Inaugural Zeitgeist

NO, i never thought i’d live to see the day when a black man would become ‘The Man’ - nearly everyone in the world cheering him on, no less. My scenario for that had entailed a total collapse of the US as currently constituted, enabling smaller states led by regional leaders to rise out of the ashes. So, i’m totally jazzed to see the Obamas move into 1600 Pennsylvania Ave and feel an almost childlike glee at the possibility of MLK and Malcolm X portraits hanging on the walls of the oval office. Long, long overdue. i hope that a few years from now, people will wonder why they feared changing government leadership as long as they did, and that this will lead them to a deeper understanding of the self-destructiveness of racism. It’s certainly a plus that something has replaced ‘Where were you when the towers were hit?’ as the definitive personal trivia question of our times, although where i live, people are mostly asking for assurance that things are – really – going to change. With so much economic insecurity in Europe, watching W lead [sic] the US to near total collapse has been like hearing that your boat’s going down AND all the life rafts have been punctured. Clearly, the inauguration didn’t come a moment too soon and judging by the enthusiasm, the new prez apparently came to town with a boatload of patch kits.

On Day Two of the First One Hundred Days (can they make it sound any more epic?) Obama's announcement at the State Dept that he’d signed the order to close Guantanamo received enthusiastic applause, which, given the international orientation of that audience, cemented for me how terribly the whole enemy combatant/extraordinary rendition policy has weighed down international attitudes towards the US. i can say unequivocally that this has been the most-criticized activity of the Bush junta that i, personally, have encountered – even from Iraqis. While it’s something of a discrete problem, that Obama dealt with it on day one was more than welcome. Bombing Pakistan – well, the US has been bombing one country or another for decades, most people don’t like it but they didn’t like the whole Guantanamo-rendition system more. The next big global issue to address is climate change; Europe wants fast, smart action from the US in setting aggressive CO₂ reduction targets and the newest industrial, coal-breathing behemoths like China and India need emissions control diplomacy from the US in a big way.

It’s been interesting reading views and hearing Europeans discuss the inaugural event, itself. i think the masses of people in DC served as a kind of confirmation that most americans really did not support the Bush regime; at the same time, the huge show of unity was a bit disconcerting. All those people fired up and ready to go… good for them, let’s hope they stay in their own neighborhood. Actually, that’s not really true. Here’s a hilarious appeal from the former Hungarian ambassador to the US after a rumor was floated that Whoopie Goldberg (yes, the dancing nun) was interested in becoming the new US ambassador to Hungary.

It feels like i should write more about Obama this and Obama that, but i really don’t have it in me. i watched the inauguration with one of my students, and though her English is not proficient enough to follow a political speech of that nature, i saw that it didn’t really matter to her what he said because he looked so confident and kool and that’s exactly the kind of political celebritidom she and (i think) a lot of people on this side of the pond have been looking for in US leadership. To me, the speech was somewhat disturbing because i actually don’t agree that americans never have to apologize for our way of life: that line could have been lifted from the Reagan Library or some other repository of offensive exceptionalist rhetoric. But i’m hip to the zeitgeist - it’s not what he says but that he says it – not what people hear, but how they feel. In a post-modern world, asking for anything beyond that is just silly and defeatist.