Hope ain’t a 4 letter word
And Change isn’t something that you get from the gas station. I’ve buried most of this below the jump – it’s a bit out there, and I’d like to spend a moment thanking the good people of Wyoming and Mississippi for a bit of sense over the last few weeks.
After years of dealing with recovering right-wing idealogue guilt, I can finally put my finger on why Sen. Clinton rubs me raw.
When she was declaring victory in Ohio, the crowds began chanting “Yes, She Will”, a riff on Sen. Obama’s “Yes, We Can”. Which manages to be pandering, insulting, and a rip-off all at the same time. I fear that any election featuring Sen. Clinton will continue to be a referendum on the politics of the personal instead of any actual issues. Which is kind of a shame for her, but it is what it is.
By the same principle, I’m fundamentally opposed to, say a Jeb or Jenna Bush run.
Allow me to deconstruct:
- The focus is on “She”, as in “Oh, save us oh great and mighty Hillary”. I don’t want to be indebted to the folks I elect – the relationship ought to work the other way around – listen to the constituents, listen to the electorate, and do THEIR will, not your own. Granted, there are certain times when the representative of the people may be in a better position to judge things, and may, on occasion, need to contravene the will of the people. However, these extraneous circumstances need to be few and far between, and need to be explained penitantly, with the understanding that the people have the prerogative to kick the public servant to the curb. Sen Clinton and many others seem to think that since they’ve risen through the party ranks, the people ought to do their bidding at the ballot box, and that once elected, her job is to pick winners.
- Following her declared right to the office of president, we are told what “she will” do. The president, absent times of emergency, ought to be more of a “facilitator-in-chief” than a “commander-in- chief”. I’m finding more and more that the most effective leaders I run into, and the ones who I try to emulate, are those who can articulate a general vision, win concensus, and get people to figure out how to make it happen, rather than those who have a fully-formed end state in mind and try to command their way to a conclusion.
- “Yes, she will” is also the absolute worst kind of derivative work – a cheap, quick ripoff, mainly designed to raise the ire of the people from who it was taken without adding meaning or being in the least bit clever. It’s the kind of crap that those of us on the right wing have been doing as long as Limbaugh has been on the radio, the kind of crap that was thrown at the “Contract on America”, the kind of crap that does nothing but stifle discussion. (Pot, kettle)
I am really, really jazzed about the possibility of a McCain/Obama campaign. Two people who really have been trying to avoid the knock down/drag out during the primary; the same vitriol that has characterized both sides of the aisle since about 1988 and the Willie Horton and Tank ads, and Clinton’s dwelling
on “No New Taxes”.
Is it naieve on my part? Probably; upon reaching half of my allotted threescore and ten, I ought to know better than to think that there’s hope of civility. But I can’t actually think that. As often as I see reason to be cynical, I also see reason to be hopeful, people who restore my faith in the goodness of America.
4 Responses to “Hope ain’t a 4 letter word”
Comment from <img src='http://www.rollerfeet.com/backporchbeer/wp-content/plugins/rpx/images/facebook.png'/> etrigan
Time March 19, 2008 at 6:44 am
I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I sat and listened to a 40 minute speech … before this morning, maybe never, but I did this morning.
Even if he doesn’t become POTUS, I think we are witnessing a great statesman unlike any we have seen for at least my nearly 40 years. Pardon me while I spend part of my day posting quotes from this speech that has impacted me deeply.
Comment from <img src='http://www.rollerfeet.com/backporchbeer/wp-content/plugins/rpx/images/facebook.png'/> etrigan
Time March 19, 2008 at 7:29 am
People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope!
It wasn’t my first time in church when I felt hope. There were many many years in Southern Baptist churches were all I felt was boredom. As a baby when I developed a form of palsy and was completely paralyzed over half of my body, the pastor of a Southern Baptist church told my parents that it was God’s plan and they should just accept it. One of the deacons pulled them aside and shared scripture that said prayer, anointing with oil and laying-on-of-hands was what Jesus offered to the sick, completely contrary to the preachings of the Southern Baptist church. My parents met privately with that deacon and followed his advice. There was an immediate change in my condition, and I only know this happened — I was just a baby at the time — because in a successive Southern Baptist church my father told this story when it was his turn to speak during Adult Sunday School. I remember that day clearly, and I remember later when the pastor of this completely different church stood behind the pulpit and told the congregation that miracles do not happen and (basically) called my father a liar.
I don’t ask anyone else to believe my father’s story. There are many possible explanations that don’t involve God’s intervention, and recovery or reversal of palsy is not unknown, but by decrying one of its own longstanding members and denying its congregation hope that pastor spurred the exodus of nearly half the church. With no coercion and no conspiracy we resigned from that small town church and went to the only other church in town — a defamed Methodist church that was the focus of speculation and rumor. In that church people danced in aisles, sang with laughter, and believed that there was a brighter future for all of us.
That church is where I learned the feeling of hope, and saw the fire that can propel a people to act for the better.
Comment from <img src='http://www.rollerfeet.com/backporchbeer/wp-content/plugins/rpx/images/facebook.png'/> etrigan
Time March 19, 2008 at 11:52 am
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything … So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time. Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. … Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding. This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years.
I’ve been dealing with personal issues of situations where I perceive reverse racism, alongside my tears and frustration of the Jena 6 controversy in my home state, and it has been hard to reconcile the two. Taking inspiration from this speech I realize that the former is unimportant and distractive of the latter.
I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union. … it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs – to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for [our] own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
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Comment from jank
Time March 18, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I’m more convinced of the need for a little naiveté after today’s flop and twitch over Obama’s pastor. Great God, I don’t want to be held absolutely responsible for everything my preacher says.
What I do want is to be continually challenged, however, and to remain part of an extended community. Preaching sunshine and roses doesn’t get folks off their rumps and participating.