here's why i am and think you (and everyone) should vote for Obama:
At least internally, he's resolved what many of us see as dualities. It sounds like to him there is no race, gender or class, despite the media attention and pigeonholing of democratic candidates into race (Obama), gender (Hillary) and class (Edwards) [and isn't that ironic that we have(d) all three discussions in our face and didn't know to comment on that].
Obama seems to have touched what it is to be human. He seems to know what it is to have your heart broken because of chance, racism, happenstance, economics and gender. When he talks, he talks to the core of what it is to be human. He's not thinking of you, me and others as individuals with different shades and shapes, he's talking to the fact that we're cut from the same cloth. He takes into account that after years, decades and centuries of injustice, still we live and toil. He talks to humans of what is possible for humanity and mankind [and possibilities create opportunities for action]. And i think that what he talks about is a reflection of his thoughts. He speaks hope. He is hope.
I'm somewhat hesitant to say it but . . . him being in the political arena, he's playing a game that's beneath him. He's Plato's philosopher-king, Rand's Galt and Neo after the Oracle. His true voice would probably be found, mined, smelted and formed in the halls of academia, but since philosophy has been so long divorced from politics, his craft and words would fall on deaf ears. So he's doubly equipped as a philosophical non-dualist clashing swords in the halls of academia and an expert in the game of politics clashing in the halls of congress. You'll not find another benevolent warrior-king inside the world of politics since Ghengis Khan and perhaps Mansa Musa.
When i argue with people who've known me for a while, I tell them that every four or five years i get a new paradigm. I've been afrocentric, socialist, capitalist and perhaps a few shades of other stuff. My problem was that many times, these paradigms for me would be an intellectual exercise, rather than something that spoke from my Being, both as a human, and as a blackman. But for the last couple years, since i have distinguished this, i've grown to know an cherish how to speak from my experience as a human, and occassionally managed to talk to others in terms of their experiences as humans too. And i'm no master, i falter. Obama is a master, and he falters too.
It seems like for Obama, the unrelenting aspiration for the expression of love and fairness in the lives of everyone is the only life he wants to live, not a dog-and-pony show for votes. I can't help but support that. This is in stark contrast to Hillary who emotes some of this on cue and Edwards who really feels it, but isn't it. Shit, i even like McCain. McCain has the same qualities that i describe in Obama, but living his life in the machiavellian world of politics (as an honorable politicisan, not the derogatory intonation that we think of today) McCain is anchored in this realm of passion for love and fairness, but as a ship, not as an anchor. Obama is the anchor, the mooring of hope.
So for me, at least, not voting for Obama and the hope that he exudes, exhorts and represents would be perhaps the most traitorous thing i could do as a human.
Hope for President
Okay Jeff, that's not why you should vote for Obama, but why i am. And i hope that looking through the particular glasses that i look through in life, you'll start to see what it is about Obama that i know you feel, but just can't distinguish.
Posts
All Comments
