TRANSFERENCE

Transference


I am thrilled that he won the nomination. Obama, of course.

Side note: I don’t want my 30 days of continuous blogging to turn into a watery regurgitation of what I’ve heard on NPR. But, in truth, politics is always on my mind to some degree or another. Or maybe it’s not politics but culture, the big picture, what’s happening locally, globally and how are my fellow, human-being-animals reacting to it? Chalk it up to A LOT of history classes in college. I don’t entirely understand people who proudly announce that they’ve got no interest in politics (again, for me, politcs = big picture). To me, this is like proudly announcing that you’ve got no interest in art?! Curiosity is currency and it should extend to all avenues of life, no? Wow. I am in danger of sounding like an Generation X Dear Abby.. But, really, really, isn’t it all so fascinating? All of it, life, culture, people, art, and that includes politics (again politics = BIG PICTURE).

We are, of course, in a verrrrry interesting political period here in these United States and the hope (yes, it’s a corny word but for lack of a better word, hope but I use it with a caveat: it’s DESPERATE hope), the desperate hope this primary season has produced is palatable. The desire for, yes, here’s that other word again: change. And, for better or worse, vast numbers of the American populace (and the world apparently judging from the headlines fom the rest of the globe) have rested their hopes firmly upon the sinewy shoulders of one Barack Obama. Who, I note, have noted, and will say again: I love. And yet, ahhh the inevitable “but”, I am mildly weary of the degree to which there seems to be some mass kind of transference happening between him and the people, as it were. The pinning of all of ones’ (here’s that word again) hopes on one person to me seems a little frightening, frankly. . To me, there seems to be a desire of so many of us to see this one person, a man (a human man, it should be noted) Obama to absolve us, the American people, of the sins of the past 8 years. As if his presidency would prove to us, once again, that we are indeed the country of tolerance and openness and reinvention and truth and justice and not the land of Guantanemo, and Katrina and foreclosures and Iraq and Abu-Gahrib and utter indifference to all of the aforementioned.

Maybe I should just relish in this moment and in the fact that for now, for this instance in my still relatively young lifetime, I feel that history is not static and that progress is tangible and not just read about in the Chapter on the Sixties in that high school textbook. Maybe I should let my eyes well up with tears every time Obama talks about the “fierce urgency of now” and forget about the pandering speech he just made to AIPAC (just one day after he got the nomination it should be noted) declaring Jerusalem off-limits to the Palestinians.

See? Human being in a very corrupt system. I still love him but, deep down, I know that anyone, and I mean anyone, who is about to touch that much power is bound to disappoint.

It’s part of a noble tradition.