Half-Masked: 178- 44
I seriously hate the thumbnail system here.
Also, while I considered using a quote from the man himself, I don’t think anyone could have summed up those events last year better than Mark Poutenis. Bless that crazy, poetic bastard.
If you had told me 2 years ago that America would even -consider- electing a man with even the tiniest smidgen of African ancestry into the white house, I would not have believed you. I didn’t think the United States would be ready or willing for something like that. I thought it would need more baby steps and more time for that to happen. I was convinced from two decades of being witness to your greed, depravity, bullshit, excess and apathy to the comfort and survival of anyone but yourselves, that you were a nation happy in your descent into oblivion. I didn’t think you people wanted change. I thought you were so nihilistic, so pretentious, such wasteful, arrogant beasts that the thought of helping even yourselves would have been too much to ask for. I assumed you were all masochists and idiots the likes of which this world has not seen since whoever it was who was captain of the Titanic, I mean, how do you not notice the giant fucking block of ice? What, was it obscured up by all of the NOTHING in the ocean? You turn left, or right, it’s not that hard! Man, what a dumbass.
I’m not saying I think this way now. I’m just saying, Mark’s not the only one who didn’t have a lot of faith in the American people.
Watching The Daily Show in 2007 reminded me of Lewis Black’s description of his humour: “As being the only man on the Titanic who knows what’s happening.” There was Jon Stewart, a lone voice of reason trying to make sense out of a civilization that rejoiced in killing itself and shitting in the open wounds. I always thought that the people with common sense were a dying herd, loosely contained, like the animals in zoos who are extinct in the wild. Maybe this is still a little bit true.
In November of 2008, I completely underestimated 65 million of you.
Now, you can say that Barack Obama may not be the most qualified. I’m already finding myself at odds with some of his decisions(but I also think that there really was no avoiding any of these bailouts, regardless of who was in charge). And I can never know how much of his words are his own, or from ghost-writers or speech writers. I think we all think and feel greater things than we are capable of expressing by ourselves. But I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the current 44th President is the probably the best leader you guys could hope for right now. There’s no way he could ever be perfect, no one lives up to the ridiculous demands of a fickle populace, and I don’t even think he’ll be in office by the time the world’s economy is out of the toilet. But he doesn’t have to be Superman. I think the American people made the right call this time. He’s the one you wanted, he’s the one you need, and he’s the one that even gives countries he does not immediately affect a sense of inflated esteem, and a better and more courageous outlook of the current world(which is why I’m writing this). He’s the one that 52% of the United States actively sought to put in that position.
THAT’S why this is the #1 spot. It’s not about what Barack Obama has said or done, eloquent though he may be. This isn’t about how he will perform in the next few years. What I found inspiring is that for once, many people, young people even, decided they’d have enough of the crap they’ve had to put up with in the last 8 years. They saw through Palin’s empty-headed contempt. They saw that McCain had nothing to run on, so instead tried to win an election by making his opponent look worse, instead of offering anything useful to anyone, ever. He ran on homophobia, pity and the kind of civil rights “tweaking” that just about everyone has been fed up with for the last 8 years. Obama and Biden ran on something better than that. Hope over Fear.
You chose Hope. Against the possibility of ancient bigotry, rigged elections and faulty voting machines, in the face of the stark and emasculating realization that each of us is just one vote, you chose Hope. You made the right choice, a damn good choice. Quite a few fictional things affected me last year, but none so much as the very real turn of events last November. People uniting and taking the initiative for the greater good like that is something that usually only happens in Fiction, and seeing you guys do just that was by and far my Favourite Anything of 2008. This might sound weird coming from a Canadian, but I’m proud of ya’ll.
END OF LINE
~A.H.
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