Oh By the Way

I keep getting emails from folks asking me who I am endorsing for president.
It seems like such a foregone conclusion, I have largely not repsonded to these emails.
Sometimes I am an asshole and alas, this is one of those times.
I said to my asshole self, “If someone has read either of my books and is asking me who I am endorsing for president, they must be fucking insane.”
But then the wife was all, “God you are such an asshole.”
She is from the south and understands things about propriety and decorum that honestly never occur to me. “It’s about making a formal proclamation. Good god, you must be insane.”

The first time I saw Barack Obama’s name was a few years ago and I knew he would be president.
Because I am a writer, I put great store in the resonations of words, karmic, poetic and otherwise. Obama and Osama have the same phonetic resonation and polar opposite karmic associations in the collective imagination. Meanwhile the poetry of a president named Obama dances a merry-assed jig around my heart. I liked the seamlessness of all this and started paying great attention to the beliefs, communication patterns and ideals of Barack Obama.
To me, word resonation is science, divination and a very handy way to figure out things about the world.
In my heart, I endorsed Obama long before he announced his candidacy.

I do not endorse Obama because I think he is my hero who will come and save us all and restore our nation to the potential—as opposted to the historical imperative (with the exception of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights times)—to be a truly great democracy.
(Run-on sentences rock!)

Honestly, I believe that Barack Obama will endure a character-assassinating term in office. He will not be physically murdered because then his murderers will then, in perpetuity, have to endure a national holiday in honor of him. No, they will go after his character. He will be under seige from the moment he steps into the White House. There will be some kind of “terrorist” attack courtesy of the head of Al-Qaeda, Karl Rove.
In fact, Colin Powell strangely alluded to this when he endorsed Obama on Meet the Press. Tom Brokaw asked Mr. Powell what he would recommend to the new president (a.k.a.Barack Obama) if he was asked for advice on January 21st.
I have excerpted Mr. Powell’s response below:

GEN. POWELL: I would start with talking to the American people and talking to the world, and conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America's role in the world.
The problems will always be there, and there's going to be a crisis come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now.

For the full transcript, go to
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27266223/

The presidential inauguration is January 20th. Colin Powell clearly states that there is going to be a”crisis” (a.k.a. Karl Rove “terroris” attack) on January 21st or 22nd. He could not be clearer. This quote was not, to my knowledge, repeated in any of the news stories about Mr. Powell’s endorsement, but there it is, plain as a plane in a tower, in the transcript.
Even if this particular “crisis” does not come to pass on either of these days, Obama will be under seige upon his fist breath of Oval Office Air.

Though I have willed and believed in an Obama Presidency for almost a year, I don’t see the man as a hero. He is not going to make all of our problems go away. He is going to be very busy, staving off the offensive, every single waking and sleeping hour for the next four years.

Many Obama supporters are content blaming the Bush Administration for the horrors of the past eight years. Bush and his various Turdblossoms are, however, reflections of our culture, and by extension, us. Those men could not exist in the way they have existed without engaging our collective imagination. Perhaps we are horrified that so many people have died horrible deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, that torture is a legitimate policy.
Perhaps.
But in our consciousness and imagination, it seems somehow inevitable that white Christian males will terrorize and murder people who are viewed as the enemy. In our history, we have seen this enacted time after time.
Like Thanksgiving, Columbus Day and the celebration of Lewis and Clark, it appears with such frequency, the atrocity of our collective imagination and will is unseeable.
In this way, no matter what one’s moral position in regards to the Bush Administration’s crimes against humanity, we are all complicit.
We accept many crimes.
As I write this, potential Obama voters all over the country are being targeted with disinformative fliers, emails and phone calls. People are being threatened that the police will be at polling places, checking into backgrounds for outstanding tickets or warrants. I just read an article on the AP about these serious crimes, but they are referred to as “trickery.” (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081102/ap_on_el_ge/dirty_tricks;_ylt=AiKFvn5BncK95Cp_cww2bSJvzwcF)
Crimes are often called tricks (or mistakes) when they are sourced by white Christian males.
It is not “trickery” for a private investigator hired by a Republican lawyer to knock of folk’s doors, demanding proof of citizenship and threats of deportation. Two woman are filing a lawsuit against these assholes, and good for them for doing so, but where are the police? Why are these men allowed their freedom, when they are doing everything in their power to disenfranchise people of their freedom? Voter fraud is a crime. For two victims—out of possibly hundreds of similarly intimidated U.S. citizens—to file a lawsuit is absurd. This is a serious crime and these men should not be on the streets. But they are because it seems inevitable, even reasonable, somehow, for white Christian males to terrorize people they see as the enemy.

Obama is not going to change this fundamental flaw in our cultural reality, and it causes us a lot of problems, personally, civically, nationally, and globally.
But what he will do, just by being himself, is this:
He will affect our collective imagination and consciousness.
This is why I support Barack Obama. Not because of any of his policies or plans, nothing on his resume means a thing to me. He will be dealing with so much harsh shit for the next four years, I don’t really believe he will actually change much at all.
He does, however, bring out the very best in people.
He inspires people to look at themselves and the world differently.
An Obama presidency will bring a pause to the part of us that thinks nothing of stealing someone else’s parking spot, and also someone’s country.
He is a reflection of our collective good will, instead of the meanspirited little turd that has a place in all our hearts.