Saturday, February 10, 2007

A LITTLE BIT LOUDER NOW, OR THE WAY TO THE WHAT

What can I say, I'm excited. But I'm nervous. Basking in the afterglow of the announcement speech, I just want it to stay this way. Can't we just hold each other and spoon forever? No. No we can't. They won't let us.

By tomorrow at least two things will begin happening that remind me how hard it is to live in this world. First, the attacks, which have become de rigueur for American campaigns will begin. Second, jaded media will begin calling for less "lofty rhetoric" and more policy details from Mr. Obama.

"What's wrong with specifics?" you ask. "Don't we want our candidates to tell us what they will do if elected?" Well, first of all, this is my blog and you have no business asking me questions in the middle of a post. But, if you must know, here's what's wrong with it: It's politics as usual, and it shackles us to a cycle of despair. We line up candidates and make them lie to us so we can create lists that can be measured by whatever ideological or personal instrument we happen to be using. We are made to feel like we are voting for specific policies. Then, people are elected and proceed to do nothing they promised, either because they are liars (recall "compassionate conservative") or because the overwhelming inertia of the system simply won't allow it. In the meantime, we dismiss idealism and powerful oratory as "mere rhetoric," and exchange knowing smirks with the turn of every beautifully-crafted phrase.

Well, I'm sick of it. We have before us the best campaign speaker in forty years. We have an opportunity to move back from cynical pragmatism that asks "Where's the beef?", and settles for the inevitability of inaction and betrayal. We have a chance to consider the speech of an audaciously hopeful figure, who inspires us to change the way we communicate. That's what Obama's message is about: communication. His argument is that the WAY we do democracy is as, or more, important than WHAT we do--that, in fact, the WAY actually can become the WHAT.

So, wait for it. Tomorrow all the talk will be about the WHAT, but no one will point out that, once elected, candidates probably won't deliver on the WHAT, but the WAY is entirely in their hands.

"By ourselves, this change will not happen. Divided, we are bound to fail. But the life of a tall, gangly, self-made Springfield lawyer tells us that a different future is possible. He tells us that there is power in words. He tells us that there is power in conviction. That beneath all the differences of race and region, faith and station, we are one people. He tells us that there is power in hope."

Scoff if you wish, but there is power in words.