Lest we forget the feeling...

Lest we forget the feeling…

During the last few months leading up to the 2008 election, I was living as a graduate student of Political Science (Theory focus) in Toronto, Ontario. I am a citizen of the United States. For the four days leading up to November 4th, I went south of the border and worked for the Obama campaign in Erie County, Pennsylvania. The day after the election, I rushed back north to attend that week’s seminar in a class called “Race.” All aglow with the magic of the night before, I had brought campaign stickers and other souvenirs with me in case my classmates wanted them. I sat bubbling with excitement like a little kid, waiting for someone to ask. As the seminar began my classmates, along with our Black professor, decided that the Obama election was not worth discussing, and immediately moved on to the week’s readings. With my heart in my throat I stormed out, ready to pack up my truck and drive back to Arizona that very day. A classmate called me on my cell phone and barely was able to coax me back. (By the way, that class turned out to be one of my all-time favorites, once I’d gotten my frustration out of my system. I will never forget some of the perspectives I heard in those seminars.)

I’m writing this because I feel I had a valuable perspective on the Obama election as an American living in another country at the time, and that from this perspective I could remind us of a few things.

Though I had friends, Canadian and of other nationalities, who were excited about Obama, I don’t think any of them could fully relate to the significance of the campaign or election. The palpable thickness in the American air that is the pain of race dissipates the moment one crosses the border north (Canada of course has its own historic hurts to heal, but they are qualitatively distinct. As all hurts are.) I never knew I was breathing such a stench until I smelled its crisp, clear absence. That lightness moved me to tears many times. The thought of it still does.

Also, my friends and colleagues had not been through the humiliation of eight years of Bush presidency. I don’t even know where to start in describing that.

In addition, the Canadian people have a different (read as “non-myopic”) perspective on world issues, a notable example being the War in Afghanistan. Over there, Canadian soldiers are serving in some of the most dangerous capacities (read as “doing the shit jobs”). Young Canadians are being sent home in body bags, unacknowledged in the U.S. news, for fighting a war opposed by the majority of Canadian people. My other international friends and colleagues in Toronto of course came from countries variously on the receiving end of U.S. hegemonic adventures and policies. Most of the people I knew up there were at the very least skeptical, often completely cynical, that even a brilliant and noble U.S. president would be able to affect much change in this country’s policies in relation to the international community. And of course their skepticism has proven correct. I intend only the deepest respect and sympathy for the people affected by the continued violence of U.S. policy; all I can say in that regard is that a Republican president and/or Congressional majority would be doing much greater damage, and with poisonous belligerence to boot.

What happened on November 4th, 2008, defies all rational accounting. Yes, I am talking about the level of the spiritual. Let’s go back to that moment, shall we?

Millions of Black Americans and White Americans wept in each other’s arms. If only for a moment, if only for a nanosecond, we were healed. Do you remember?

We all had the feeling of true victory. Not for our team, but for the whole human race. For our sense of humanity. Our dignity as Americans was restored in that moment, and amplified as actual pride – something we had not felt as a nation in a long time, maybe never.

It’s kind of like the experience surrounding “falling in love,” isn’t it? There are moments when our connection with that other person gives us a glimpse of eternity. It’s like the concept of spontaneous healing: in the moment we have the opportunity to know that we are already healed.

A friend in Tucson described the moment the announcement came; he said the sound that erupted from the crowd was like a jet plane taking off. He had never heard anything like it.

What kind of power can produce a sound like that from human voices? Faith can. Hope can. Love can.

People partied all over the world. Traffic stopped in U.S. cities. For a moment, or for an evening, or for a few euphoric days, people felt something new and truly glorious had happened. It was magical. Do you remember?

Please remember. Because while you all were enjoying that buzz, I had to go back to Toronto and face the cynicism of my sophisticated-worldly-political-science-grad-student classmates. I wanted more than anything to be back home bouncing shit-eating grins back and forth with my homies. But the contrast did me good, because I had to think hard about what made this election so special. I couldn’t articulate it to my classmates in terms of policy, critical race theory, quantitative analysis, poststructuralism, or any radical or traditional theoretical prism I could pull out of my trick bag. What had happened was magic. A miracle. One can be laughed out of a seminar for that sort of irrational talk.

That feeling that we shared was so radically new that it was subject to immediate disbelief and denial. You know how that works, right? You see something, such as a UFO, or a sublime work of art, that is outside of your conceptual universe of possibilities and that you perhaps have no language for, and it produces a moment of wonder, and then your rational mind kicks in, most likely cannot cope with the new information, and uses its old language and conceptual tools to either box the new experience into an old form or deny it altogether. (This is not an attack on the rational mind. I love my rational mind. I just need to use some discernment to know when it is and isn’t being useful.)

This mental backlash is what the radical Right banked on. It seems to me that the little group of perverted ideologues, and their morally bankrupt corporate sponsors, who are bent on trashing our democracy can only think in that boxy, disbelieving way. Theirs is the ultimate cynicism. It’s the cynicism that was threatened by Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Thomas Merton, John Lennon, and everyone who ever stood up boldly and spoke inspiringly about the political and social possibility of our Oneness.

Remember that moment. It is eternal. It is yours. It is ours. Just like that eternal moment you shared with your lover, or with your mother as she passed out of this world, or in the presence of some natural wonder that left you breathless, it is still here, inside of each one of us, to draw on anytime we need it. It’s how great relationships last through the hard times. You can call it faith. But it’s not a blind faith in someone else’s words – it is a faith in something, though “only” a feeling, that we all experienced. And we really, really need that feeling now.

