There is a civil war within the Democrat Party.
While there are no guns fired, no metal twisting, no blood shed, and no bombs bursting... what instead are: charges and insults fired, tongues twisting with political speak, many tears shed, and ballot boxes bursting with votes.
There is no denial that something is different in the air; with so much at stake, the American people seem not able any more to numbly stare. Apathy took a drastic turn in the corner, and crashed.
In record droves, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses went to the polls... in long lines, blue collars and white collars stood together to see their man (or woman) speak. In living rooms, convenient stores, and street corners, the people are talking about political policy and nominees.
The sleepy masses have awoken in 2008, and -almost with a sense of desperation- they try to clear their eyes that were caked with the dusts of indifference.
Judging from voter turnouts for Democrats and Republicans, it is clear that in 2008 McCain has as much chance to become President of the Unites States as much as Michael Jackson reviving his music career.
With a record 63, 000 Jobs lost last month in February alone, and the economy in a downward spiral for years, the biggest factor to voters is, of course, their wallets. The Change they want is more change in their piggy banks.
The biggest reason for this economic slump is this Iraq War and its oversized budget to support in what is essentially a 51st State named Iraq.
Since the economy and the Iraq War are the top most of concern to the people in 2008, the stomachs of mainstream Republicans must be churning because there is no way in hell they going to win the White House, unless they steal the elections.
And so it comes down to this: Hillary or Obama?
An historic choice indeed.
Of course, as many have heard so many times by now: Hillary is running on "experience", and Obama on "hope".
Hillary's experience argument is quite dubious: if she was so "experienced", then why did she not showed the right judgement, and showed political courage to stand up to Bush on October 11th, 2002 when she voted for the Iraq War to proceed, thus in turn setting in motion for a trillion-dollar-a-year war and a bad economy?
Obama's message of hope is dubious also: "hope" for what exactly? And do we really need another inexperienced person in the White House -a la George W. Bush- when times are quite turbulent?
In this election, the choice is between Hillary's sense of Change (which is having a smart, albeit polarizing, person in the White House who can instill Change in increments) and Obama's sense of Change ( which is having a person in the White House who can inspire transformative Change to the American people's way of thinking a la JFK).
Now a lot of people are skeptical about Obama's sense of Change because they are "realists". They say that he has a "messiah" complex and that the change he seeks is naive.
I am for Barack Obama because never before have I seen a potential president inspire so much people who never before were not interested in politics. They were inspired to do community service, to do what is right not just for themselves but for the sake of others.
While I have no illusions that he is a "messiah", there is no denial however that Barack Obama had revived the souls of so many people who before were disillusioned, disenfranchised, discounted, disbelieved, and were disgusted at politics.
There is no denial that Barack Obama has reached out to the People in ways others can't. I remember while waiting in line at a Boston rally for Obama there was this white kid who was wearing tshirts and shorts in the middle of the night in the usual cold New England weather. There were so many people waiting in line that was stretched to at least 2 miles -that it wasn't till hours later (due to security checks) that our part of the line got inside the rally. I kept asking the kid, "Are you ok, man? It's pretty cold." And each time he said he's ok, continuing to clutch Barack Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" in his chapped hands...
The change that Barack Obama speaks about is a change in culture where common values should be observed instead of being bitter points in debating and fighting, and a change in political partisanship where deadlocks between Democrats and Republicans produce nothing worthy for the common people.
Consider the following from Barack Obama's book "The Audacity of Hope" :
"Maybe the critics are right. Maybe there's no escaping our great political divide, an endless clash of armies, and any attempts to alter the rules of engagement are futile. Or maybe the trivialization of politics has reached a point of no return, so that most people see it as just one more diverson, a sport, with politicians as our paunch-bellied gladiators and those who bother to pay attention just fans on the sidelines: We paint our faces red or blue and cheer our side and boo their side, and if it takes a late hit or cheap shot to beat the other team, so be it, for winning is all that matters.
But I don't think so. They are out there, I think to myself, those ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way -in their own lives, at least- to make peace with their neighbors, and themselves. I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different...or the former Black Panther who decided to go to real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just as tired of the drug dealers in front of those buildings as he is of the bankers who won't give him a loan to expand his business. There's the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager's abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse's assistants and Walmart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they'll have enough money to support the children that they did bring into the world.
I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibilty and irresponsibilty...They are out there, waiting for Republicans and Democrats to catch up with them...
At times our values collide because in the hands of men each one is subject to distortion and excess. Self-reliance and independence can transform into selfishness and license, ambition into greed and a frantic desire to suceed at any cost. More than once in our history we've seen patriotism slide into jingoism, xenophobia, the stifling of dissent; we've seen faith calcify into self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and cruelty toward others. Even the impulse toward charity can drift into stifling paternalism, and unwillingness to acknowledge the ability of others to do for themselves...
...Sometimes we need both cultural transformation and government action -a change in values and a change in policy- to promote the kind of society we want. The state of our inner city schools is a case in point. All the money in the world won't boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification. But when as a society pretend that poor children will fulfill their potential in dilapidated, unsafe schools with outdated equipment and teachers who aren't trained in the subjects they teach, we are perpetrating a lie on these children, and on ourselves. We are betraying our values.
...Like many conservatives, I believe in the power of culture to determine both individual success and social cohesion, and I believe we ignore cultural factors at our peril. But I also believe that our government can play a role in shaping that culture for the better -or for the worse...
...as a country, we seem to be suffering from an empathy deficit. We wouldn't tolerate schools that don't teach, that are chronically underfunded and understaffed and underinspired, if we thought that the children in them were like our children. It's hard to imagine the CEO of a company giving himself a multi-million dollar bonus while cutting health-care coverage for his workers if he thought they were in some sense his equals. And it's safe to assume that those in power would think longer and harder about launching a war if they envisioned their sons and daughters in harm's way.
I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, than their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.
But that does not mean that those who are struggling -or those of us who claim to speak for those who are struggling- are thereby freed from trying to understand the perspectives of those who are better off. Black leaders need to appreciate the legitimate fears that may cause some whites to resist affirmative action. Union reps can't afford not to understand the competitive pressures their employers may be under. I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush's eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him. That's what empathy does -it calls us all to task, the conservative and liberal, the powerful and the powerless, the oppressed and the oppressor. We are all shaken out of our complacency. We are all forced beyond our limited vision.
No one is exempt from the call to find common ground.
Of course, in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn't enough. After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon. When I was a community organizer back in the eighties, I would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy, and money. Those are the true tests of what we value, I'd tell them, regardless of what we like to tell ourselves. If we aren't willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.
By these standards at least, it sometimes appears that Americans today value nothing so much as being rich, thin, young, famous, safe, and entertained. We say we value the legacy we leave the next generation and then saddle the next generation with mountains of debt. We say we believe in equal opportunity but then stand idle while millions of American children languish in poverty. We insist that we value family, but then structure our economy and organize our lives so as to ensure that our families get less and less of our time.
And yet a part of us knows better. We hang on to our values, even if they seem at times tarnished and worn; even if, as a nation and in our own lives, we have betrayed them more often than we care to remember. What else is there to guide us? Those values are our inheritance, what makes us who we are as a people. And although we recognize that they are subject to challenge, can be poked and prodded and debunked and turned inside out by intellectuals and cultural critics, they have proven to be both surprisingly durable and surprisingly constant across classes, and races, and faiths, and generations. We can make claims on their behalf, so long as we understand that our values must be tested against fact and experience, so long as we recall that they demand deeds and not just words.
To do otherwise would be to relinquish our best selves." -Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope".
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