The Defeat of Hope

I try to watch an hour of news a day: half an hour of the BBC World News and half an hour of the ABC World News Tonight. I watch the episodes of The Daily Show and of the Colbert Report I read five left leaning blogs on a regular basis (links are over on the side -->). Everywhere I turn I am told that I’m a witness to history and how America has changed and how “our long national nightmare is over.” Never before have the opining minuets of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture” sounded so bitter sweet.

The only thing historic about the election of Senator Obama to the office of the Presidency of the United States is the race factor. Just 18 years ago electing an African American to the Presidency was unheard of and now it isn’t. That isn’t much of a change. And in what shouldn’t be surprising the first Black President is worlds away from the pre 1980 black leaders. All of them. The geologic pace of turning back racism towards African Americans is there but for the vast majority of Black people (well for the vast majority of anyone not born relatively rich and white or just plain rich), the Presidency is well out of reach. Our two party Democracy still quite cleverly disenfranchises the majority of Americans not to mention the often insurmountable struggles that are still inherent in being born black.

This is very far from a defeat for racism. Senator McCain still received over 46% of the vote. I will not claim that everyone who voted for McCain is racist but any look at the political discourse in the month of October still shows that a large portion of the electorate (perhaps as high as a third but defiantly over a sixth) will not tolerate a black president. Electing Senator Obama president will unleash a great backlash of racism yet predicted. The KKK has been building strength from an “immigration crisis” and within a year in a half there will be video of large KKK demonstrations in cities broadcast on the evening news. Americans need to be reminded of the true threat of bigotry and this is something Senator Obama’s election will certainly do. Race riots may very well be part of the American cultural landscape within Senator Obama’s first term. After ignoring racism for decades, the underlying conditions of disparity between races, classes, and populations in this country will once again force itself onto the national stage. President Elect Obama is only the catalyst for this change and it will happen at-most only a decade then it otherwise would have.

President Elect Obama faces a country in poor condition. What he does as President will only make the situation worse further raising the stakes in this country. He will expand the military and extend the global war on terrorism while ending the war in Iraq “responsibly” in an echo of “victory with honor.” He will continue to wiretap citizens. His solution to an economic crisis that is caused by an economic system that relies on companies making more money than they spend causing people to need to spend more money than they earn worse by supporting policies to further advance such a system. As far as I know he has never addressed poverty, or real wages, or homophobia, or the conditions for the majority of African Americans, while praising welfare reform, tax cuts for all but quarter millionaires, Warren Buffet, Larry Summers, and Bill Clinton. The real change that will happen is that the abuses of the past thirty years will be less in your face then they have been the past eight years.

What I find most disgusting is how people are responding to hallow (and bad) rhetoric, to false hope, to an undefined vision, not to mention to the promise of more war and a continuation of our bad economy. People, even the bloggers I link to (all of them, which is heartbreaking) are treating the Election of President Obama as the defeat of racism while a lot of people are regarding President Elect Obama as if he will lead us to a Promised Land. Senator Obama has skillfully built up this fallowing and the fervor to which he has whipped up a large portion of the population with a lack of substance is frightening. President Elect Obama will not cause societal change because he isn’t doing so and if he tries he will be marginalized worse then President Carter. Time and time again the leaders of social movements in this country aren’t elected President. Doctor Martian Luther King Junior had no chance of becoming President and would have no chance if he were an activist today. Senator Obama has inspired many people to look to their government and their governmental leaders for change. Governments have a great historical record of never being able to change anything. The only people that can bring change to American society are the American people, not its President and not its government. Senator Obama has inspired over 57 million people to vote for him as “voting for change.” He has inspired millions to work diligently to see him elected President. The tragedy of this is immense.

Senator Obama could have used his Presidential Campaign to do something far greater. Instead of inspiring people with false hope to look towards their government of change, Senator Obama could have inspired people with real hope to look towards themselves for change. Change will happen in this country when 57 million people decide to work together to change their lives directly. When 57 million people work to improve their communities, to look after the disadvantaged, to insure freedom, equality, and justice, to support their neighbors, and to bring out the best in humanity, change will happen. When 57 million people look to a savior to improve their individual lives… the results won’t be good. Senator Obama developed the celebrity and the credibility to inspire people to really change the world for the better and instead inspired people to vote him into the Presidency where he will (along with President Bush) usher in a tumultuous era of American history rivaling the 1960’s. The hope that President Elect Obama will bring will be that a leader who can do what Dr. King did will emerge from such a situation but it may not have been necessary for the inevitable pain to occur for this hope to possibly be realized.

I am not going to claim that there isn’t anything positive from the way Senator Obama ran his campaign or from a President Elect Obama but the desperation amongst the American people that is now self evident is great reason to worry. Today I was talking with a worker at Taco Bell and the effect happiness brought by Senator Obama’s election was great. In having a several minute conversation with her it was revealed that the happiness is within in herself. This is one small positive and there are countless others both large and small but these are overshadowed by both the wasted opportunity and the grave state the country now faces itself in.