[The author is a Certified Movement Analyst who recently appeared on Hardball analyzing the body language of the Republican candidates. This piece is reposted from the Democracy Cell Project]
There are voices, crying, begging, screaming: Iraqis, Pakistani lawyers, Burmese monks, Kenyans, Katrina victims, sick children without insurance, mothers of soldiers, steelworkers, immigrants, polar bears even. The noise is deafening if you listen, but listen, we must.
It is the Year of Listening Well.
And so must Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee and it will be the test of their lives. No matter what happens in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond, the American people already understand where the will of the people leans, where the yearning for a particular kind of leadership has opened.
Sssshhh. Listen.
We are tired of the blind eye and the deaf ear, we are weary of the bullies and the bullied sparring over the details of yet another cut at the Constitution or human rights. We don’t like torture, rendition, or the loss of jobs. We despise the housing and mortgage industry and those who were supposed to regulate it. We want health care for all, and we’ll take what Canada and France have, even with the imperfections.
Ssshhh. Listen: The needy children. The firefighters. The veterans, the teachers, the homeless and the unemployed. All need to be heard.
And yes, we all get that global warming is real and we have blown the stewardship thing.
And so we turn to the new leaders, the voices for change and the two men who are emerging as the representatives for such change. They are both expansive and present, both see far and wide and both listen and consider. Both have strong cores of values. Both have mobile active faces, both are complex movers, and both relate deeply and purposefully.
Sssshh. Because the noise level may drive them mad. Because now it begins: the voices in the ear, the hand on the shoulder of the experienced, the tug at the sleeve from the supplicants, the advisors, consultants, constituents, the funders, the donors, the bundlers, the "special interests", and these two men will listen, must listen, should listen to the experts too, right?
Two men stand in for our need to be heard: one is Black and one is White, one has a multi-ethnic and global perspective, having lived in the larger world, and one is deeply focused on a particular belief system and is authentically, religiously narrow.
Some of the voices will be telling Barack Obama: focus in, speak to American values, move closer to the middle (or the RNC will portray you as a LIBERAL). Some will be telling Mike Huckabee: Speak out against immigrants, support prayer in schools, stop gay marriage (or the evangelicals will see you as a LIBERAL).
And yet both men, each in his way, are innately liberal, meaning they are open, good listeners, nuanced thinkers, considerate and capable of advancing an idea into policies that work for most. Problem-solvers. They are smooth dancers who can lead on the floor and come away with new insights.
Will they? Or will they succumb to the noise and, in the effort to sort out the voices, privilege the ear-whisperers, the ones with one hand full of cash and the other on the shoulder, steering them towards the corporate, the profiteering, the imperial and imperious insider trade mart?
Sssshhhhhhhhhh. Watch. Observe, Listen. Be aware and beware. We enter into the fray as foot soldiers for peace and justice and learning and caring for the planet and each other. All around us is noise and jumble. We must be vigilant.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Huckabee: We are watching you both.
Sssshhh. When the noise level rises, you know what to do.