There are many reasons why I am enthusiastically looking forward to the inauguration of Barack Obama. The most important, however, is the dawning of the age of cool.
What I expect we will leave behind in this respect is not only the ugliest excesses of pathetic politics America has come to get tortured with, like, say, the systematic separation of political power from intelligence, the shameless embrace and acceptance of corruption as the DC lifestyle, the moronic idea of teaching religious phantasies instead of science at school.
I expect that we will advance on a wholesale scale.
Let me, to illustrate my point, give you two small examples as to what I expect will be the pathetic politics of the past.
Example (1) is the outraged rants and "fight" against the seating of Roland Burris, the man appointed as successor for Barack Obama’s Senate seat by the sitting governor of Illinois. Don’t get me wrong: No one here abhors corruption and the person of Rod Blagojevic more than me, and I consider the latter’s removal from office as soon as possible an act as urgent as any, and I cheer his impeachment. But only if one either never read the US constitution and never gave a considerate thought to the process or if one fully dedicated oneself to pathetic politics could one have subscribed to the idea of vowing to not seat a person appointed by the sitting governor of Illinois without any evidence of impropriety in the concrete appointment. However, the written and colourful criminal charges against Blago went down easily, outrage was cheap, brains were sent into exile. (And for those engaged in the "fight" against the seating of Roland Burris, it became a political disaster.)
Example (2) is the outraged rants and "fight" against operation ‘Cast Lead’ of Israel’s Defence Force against the ‘Hamas’ regime in Gaza. Don’t get me wrong: The Palestine conflict is an unparalleled complex and multi-dimensional one with most powerful narratives on every side, and one can take a multitude of different positions on that one, each of these being reasonable and legitimate. However, ‘Cast Lead’ is the one event in the 60 years of the Palestine conflict where a reasonable (and even more so a progressive) person can not reasonably and legitimately take any position other than one: Hoping for a thorough success of the IDF in that operation without alternative. ‘Hamas’ is among the most perfect machines ever constructed by men to stand against everything progressives value and against humanity itself – and was building a perfectly fascist state in Gaza and acquiring ever more lethal weapons. However, pictures of dead children distributed by the ‘Hamas’ PR operation (never mind that a multiple more die in Darfur and other places every day) went down easily, outrage was cheap, brains were sent into exile. (For those engaged in the "fight" against ‘Cast Lead’ it will not become a disaster, but only for the reason that the IDF is doing a great job there.)
There are many reasons why I am enthusiastically looking forward to the inauguration of Barack Obama. The most important, however, is the dawning of the age of cool.