During his acceptance speech, Barack Obama offered a list of what the change he represents consists of. However - because we all know elections are not won or lost based on lists of policy proposals (no matter how sensible they may be) - I'm writing to offer a storyline for this election... one that goes beyond "young vs. old"... beyond "experience vs. judgment"... one that I believe puts Senator Obama's acceptance speech in its proper context. This for me is the true story of the 2008 election:
The American people are choosing to end their horrendously destructive addiction to the belief system embodied by both the Republican Party and today's mainstream media: that conflict - sometimes leading to war - is the inevitable outcome of almost every human interaction... that progress can only be achieved by wiping out those who don't believe what you believe, because cooperation between groups of people who are different in various ways is impossible.
Please watch the part of Barack Obama's acceptance speech: about six minutes and 45 seconds into this YouTube video. The text is below, but it is much more powerful to watch Senator Obama than to read his words. To me, this was the core of his entire speech.
Tonight, I say to the American people, to Democrats and Republicans and Independents across this great land: enough!
This moment, this election is our chance to keep, in the 21st century, the American promise alive. Because next week, in Minnesota, the same party that brought you two terms of George Bush and Dick Cheney will ask this country for a third. And we are here because we love this country too much to let the next four years look like the last eight. On Nov. 4, we must stand up and say: "Eight is enough."
Let the way Barack Obama says "Enough!" bring up this image: someone declaring to themselves - and to everyone they know - that they are giving up an addiction they've finally realized is killing them... in this case an addiction to a belief about the way the world has always worked and always will... and an addiction to belonging to a community that perpetuates that belief.
Let what Senator Obama said make you think of someone working to finally leave a community of friends that has provided a compelling way of viewing the world - one backed up with lots of historical data... a community that has provided that person with comfort and companionship... a community that has promised to keep that person safe from threatening "outsiders" who don't believe what he or she believes... a community that has used every variation of "We really care about you" and "You can't survive out there without us. You're not strong enough." it can think of to keep him or her emotionally tied to it. It's a very comforting community... an addictive community. But it's also a community that is killing the promise of America... because at its heart is the belief that we live in an "us against them" world, where "only the strong will survive." It's a Darwinian world... a world where the "law of the jungle" rules... where there's not enough for everyone, therefore there will always be those who society has to "leave behind" even as its leaders say they don't want that to happen to anyone. And it's a belief that runs contrary to the promise of America, a promise that says a "United States of America" is stronger than a "Separate States of America"... a promise expressed in the last sentence of the Declaration of Independence this way...
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Part of that community is the Republican establishment (especially the Bush / Cheney / Rove element of that establishment), including its new spokesperson... Senator John McCain. But another part of that community is the mainstream media... especially the elements of the media that look for conflict wherever they can find it and attempt to manufacture conflict if they can't find it outright (think "reality television").
Getting back to this person who is planning to leave this community, think about how - even though this person has friends and other sources of information that have been telling him or her for years to leave... pointing to all the times when belonging to it has not created a happier life even after promises that belonging would do that - this person's self esteem is constantly under attack because the input he or she gets on a daily basis from this community... full of lies as it is... is so overwhelming in volume that it never gives him or her the chance to think in a concentrated enough way to finally decide the time to leave is now. Think about all the doubts that information plants about the risks of leaving... of the risks of believing there's a better way than fighting all the time.
Think of that imbalance of information as the reach of the mainstream media - including the "shopping will make you happy, even if you're actually buying stuff you don't need" extreme side of our capitalistic system which is part of the mainstream media - when compared with alternative sources of information on politics, true health and well-being that reach ordinary Americans.
Al Gore addressed this challenge at the Democratic convention, when he said...
So why is this election so close? Well, I know something about close elections. So, let me offer you my opinion. I believe this election is close today mainly because the forces of the status quo are desperately afraid of the change Barack Obama represents.
If he had had more time, perhaps Gore would have summarized the much more detailed analysis he made in his book "The Assault on Reason". You can watch him present that analysis here. I highly recommend you do.
So, now think of that person finally deciding... after one last shock that rocks his or her confidence in it to its foundation... to leave that hate and fear-filled community for the safety of another... one that believes health and prosperity for both individuals and all of society is really possible... one that knows that we can consign Darwin's theory to the primitive animals in the real jungle where it belongs... one that knows that we have the wisdom to design a future for ourselves in which we finally move beyond war as the foundation of how groups that don't share every value in common settle their differences.
