America was seen as a place where things were more fair, where you could make a ton of money, where you had to watch out because the cops wouldn't accept bribes. In fact, those crazy Americans would be offended!
The world today still generally shares that sentiment towards our country, at least when seen as a people and not as a government. California hasn't stopped producing amazing fantasies for nearly a hundred years. New Amsterdam, err, York remains the cosmopolitan capital despite tremendous effort to quash it's glamour. How long will we accept the media-driven fantasy that we live in Two Americas, that we are blue and red, that we have Option A and Option B and that your choice in these issues inherently identifies you as a human being (who, by the way, is irreparably different than a human that chooses the opposite option). The truth is that there are two Americas. There is the America portrayed by our corporations and its government, the America that is in a culture war, a drug war, and a global war. The America that is deeply divided.
Then there is the America that we all live and work in every day of the year. The America where we know and interact with people from quite different backgrounds quite often, and always treat them with dignity and respect. An America where we have some friends who think differently than we do on certain issues. And some family members as well. An America where we don't even talk about politics in public anymore to avoid the nasty characterizations and categories that have been spun to us.
We have a chance in this election. We have a chance to affirm a transcendent and integral identity for the "new American century". We have a chance to define ourselves by our common hopes and values instead of our minor differences. We have a chance to come together and take back our government. To get citizens involved and to repudiate the fascism of corporate interference in our governance. We have a progressive leader in our midsts with the ability to inspire millions to the greater causes of social justice and the state and future of their own communities. To restore the idea of America as a bastion for freedom and democracy. To validate and help fulfill the promise of our national myth: The American Dream.
A leader that, much like his beautiful wife, has made me finally proud to be an American.
Throughout human history, those who have sought power have promised that their genocides and wars were in our best interest. To find myself in a place where I trust in, believe in, and actually support a politician(?!) is strange indeed. What's even stranger is seeing the apparently global effect this man is having. It's not just radical progressives that suddenly see a viable candidate that speaks honestly and has been embraced by a majority of the country. What is happening here is far greater than our previous hundreds of years of various leaders preaching to their respective choirs.
What Senator Obama has brought to our country is an integral and holistic philosophy. He has brought highly evolved thought to the masses like no one has in years, simultaneously not dumbing himself down and not pandering to elite erudite sects while leaving the average man out of the conversation. Obama has presented ideas in a way that we call 'transpersonal', 'integral', or 'second-tier' in Integral Theory. He has managed to frame issues in a systems context like no public speaker has before him, in a way that embraces all levels of consciousness present in our society. Rather than use our disparaging elements as ammunition to victory, he has presented a world where we can mutually live in freedom and respect of each other. He presents a picture of America where half the population doesn't inherently contradict the other half, a picture we all experientially know to be true. At the grocery store, I cannot usually tell if the cashier is a Baptist, a Jew, liberal, conservative, gay or straight. These stark lines and distinctions and ego and ethno-centric perceptions of ourselves create unnecessary false dichotomies.
Barack speaks not about making our differences disappear, or of some magical transformation where we will all fully accept each others viewpoint. What he presents is the codification and government support of a reality that is already occurring: the mutual existence Americans share and the, albeit often segregated, melding of people from all walks of life. Obama is not simply giving off some lip-service when he says that his story could ONLY have happened in the United States of America.
We can once again be the light in the heart of an abused prisoner rather than the torturous imperialists that have hijacked our government. The American people actually are decent and hardworking and kind, as are all humans. Obama has allowed me and so many others to once again think of our nation in the transcendent.
I moved to this country when I was four years old and since then the idea of a nationalistic or patriotic identity has always been a foreign concept to me. Andrés was too Venezuelan for the Americans but surely what I had become was something distinctly different than where I was born. I grew up in this country constantly and distinctly making an effort to never truly identify as one of its citizens (a measure I would later found out was ironically taken by some of my friends born into eight-generation American families in the deep south). We both tried to separate from that identification for the same reason, because we were painfully aware of the abuses committed in the name of patriotism over the years and were staggered by the ignorance and violence perpetrated in its name. It became a synonym for greed and abuse, an American flag had one context: support of the Evil Empire.
And yet, that wasn't the America that my family back in Venezuela knew at all. Sure, they were aware that our government (like all of them, they would say) was driven by greed and quite often corrupt, but compared to theirs it was downright democratic and egalitarian. Mostly there was a staggering admiration for that elusive American "cool", that unimaginably exportable commodity that has been the anchor of our growth and cultural influence since the classic era of Hollywood. America was seen as a place where things were more fair, where you could make a ton of money, where you had to watch out because the cops wouldn't accept bribes. In fact, those crazy Americans would be offended!
The world today still generally shares that sentiment towards our country, at least when seen as a people and not as a government. California hasn't stopped producing amazing fantasies for nearly a hundred years. New Amsterdam, err, York remains the cosmopolitan capital despite tremendous effort to quash it's glamour. How long will we accept the media-driven fantasy that we live in Two Americas, that we are blue and red, that we have Option A and Option B and that your choice in these issues inherently identifies you as a human being (who, by the way, is irreparably different than a human that chooses the opposite option). The truth is that there are two Americas. There is the America portrayed by our corporations and its government, the America that is in a culture war, a drug war, and a global war. The America that is deeply divided.
Then there is the America that we all live and work in every day of the year. The America where we know and interact with people from quite different backgrounds quite often, and always treat them with dignity and respect. An America where we have some friends who think differently than we do on certain issues. And some family members as well. An America where we don't even talk about politics in public anymore to avoid the nasty characterizations and categories that have been spun to us.
We have a chance in this election. We have a chance to affirm a transcendent and integral identity for the "new American century". We have a chance to define ourselves by our common hopes and values instead of our minor differences. We have a chance to come together and take back our government. To get citizens involved and to repudiate the fascism of corporate interference in our governance. We have a progressive leader in our midsts with the ability to inspire millions to the greater causes of social justice and the state and future of their own communities. To restore the idea of America as a bastion for freedom and democracy. To validate and help fulfill the promise of our national myth: The American Dream.
A leader that, much like his beautiful wife, has made me finally proud to be an American.