Election Commentary -- Gobama!

You know I have to make a comment or two about the recent election. I'm pretty pleased with the results for the most part. And a kaleidoscope of images keeps running through my head: Jesse Jackson with tears in his eyes, a hundred thousand cheering Chicagoans in the park at midnight, Kenyans celebrating in the streets!, hours long lines at polling stations on election day, Barack and his family (I feel like I can call him by his first name). A photo of a small white home with an American flag, a Confederate flag, and an Obama for President sign in the front yard. Whites, Blacks, Asians, Hispanics participated in this historic election. Not much coverage of Native American turnout…..


John McCain's gracious concession speech drew boos from his audience in Phoenix, and the Republican in-fighting is beginning in earnest. Palinistas and McCainites will be at each other's throats I imagine in a big way in the following days. Even Fox News was reporting that Sarah Palin didn't know Africa was a continent, for example…..That whole side show will get a bit rancorous, I suspect.


Barack Obama's inspirational speech in Chicago on election night was extraordinary for its inclusiveness and compassion and discipline with echoes of Martin Luther King's speeches – "I may not get to the Promised Land…." What a marvelous and inspiring message with a gracious nod to John McCain's service to the country.


In Nebraska, Douglas County gave a majority vote to Barack Obama, but apparently was not enough to give Barack the one electoral vote from District 2 in Nebraska, and the state of course went big for John McCain. An draconian anti-abortion amendment failed in Colorado, but an intolerant anti-gay marriage referendum in California passed. And some post modernist irony in Nebraska: carpetbaggers from California foisted upon Nebraska the 424 anti-affirmative action amendment that passed which will make it more difficult to address the imbalances in college admissions which currently show white males as the most underrepresented demographic. Put that in your anti-affirmative pipe and smoke it, Mr. Californian.


The news photos of the long lines at polling stations reminded me of photos I've seen of voting in third world countries. People lining up for hundreds of yards and waiting hours and hours to vote. That's embarrassing, isn't it? What's that all about? We looked like a third world country that can't figure out how to hold elections. Another observation - it appears that the Republican strategies to deny voting rights to tens of thousands of new and minority voters were unsuccessful. I stood in line for an hour in Papillion listening to the gossipy woman behind me in line going on about Feminazis and the "Liberal" agenda, but bit my lip and tried to ignore her. I figured that I'd probably cancel out her vote.


Re. race in America. For all the rainbow coalition gushing about it's a new day and we've turned a page and all that, I saw a blog in Salon that told the story of a Pennsylvania neighborhood organizer canvassing for Barack Obama. He knocked on the door of a white working class family and the wife answered. The organizer asked who they would be voting for. The reply came from the husband: "We'll be voting for the n*****." It's not a word I want to repeat. So there go. That's progress ---- of a sort. And I'm wondering why with a white Kansan mother and a Kenyan father we call Barack Obama an African American. Maybe Afrikansan American! What % of African genes makes one an African anyway? Echoes of Plessy v. Ferguson reverberating through the decades?


Anyway, our new President will face an enormous list of problems in the "inbox" in his new oval office. So God Bless America! I'm going to listen to Jimi Hendrix' version of The Star Spangled Banner some more…..


Regards,

Gobama!
Bud C