Think of that final shock as having come in two waves. The first wave is the reactionary, inflammatory talk by John McCain in response to the crisis between Russia and Georgia (which, of course, is only a symptom of many years of failed post-1991 policies towards the entire former Soviet Union). The second wave is Senator John McCain's selection of Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, all the proof one needs that - as honorable a man as Senator McCain is - he does not have the judgment to be President of the United States given the state of the world today... because he has chosen someone who (at best, because of her almost total lack of familiarity with the world outside of Alaska) could only be a puppet president were he to die in office and (at worst, because initial evidence from her record and the ethics investigation under way against her suggests she's a faith-based, fact-twisting, self-assured politician just like George Bush) could be a dictatorial lunatic who would get the United States in even more of a mess than it's in already, at least until she would - hopefully - be impeached.
I talked about a similar story line briefly in part of a post I wrote last April. Back then, I was thinking about how a battered wife finally decides to leave her abusive husband. But - as I've watched our election process evolve since then - I've realized that - while a personal relationship metaphor may jog someone's consciousness - the story of one culture's domination over those who live in it is a more accurate fit for the challenge we face. Escaping the overwhelming influence of this "us against them" culture - and discussing the culture that can replace it - will be the central themes of my blogs from now on.
The vast majority of Americans do want to get rid of politics as it's played today. The approval ratings for both President Bush and Congress are 30 percent or lower.
As Senator Obama said, today's politics is robbing us of the "American promise". It has split our nation in two. It has created the greatest division in America between the haves and the have-nots since before the Great Depression. If Senator McCain wins in November, his economic policies will enlarge that split even more... because, as Senator Obama also said, "Senator McCain doesn't know" and "doesn't get it". How could he? Senator McCain and his wife live in seven houses, he wears $550 dollar shoes, has only recently seen what the Internet is all about, Mrs. McCain is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and they fly around in a private jet!
But what Senator Obama did not say... and could not say... because - technically - he's only running against Senator McCain is that the quality of coverage of our political system by the mainstream media is also part of the system we must beat.
Senator Obama suffered through that famously inane first hour of the debate with Senator Clinton last April - where all of the questions were personality (or "gotcha journalism") driven - because he couldn't bring himself to (literally) say "Stop. This is not what the American people need us to be talking about." Maybe he will say something like this in one of the debates ahead, but I doubt it. I think he's going to have his hands full with what the Republicans will be throwing at him, let alone with how the mainstream media behaves.
So, it will be up to people like Frank Rich (who wrote an excellent piece in Sunday's NY Times about how the media kept reporting that the Democratic convention was going to turn into a war between Hillary and Barack's supporters... a war which - even though it never happened - gave them something really exciting to report about)... and (hopefully) Al Gore... and me and others to do this. And do this we must... all in the service of helping the American people - once and for all - end their addiction to this extraordinarily dysfunctional and destructive community... so that, as Senator Obama said, we can keep the promise of America alive.
There's one last part of this dysfunctional and destructive community I want to mention. It is the part that is even more hidden from view... even less examined by the critical mass of the civic dialog leaders needed to stamp it out than the parts I've mentioned above.
If you can imagine that person getting in his or her car to physically drive away from the gated environment where this destructive community is located... turning the ignition key... and then discovering the car won't start because its engine has been tampered with... and suddenly having no way out... then you know that even the best laid plans can be sabotaged.
The voting public's plans have been sabotaged before, and attempts are being made to sabotage them again. This is the hidden side of this addictive community's work to maintain power over its members.
Sabotage efforts took place in Florida during the 2000 election (when, for example, names were removed from voting roles before election day) and during the 2004 election (when, for example, pro-Kerry districts had so few voting machines people waited in line for hours and hours).
And sabotage efforts related to the 2008 election are being reported by alternative media sources like Mark Crispin Miller right now.
There you have it: the real story of this election. It's the desire by the American people to free themselves from their addiction to a sociopolitical economic system they know is killing them.
The American people don't want to live in a "community" whose leaders tell them - in all sincerity - that they want what's best for "we, the people" but really make things worse... Republicans who say they will keep Americans safe (by leading us, as Senator McCain has said, through the "other wars" that are inevitably coming and by continuing to cut taxes for the wealthy)... a mainstream media that says this election is really important and is being covered by "the best political team..." but then which covers the horse race rather than educating the American people. The American people want to make the changes needed to keep the promise of America alive.
This November- for Senator Obama to beat Senator McCain - we must defeat the Republican Party's attempts to lie and scare us into staying with them... the omnipresent mainstream media's coverage of the horse race rather than the issues... the extreme elements of the rest of our capitalistic system that promote conflict and lack of cooperation as "just the way things are"... and the efforts to sabotage the integrity of our election system to prevent the American people from giving up their addiction to living in an "us against them" world.
Well, no one ever said it would be easy. But at least now you know what we're up against... the true story that will play out in the months ahead.