Exactly one year after his election, opinion polls showed that Barrack Obama’s popularity was only 33%. That is lowest of any post World War II president one year after winning the election. And this notwithstanding him winning the Nobel Peace Prize, turning around the economic situation, and having restored Amrica's image abroad tainted by his predecessor.
On 20 January 2010, exactly one year after his inauguration, the Democratic Party lost its senate seat in the state of Massachusetts. What is significant is that it was in one of the Democratic Party's strongholds, and one they had held for nearly 60 years, the primary effect of this being that the Democrats had lost it’s 60 seat majority in the Senate, now making it nearly impossible to effect any of it’s major policy decisions. Popular media reports are now declaring that this is spelling the end of Obama.
In the light of this I thought it is opportune to post my views I wrote immediately after Obama’s election speech in Washington, and which I also posted on Salon in January 2009.
On the 4th of November 2008, Americans in unprecedented numbers elected Barrack Obama as the 44th American President. What is abundantly apparent is that this is a watershed moment in world history. Not only because Obama is the first African American President, a very significant occurrence considering America’s racist past, but that it truly is representative of a new world order that celebrates the notion of the full brotherhood of all humankind.
What is apparent is that Obama drew support from all Americans across previous race, religious, regional, but also political, divides. As such Americans have truly risen above the petty limitations of their past, and to truly embrace a path of change, not only for America alone, but the world at large.
More than anyone else, Obama’s message is one of hope for the future. Though it is ironic that in his first public speech, a reflective Obama also made it clear that incredibly challenging times are yet to lie ahead in having to repair the bitter devastation of Bush’s excesses. In particular, to resolve the War in Iraq, the financial crisis, and America’s tattered international image.
As in The Pathology of Hope, Obama’s words emphasising the importance that hope is not a hollow empty wish, but that one build’s an inner resolve to face the direness of one’s circumstance squarely, with clear conscious intent, and yet with an unwavering resolve that what we have consciously set out to achieve, will become so.
As the title of his memoir, The Audacity of Hope, suggests, that hope is about having a positive vision for a idealised better future notwithstanding the gravity of any circumstance—too dare to hope often in the face of utter despair. Though not merely to have hope for hope’s sake, that the world will somehow magically conform to our idle wishes and desires as The Secret in particular suggests.
Interestingly the biggest challenge Obama now faces in having been elected with such expectation and hope, is that many Americans also now believe he will magically fix the severity of their current predicament. That is in merely having elected him. But soon, I’m certain, the sober reality of the challenges ahead will set in, and the gravity of the objective circumstances will again become crushingly apparent—this may very well lead to bitter disillusionment and disappointment in the human limitations of a single, albeit very competent, individual.
Despite the unrealistic wish that one man will save Americans from the consequences of their self inflicted calamity, what is abundantly apparent is that a new more humble, more responsible, America, and with it, the prospect for a truly positive new world order for all humanity, is already in the making.
One year after taking office it appears the very strategy that had him elected – the unprecedented levels of hope, expectation and enthusiasm created during his campaign – now appears to have become his Achilles heel which may lead to his early downfall. This in a society that appears to have very little taste and patience for the bitter long-time sacrifices needed to rectify the excesses of their recent past , so to at least have a chance to leave a better world for their children to enjoy.
Extract from Scourge: The Demise of Critical Thinking in the Age of "The Secret"
Copyright Newton Frotuin 2007
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podunkmarte
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Comments
I support Obama. He was my second choice...actually I wanted Hillary as president.
But I think Obama is doing as best he can considering the political climate in which he is working.
Trying to get too much too soon is a sure recipe for getting nothing. He is not willing to take that bait...he is will to be pragmatic and to be despised by some of his base as being weak and ineffectual for that pragmatism.
Too many of the people who should be supporting him are too busy trying to shoot themselves in the foot to give it.
They do their cause a great disservice.
The problem with America at this time appears to be the selective memory of many, and that the Bush regime's excesses can never be negated overnight. The economy was not his doing but his administration has already turned it significantly around.
And what about Iraq? And what else could he have done but send forces into Afghanistan after Bush lost sight of the reason they invaded the country in the first place?
However I think he needs to be focusing a lot more on the domestic situation, the loss of the Massachusetts senate seat being a particular case in point of the shift in allegiances to the right. But moreover , the Palin Christian right gaining the significant support they appear to be, and the perverse fox news propaganda that is gaining increasing support, is a frightening prospect indeed.
Believe me, with the shifting world economic power, an extreme right win will indeed spell the end of America as a superpower considering the changing economic landscape. This is because the only political power America has at this time is in its ability to persuade and subtly influence, coercion is not an option anymore. That's why there couldn't have been a better man or woman for the job at this time.
we got over here..."don't make promises
you can't keep" is what i heard in
my last relationship...and it IS
like a love affair we had with
this feller...all lincolny & gaunt
and from illinois & all...still, lincoln had the civil war
to gain his greatness in, and my fear is that this cat,
this obama,
is such a man of integrity an d dignity
even approaching ole abe...so...this usually means
something bad is gonna happen...get my logic?
fdr, lincoln, kennedy...seems we get our good guys
at just the right juncture to prove how g-damn
great they are...and this involves a damn catastrophe...
or...perhaps the first alien visitation?
hiya old pal,
bald again
And yes, he is Lincolnish, and in good time I think. And No, we don't need a civil war or something like it. The poor guy inherited the worst budget deficit, unprecedented increase in unemployment, and two ghastly wars. Me thinks the poor guy has a lot on his plate as it is, let alone that he has to put up with a thankless nation.