To say that I never expected to do a dKos diary about being in China would be an understatement. But not only to be there, but to meet a fellow Kossack on the trip, and one with an iPhone to help ease our mutual dKos addiction, was truly a gift.
We were there just short of two weeks, all the while keeping track of what was going on back home, and talking to fellow Dems on our trip about politics pretty much incessantly.
We were actually there to talk to Chinese lawyers about how their country is developing its jurisprudence, a bit of a tacky subject considering Gitmo and the current Chinese government's various positions, but fascinating nonetheless.
We were back in time to do some canvassing and phonebanking and all that other last minute stuff, but meanwhile we were watching our country from a foreign shore, and the view was more than interesting.
One thing we found that we agreed on amongst ourselves was that we were consumed with what is going on in American politics today.
As has been noted here before, if the rest of the world had a vote in the American election, it wouldn't even be close. Paddy Power didn't pay out early for no reason.
However, it was in talking with a Republican while on the trip, that I came to realize that it is Republicans, not our overseas friends and non-friends, who did not understand who Obama is and what he stands for. And I believe the reason is, candidly, and to a great extent a tremendous failure of education in the US. Too many American citizens quite literally do not know their own history.
I am not just talking about inner city youth from failing schools. I am talking about people who supposedly went to college and got a degree, or even a couple.
And I am not talking about the pre-1776 stuff, or the Civil War. No, I am talking about the 20th Century, and specifically that part of it from 1929 forward.
They do not know or understand who FDR was and what he stood for. If they did, perhaps they would be more clear about what Barack Obama is likely to do once he is sworn in next year.
There are too many people who quite literally do not know what the New Deal was, and do not realize that the past 60 years of Republican history has been, to a frightening extent successful, an effort to rescind the New Deal and obliterate its principles from our law books.
There really are people who believe that Obama will take money away from the moderately prosperous in taxes in order to do things they don't quite understand, but which they apparently think involve giving their tax money to people who don't "deserve" it. When it is posited that "real jobs" will be created, there is suspicion.
The fear mongering that has gone on about what Democrats are and what they stand for has been a deliberate attempt in some quarters to prevent progressive ideas from becoming government policies and programs. And that deliberate effort has been aided and abetted by the dumbing down of the American civics curriculum in too many places.
In addition to concerning ourselves about what schools say about sex and sexuality, how about equal or greater concern for what schools are saying about civics ? Our friend here on dKos, teacherken, does a lot of diaries on this subject, but I have to tell you, this election was a demonstration of the kind of "discourse" you end up with when a large segment of your population is either under-educated or mis-educated on what this country is really supposed to be about.
I got the feeling that what we needed some days during this campaign was a massive re-education effort on what being an American really is supposed to be. And I think Obama did a pretty good job of talking directly to those themes.
Including telling us repeatedly that we are the ones we have been waiting for. Something BushCo didn't want us to know.
Now I think, and I HOPE, we are on our way to becoming participating citizens again, no longer merely the "consumers" whose only contribution to the common good is supposed to be shopping.
There was a definite sense among non-American people with whom I talked on our trip that they anticipated a President Obama, and they were happy about the prospect.
The Chinese with whom we had contact in Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai were enthusiastic in their good wishes for us as we were about to elect a new president. And it was pretty clear they were counting on America going blue.
Like us, they had enough of the abusive incompetence of the Bush Administration, although for the most part, they were much too polite to say so directly.