http://thisisthewilderness.com/ALFA_DATA One of the reasons why it felt so different was that he was asking us to do something. It wasn’t like a Bill Clinton speech with a laundry list of ideas, nor like a Bush speech about a threat we face. Both of those were elements, but the general impression I got from the speech was I’ve got to get back to work. I want to do something. I want to be useful and helpful. For someone who is lazy by nature, it was nice to get energy for my own life from an elected official. And sure enough, the day after, I’m up at 5:50 to get started.
modafinil get you high Emerson said that “no man feels tired who can see the horizon.” This is another Obama theme: situating this moment in a much larger arc of experience (I read in a shop window in a New York City a few days ago a quotation from Martin Luther King, “The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice.”). His sense that there are things we need to retrieve from the past (the “these things are old” part of the speech, which had a strong rhetorical effect on the crowd) was also completely refreshing: Americans almost always need to strengthen their connection to their own past. We sever ties much too quickly.
That said, the place where he sees a necessary break is important. The success of this idea determines his success as a politician:
On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics. We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.
Boy did that resonate, at every level: first of all I think it accurately describes what is going on in a nation run by spiritual adolescents; second it was greeted by a ripple of murmuring approval from the black church-going portion of the crowd (I could hardly believe how in tune they were to Biblical language: it elicited an instant wave of vocalized response (“Amen,” “That’s right,” &c. which occurred at no other point in the whole speech)). And last of all putting aside childish things has been my own work of late too.
I am continually astonished at how much I find myself adequately represented by Obama’s stated priorities. Normally I am unexcited by the controversies that are called political: the gossipy scandals about what Joe Biden (or whoever else) said today, the dumb symbolic battles like prayer in schools, “hate crime” laws, the Ten Commandments, and the rest of it. None of these battles have any defining power in my life. But things like how to use energy wisely – that is a concern of mine. At my friend’s apartment in Washington, I’ve noticed how she unplugs the electronic devices she rarely uses like the stereo, saving all that “phantom power.” Saving gas in my generator and when I’m driving is a perennial concern – even when I don’t act in the most responsible or intelligent way, I think about my actions. And I think about the geopolitical effect of millions of people like myself acting irresponsibly. So it is refreshing to hear it put so simply and clearly: “each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.” This is someone who understands a problem I face daily, and is willing to use the huge social reserves of his power to solving it.
This extends to the war with Islamic terrorism. Obama’s line “those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake” is an indication he understands that as a nuclear power we can win any war we want with any non-nuclear power. We can annihilate our enemies if we want to. The question is not whether we can win, it is whether we can preserve our ideals in victory. This is the only possible justification for involving ourselves in places like Iraq (which never did anything to us). There is no legitimacy whatsoever in talking about how “the world is better off” without torturous dictators like Saddam Hussein if we take his place as torturers. The world, in fact, will be much worse off trading in a small, locally powerful torturer for one with very, very long arms.
Looking at the speech on paper, some of the short phrases joined together without grammar (“Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered”) look awkward; but these phrases, separated by “the Obama pause,” work well in a large crowd. The speaker system was just barely adequate to the occasion, and at first we couldn’t hear Obama speaking. Then everyone said “Sshh! Hush!” and stood on mental tippytoes to hear him. (An incredible feeling, to be in a crowd of two million people all completely intent on the same thing.) But once we were listening, the speech had sharp angles that made it easy to understand. Andrew Sullivan thought Reverend Lowery “stole the show,” but no one in the crowd could understand anything he was saying until he got to his good, crisp lines (“where brown can stick around… where the red man can get ahead man,” etc.). Admittedly, those lines were the best ones of the afternoon. Obama’s speech could have used a Kennedy-esque “Ask not what your country…” line to stick the speech. But the man speaks in paragraphs. It’s his way.
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