Watching Obama Win (I hope)
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Today’s the day and, of course, I’m watching the election unfold. Even though it isn’t a Canadian election we will probably be effected more by it than we were by our own federal election last month. No matter what, the US is still the 800 pound gorilla.
Naturally I hope Obama wins. I would be hoping for that to keep Sarah Palin away from the levers of power for four more years if for no other reason.
Will Obama’s plans work? Some will. Some probably won’t. That isn’t the important thing to me. It seems to me he has the right vision and the ability to inspire. Even if he doesn’t have all the answers he certainly knows the right questions to ask. The vision is what is important. Plans can and should be adapted as circumstances change. The auto-pilot mechanism on an airplane is wrong 90% of the time, yet can put the plane down within five feet of where it is supposed to land. It does this by knowing where it wants to go and constantly responding to feedback that tells it how it is going wrong.
IMHO the auto-pilot of the US has been broken for at least eight years. It has been trying to get to the wrong destination and the pilot has been overriding it so it can’t respond to feedback. This is the very worst combination possible and the whole world has been pulled along.
It is so important to have a leader with vision and charisma. In Canada the last one we had was Pierre Trudeau. He wasn’t always right, but he brought Canada into being as an independent country with its own identity and finally severed the ties with Britain.
The problem I have always faced is that I love a lot of things about the US. It really has been the source of a lot of good in the world. Unfortunately, it has also been the source of a great deal of evil and suffering. Better people than me have tried to pick that contradiction apart. I just know that ever since I was a kid I’ve watched things happen on the world stage and wondered: how can the Americans do that? That isn’t what they are all about.
Can Obama turn things around? I don’t know. Speaking solely for myself, though, I would really like to love the States without any need to rationalize or apologize. For a Canadian that’s especially difficult because we need to differentiate ourselves from the US as much as we needed to differentiate ourselves from Britain. At least Obama gives hope of setting the correct destination for us all.
Posted by: swampy | 11-04-2008 | 02:11 PM
Posted in: Uncategorized
