obama rama
A good Chinese friend asked me what Americans thought about the nomination of Obama as the Democratic Presidential candidate. I said that Hilary Clinton represented more years of the Clinton family, and that the USA was tired of having one family as president for many years. (12 years of the Bush family = 2 much)
I also said that Hilary was experienced and therefore tainted. You can’t become powerful in a powerful country by being a kind, nice person. To survive and progress, you become corrupt and hard. I think that’s just a natural law of politics.
Obama, on the other hand, represents “the little guy” and the common people who aren’t well connected to secret Gods of power and might. He has the unpretentious demeanor of a newbie, making him immediately identifiable as the peoples’ people.
There’s plenty of opposition, of course. There are plenty of people who favor other candidates and have different views. All the same, I think Americans are excited about politics again, as this runoff would show. In part due to the variety of candidates, Americans are feeling renewed in their potential and more personally powerful, and I think this is a general trend. I think Americans are tired of being the victim. As much as the world has seen the US as aggressive and selfish, Americans have become victims of their own fear, facing increasing hopelessness as powerful political and corporate interests dominated US foreign and domestic affairs.
Americans have an amazing ability of invention and rejuvenation and I think we are going to see a lot of that in the US in the future. Obama’s nomination is a classic American story of anything’s possible.