I wasn’t going to make mention of it but I suppose it IS an historic day and so should not go by without comment.
America swore in its first black president today and I honestly believe that the world will now be a happier place, at least for the next few years - and NOT because of the colour of the new man's skin!
I am a realist, some say a cynic, and I don’t get swept up by mass hysteria.
When the Princess of Wales died I did not cry or travel to London to lay flowers and hug total strangers. I did not believe England had lost its “Rose”. I did not think a poor, innocent, saintly standard bearer for the ordinary men and women of this country had been cruelly taken from us. She was as manipulative as the firm she married into. She was as cunning as the media who followed her – and whom she courted. It was not the worst thing that had ever happened to this country. What was sad was that two young children had been left without their mother, a mother who died aged just 36. Nothing more.
When Blair was elected, contrary to the carefully spun hysteria among so-called Labour supporters, I was convinced we were in for a rabid continuation of the Thatcher years, that the man was a liar, a fraud and a dangerous individual as far as Britain’s future was concerned. I could see “New Labour” was an invention designed to cater for Daily Mail readers who wanted to say at their dinner parties that they had a social conscience. There was no “third way”. If there was, would it really have been likely that an obnoxious, grasping, greedy, insincere wannbe with a messianic complex would have been the first person in the last two hundred years to have discovered it? For the first time in my voting life I had not put my cross in the Labour box. I obviously couldn’t vote for the Tories or Lib Dems and so I spoiled my ballot paper. I have done that ever since – it IS a vote! And lo, it came to pass……………………..
Hype now surrounds Barak Obama. The media has gone absolutely barking mad over his election. To hear some of the reports, those with a religious bent could be forgiven for thinking he is The Second Coming. No, he’s just a man. He’s done nothing yet. He hasn’t made history. The colour of his skin does not and will not ever make him a better or worse president. It's the people of America who have made history. For the first time, a majority of voters have shouted down the WASPS and the ignorant. That majority has voted in a non-white, knowing, as they do, that skin has nothing to do with a person's character and ability.
Why, then, do I think things will be different? Well, firstly, all my instincts and what I have gathered so far lead me to believe Obama is an honest, sincere, honourable and very intelligent man. Compare all those character traits with those of his predecessor! I think he does want to change things, and change them for the better. As someone obviously interested in the USA's foreign policy, I think he does realise there is a world out there and it is not his nation's divine mission to subjugate those with different beliefs and impose its values on everyone else.
Secondly, things HAVE to get better now – logic dictates it. Why? Because the neo-Nazi, corrupt, war mongering, morally bankrupt, insane, radical Christian fanatics and members of the Texas Brotherhood have gone! ANYTHING has to be an improvement on that sinister and highly dangerous regime, headed by an illiterate idiot who was foisted on the American public by elections rigged by the multi-millionaires pulling his strings behind the scenes.
For once, that bloody awful song which Blair chose to herald his own arrival – a song which could not have been more inappropriate – is at last pertinent………Things Can Only Get Better.
Hell, who knows, maybe they USA will now even abolish the death penalty and quit the tiny list of backward, uncivilised countries which believe Lex Talionis should underpin their judicial systems?
Here endeth the lesson.
6 comments:
I have hope however he is just a politician. Beholding to the same corporate interests as the others. My hope is that he's not sold too much of himself.
Lex Talionis wasn't he a baddy in superman
For a while I ignored the whole thing out of pessimism and being busy, and I was sceptical and I didn't think anything would change. But, having had a think and a read and having generally caught up with events I am feeling tentatively excited about it all. Although I have to say I was disappointed at the lack of spontaneous global firework displays, choirs of joyous angels appearing in the sky, or other supernatural markers of divine contentment when he was sworn in. I genuinely believe he's coming at politics from society's side. I'm not good at the whole politics thing. I don't trust any of them. But I'm thinking about trusting Obama.
No pressure Barak!
I was one of the fools who believed Britain was going to change in 1997, so I'll believe Obama is anything more than another political hack with his nose in the trough when I see it.
Spot on Reg esp about Diana and Bliar. The most encouraging thing about Barak was the references he made to Tom Paine. Now he was a truly great man. The greatest Englishman IMHO.
Well said Mr Pither.
Perhaps Bush's only contribution was to be so universally reviled that Obama was a shoo in.
Post a Comment