If we allow ourselves to be browbeaten into cynicism, we will lose much more than an election. We will lose our soul. We would quite literally become our own enemy. Because our cause is not the policies we believe in. The policies we believe in are rather an expression, or manifestation, of the humanity, compassion and life-affirming creativity that are fundamental to our actions. Please reread those last few sentences.

So when we critique Obama’s policy decisions, let’s remember that we’re doing it from that fundamental place. Our frustration over his compromises and those of the Democrats in Congress comes from our ethical bottom line, and from remembering that hope that we experienced, and feeling it betrayed. But that ethical foundation of humanity and compassion is what in fact unifies us with those officials. Think on that for a moment. Dream on that.

They get scared, the Democrats. They get distracted, hoodwinked, and browbeat themselves. It is our job as democrats and human beings to keep them on task and support them to be brave and wise. Recall the relationship metaphor – when hard times hit, do we get a divorce, or do we have faith? It’s our call. There is great possibility for growth in working through the betrayals of life and love.

Just one more thought on the magical fall of 2008… How did the Obama campaign pull off victory? It was powered by young people, many of them too young to even vote themselves. I myself didn’t even think it was possible to elect someone of Obama’s quality as president, and any of my friends can tell you I am very strongly in the Pollyanna camp. But I’m in my 40’s, and I’ve had my heart broken a few too many times. Ultimately it took the clean, innocent, relentless hopefulness of youth to make it happen. Young people still have enough kid in them to believe in miracles and magic.

And so do you. If you choose. It’s in there, in that moment you experienced. Remember. Just remember. Feel it. We need it now.

letter to a superdelegate

Hello Superdelegate!

I am actually not as alarmed as many people seem to be about the superdelegate factor. Between going door-to-door and lobbying Congress and knowing some local officials, I know that we are all human beings and all possess the capacity to act from a hopeful place inside of us, or from a fearful one. I think you can’t be involved in progressive politics without having a foundational belief that things can really get better. But I think this belief can be buried under layers of disappointment and cynicism, as it was for me.

I was born in 1964. Most of the people who would later become my political heroes were killed before I even knew who they were. Almost every election of my life, I have voted for the lesser of two evils, or at the very least settled for someone perhaps quantifiably “qualified” but uninspiring. This constant state of disappointment eventually left me dispirited, and I “checked out” of political involvement, until 2004 when I realized that I needed to do something about the Bush administration. Even then, I was not walking for a candidate, but to root out a diseased administration. As always… damage control.

This is the first time in my life I have been fundamentally lifted up by a candidate for the presidency. I didn’t decide on Barack Obama until about a week before our primary. Hillary Clinton is highly qualified and would make an excellent president, and the subconscious sexism underlying the Republican hate campaign against her galls me to no end. But compared to a candidate who is not only qualified, intelligent, and good on policy, but also inspiring on a level many of us have never seen before, voting for her would have been settling again. And in the deepest part of me I feel that nominating anyone but Barack Obama would break the heart and the spirit of the American people. I really do. We need him. The potential for healing this country is phenomenal: African Americans are feeling respected like never before, young people are getting involved because they see someone who finally speaks clearly to what they as untarnished souls know is possible, and even the red-blue divide is breaking down around this man. I stood outside of a polling place on February 5th and actually had Republicans walk up to me and tell me that if Obama got the nomination they would vote for him. Three or four of them, of their own volition. No kidding.

But this is not an argument for a favored candidate as much as it is a respectful request that the principle of democracy be upheld in our party. I understand that in its highest purpose the superdelegate element of the nominating process may perhaps act as the “voice of reason” to keep the passions of the people from sweeping an improbable or unelectable candidate into the nomination purely based on charisma or star appeal. I have two answers to this possible argument. First, Obama is highly electable – various polls have shown him to be more popular among Republicans and Independents than Clinton. He is also highly qualified. The only argument any opposition has had against him is that he has not spent as much time in Washington as the others. Because he was busy fighting in the Illinois legislature to make federal promises come true on the state level. I think this makes him more qualified.

For the second part of my response, I’m going to have to draw on Plato. Please forgive me, but the old guy was pretty wise about human nature, and our Founders seemed to think so too. (My political reawakening in 2004 inspired me to go back to school and study political theory – I am in my last semester now.) In Book IV of the Republic Socrates found reason and passion to be allies against capricious decisions based on fleeting factors like appetite and addiction. Passion can actually be very reasonable. And I think this is what we are seeing in the movement behind Obama’s candidacy. We are passionate about this candidate because we know what’s good for us – as individuals, as a nation, and as a planet. This passion more resembles the passion of Tom Paine than that of a Britney Spears fan. The exciting thing is that it’s happening in the Britney fans too! We all love our country.

I feel Barack Obama represents me not so much on policy (all of the candidates are too conservative for me, really,) but in a certain spirit I wish to embody myself. I think we call it the American spirit. For me, it’s the idea of our “improvability” through participation in the democratic process – that the very self-evident truths this nation was founded on provide a basis for the ongoing creation of a more humane and just society. I can tell you that even listening to the respectful, honoring, and positive tone and language of Obama’s speeches has inspired me to greater integrity in my own speaking, writing, and interaction. His candidacy has improved me. I want this man to represent me, and this country I am so proud of, in the world community.

I think John McCain’s little-publicized strength is in a certain integrity of character that he projects. He has stood against torture, and for electoral integrity. I think that any wide appeal he might find would not be based on policies as much as character. The Democrats need someone with a similar strength, and Barack Obama has this in a depth that even McCain’s political advisor Mark McKinnon refuses to contest.

I know this is a long letter, and I appreciate your time. I am sure you will do what is best for our country and our planet.