I posted this diary back in April and am reposting it tonight with some minor edits and additions. It didn't get much play then and it probably won't tonight, but what I saw tonight was absolutely the Art of Aikido and I thought it might be an appropriate description of what we witnessed tonight.
Many of us have been screaming for Obama to give us some "red meat", to punch McCain silly. Well, tonight he took all of McCain's attacks and turned them around masterfully and used them against McCain, WITHOUT getting down in the mud.
Andrew Sullivan's words from tonight:
What he didn't do was give an airy, abstract, dreamy confection of rhetoric. The McCain campaign set Obama up as a celebrity airhead, a Paris Hilton of wealth and elitism. And he let them portray him that way, and let them over-reach, and let them punch him again and again ... and then he turned around and destroyed them. If the Rove Republicans thought they were playing with a patsy, they just got a reality check.
emphasis mine
My "conversion" to being an Obama supporter did not come easily. I was (and am still in some ways), an avowed cynic and I have often been accused of being oppositional (it’s true by the way). But something touched me the night I first saw him speak in Madison, WI.....something deep in my soul began stirring. It wasn’t just his words, nor was it just the electricity and energy that 17,000+ people can generate. I’ve been puzzled by my behavior; why I’ve donated over $250 (now over $600) in the past month alone when I’ve never, ever donated money to any candidate; why I spent hours phone-banking when my phone phobia is very real; why I spent 5 hours entering phone banking data at our local Obama headquarters; why the diaries with pictures of Obama rallies get my heart pumping; why I read every single word of every Obama diary, including comments; why I’ve been moved to comment and write diaries on dailKos, after years of being a lurker, to the point where I gained TU status.
It dawned on me that what I’m experiencing is a centering, a hopeful optimism. I can only assume it’s been there for a long time but covered over by the scabs of disappointment, hurt, resentment and apathy. A memory surfaced from 18 years ago when I attended three Aikido classes. Yes, only 3. But what I remembered has prompted me to characterize Obama and his campaign as an expression of the art of Aikido.
From Wikipedia
The founder of aikido declared: "To control aggression without inflicting injury is the Art of Peace.
This is exactly what I think Obama is doing in his campaign. We all get a bit riled that he’s not "fighting", not "striking back at the right". I’ve felt that, I’ve complained. But the Art of Peace requires that we control aggression, our own and others.
[A] martial arts philosophy of extending love and compassion especially to those who seek to harm others. Aikido demonstrates this philosophy in its emphasis on mastering martial arts so that one may receive an attack and harmlessly redirect it. In an ideal resolution not only is the receiver unharmed but so is the attacker
(emphasis mine).
Obama doesn’t back down nor retreat nor go for the knock-out punch. He uses the energy of the attack to turn it around, to render it useless. One movement I remember from my brief foray in Aikido ended with your "attacker" standing next to you. Imagine for a moment what that might look like. Rather than facing off, bowing up, putting up your dukes, you masterfully use your attacker’s energy to bring them to your side.
From USAF (United States Aikido Federation)
The Japanese word Aikido is written with three characters which translate as "the way of unity with the fundamental force of the universe".
Unity. The United State of America. E Pluribus Unum.
The essence of all Aikido techniques is spherical motion around a stable, energized center. Even when the direction appears to be straight forward or backward, close observation reveals the Aikidoist's movements are in fact circular.
This quote really speaks to me about what Obama is doing for our country, for you, for me. He is helping us center ourselves. I’ve seen comments today deriding Obama for being a "centrist". In the context of the quote above, I hope to God he’s a centrist. We are not a monolithic country and only from the center can one turn in a circle and meet everyone. Believe me, I’m not defining "centrist" as we usually do—one who straddles the fence, stays out of the fight. I truly see him as one who’s movements invite us all to stand beside him, to enter the circle with him.
Obama, Aikido Master; the next President of the United States.