hurray
Just watched Obama's inauguration on the news; what an incredibly moving sight. A million people today will write a short note about Obama, by text, by email, on a blog or a facebook status update, or ring a friend, a parent, to express joy at his becoming President. It makes writing about the inauguration hard, because nothing I could say could, on its own, add up to or intimate the collective happiness that so many across the world are feeling. That is what is important. That and the fact that we now have an American president whom we like, whom we - perhaps naively, but perhaps not - trust.
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4 comments:
All this sucking up and worshiping just makes me cringe. It's like being back at school with all our respective elected officials desperate to be the cool new kid’s best friend. He's just another career politician - not the second coming.
Yep, I know what you mean - but I'm not innately suspicious of career politicians (although nor do I trust them without reason). They have the capacity for moral decency just as they do hypocricy. There are plenty of have earned my respect. Nevertheless, I did try to address this by including a reference that suggested we may be naive to trust Obama already.
Either way, it wasn't the simple fact of Obama's potential which moved me so much, but rather the collective outpouring of optimism and hope from the people there to witness. I suppose all the worship is cringeworthy, but I found it heartening to feel that there are millions of people over the world whose natural cynicism has been tempered by a bit of joy - and relief, of course, that Bush has gone.
good reply Jonathan, well put. despite the disappointment of our 97 blair hopes, we still dare to dream... i'm not sure obama will get time to read your post, so it's not really sucking up, is it! jo (can't work out how to set up an identity!)
Perhaps I'm getting too old and cynical then? I just don't really understood all the cheering and whooping in support of a chap who's not actually done anything to earn his fan's adoration. (And I'm not aiming this comment at Jonathan himself, but at the people he speaks of.)
I must say through, the rapidity with which a solution to Guantanamo Bay has been brought to the forefront by Obama is very encouraging.
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