An Impressive (and Maybe Historic) Speech

I’ve not said much about the US elec­tion to date. I’ll be vot­ing in it, as an Amer­i­can abroad (even though I’m not really ‘abroad’).  Still, being a cit­i­zen, it’s my right to do so, at least up until I give up Amer­i­can cit­i­zen­ship, which for prac­ti­cal rea­sons I doubt I’ll ever do, no mat­ter how expen­sive the US gov­ern­ment makes it to keep it (but who knows what the future will bring).

It should come as no sur­prise that I’m sup­port­ing the can­di­dacy of Barack Obama. I was never a fan of Hilary Clin­ton. She was always too stri­dent and never owned up to the mis­take of vot­ing for the Iraq war. A sim­ple apol­ogy would have been fine for me (like the one Richard Clarke gave to the 9/11 wid­ows). Lately she’s struck me as so unpleas­ant and shrill in so many ways (includ­ing more than a whiff of some of the worst intru­sive and med­dle­some self-righteousness that Mod­ern Lib­er­al­ism in the US  can be; It Takes a Vil­lage indeed…) that I can even imag­ine her los­ing to John McCain on pure back­lash, and a McCain in the Oval Office would be far worse then Hilary. I also hated the idea of the Pres­i­dency being a tro­phy tossed back and forth between two fam­i­lies that each felt them­selves uniquely enti­tled to it. After Hilary’s stint, it would be Jeb Bush for two terms, and then it would be Chelsea’s turn, fol­lowed by… the twins? Sure; By that time the US would have been reduced to Third World Nation sta­tus, and it wouldn’t mat­ter any more which Dynasty got their four or eight-year Time-share slot in the Pres­i­den­tial Palace.

But I digress…

Obama struck me as far more inspir­ing and inter­est­ing, (although admit­tedly not as much as Howard Dean did), but I couldn’t put my fin­ger on why until the speech he gave today. He made the speech because he had to deal with the toxic state­ments made by the Pas­tor of his Church,  and why he hadn’t dis­tanced him­self from the man who made it (in addi­tion to leav­ing the Church itself).

That was the rea­son for the speech. What I heard instead, was a clear and elo­quent med­i­ta­tion on why the US is still so divided, how it got to where it is today, and maybe, how it can begin to move forward.

Bush and the Repub­li­cans had been using Race as a way of split­ting up the elec­torate, mainly to keep the South in their pocket. It has always been in their best inter­est to keep the dia­log on racial inequal­ity a taboo in pub­lic life, or to sim­ply ignore it. With this speech, I think Obama began to open up the dia­log about this topic, touch­ing upon one exposed nerve after another:  Slav­ery and the Con­sti­tu­tion, Wel­fare, Affir­ma­tive Action, Immi­gra­tion… He men­tioned them all. In essence, both sides of the debate on race have merit, but we have to all move on now, if we have the courage to. It was the kind of speech that a patient, edu­cated, and dare I say it — a wise States­man (rather than merely a politi­cian) would give. Whether or not Obama wins the elec­tion, I have a hunch this speech will be talked about and stud­ied in his­tory texts for a long time.

But don’t take my word for it. If you have the time, watch the speech on YouTube. I’ve embed­ded it here, despite the mediocre qual­ity of the video and audio. If I find a bet­ter source, I’ll link to it. (I’ve done this, thanks to Al ‘Bokashi-man’ Pasternak’s pointer.)