Blogging at the Big Dog

In the aftermath of the historic election of the first black American president, there has been much wrangling over the challenges he now faces and what kind of president he will be. As pundits grapple with the symbolism of the vote and Barack Obama’s iconic status, I submit this: it doesn’t matter.

Good, bad or indifferent, Obama has already done his job. He got elected.

One of the best things I heard during election night coverage on CBC was a quote from an anonymous source: “Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. King walked so Barack Obama could run. Obama ran so we all could fly.”

Sometimes iconic is all you need to be. The next generation of black Americans will grow up in a country in which King’s dream of a time when a person is judged by the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin is not just an ideal, but a tangible possibility.

That is not to say Tuesday Nov. 4, 2008 represents the end of civil rights struggles in the United States. For example, while the California vote was a virtual landslide for Obama, the same people passed a resolution rescinding gay marriage rights. Furthermore, 76 percent of African Americans who voted for Obama in California voted against homosexual nuptials. Bigotry and discrimination is far from dead south of the border.

Still, it is progress. Progress Canadians overwhelmingly support. If we were the fifty-first state, Obama would have won here by five-to-one. The reason: we think it brings them closer to our own ideals. Let’s think again. African Americans in the U.S. had the right to vote, at least theoretically, a century before Native Canadians did here. And while we have come a long way to entrenching these rights politically, both the U.S. and Canada still have a long way to go to remove the institutional and societal barriers to full democracy.

Also, while we see Obama as progressive, we are judging him by American standards, not Canadian ones. He is still way more conservative than our version of conservatism. How so many Canadians who hate and distrust Stephen Harper can love and trust Barack Obama is a little bit confusing. Oh yeah, there is that charisma thing.

In any event, President Obama is light years superior to the alternative. Even the idea of Sarah Palin in the Vice President’s chair sends shivers down my spine.

Much has been said in the last week about this historic election restoring the USA’s reputation. Let’s hope so, but it’s a long road ahead. There are still two wars to deal with, the unabashed greed of unbridled capitalism to correct and the growing threat of evangelical, rapture-seeking militant Christianity to quash.

As Leonard Cohen said, America is the cradle of the best and of the worst. The worst will definitely rear its ugly head again. In the meantime, let us just savour a moment in which the best has prevailed and that means so much to so many around the world.

That change is possible.

That ignorance is defeatable.

That there is always hope.

In the aftermath of the historic election of the first black American president, there has been much wrangling over the challenges he now faces and what kind of president he will be. As pundits grapple with the symbolism of the vote and Barack Obama’s iconic status, I submit this: it doesn’t matter.

Good, bad or indifferent, Obama has already done his job. He got elected.

One of the best things I heard during election night coverage on CBC was a quote from an anonymous source: “Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King could walk. King walked so Barack Obama could run. Obama ran so we all could fly.”

Sometimes iconic is all you need to be.

The next generation of black Americans will grow up in a country in which King’s dream of a time when a person is judged by the content of his character rather than the colour of his skin is not just an ideal, but a tangible possibility.

That is not to say Tuesday November 4, 2008 represents the end of civil rights struggles in the United States. For example, while the California vote was a virtual landslide for Obama, the same people passed a resolution rescinding gay marriage rights. Furthermore, 76 per cent of African Americans who voted for Obama in California voted against homosexual nuptials.

Bigotry and discrimination is far from dead south of the border.

Still, it is progress. Progress Canadians overwhelmingly support. If we were the fifty-first state, Obama would have won here by five-to-one. The reason: we think it brings them closer to our own ideals.

Let’s think again. African Americans in the U.S. had the right to vote, at least theoretically, a century before Native Canadians did here. And while we have come a long way to entrenching these rights politically, both the U.S. and Canada still have a long way to go to remove the institutional and societal barriers to full democracy.

Also, while we see Obama as progressive, we are judging him by American standards, not Canadian ones. He is still way more conservative than our version of conservatism. How so many Canadians who hate and distrust Stephen Harper can love and trust Barack Obama is a little bit confusing. Oh yeah, there is that charisma thing.

In any event, President Obama is light years superior to the alternative. Even the idea of Sarah Palin in the Vice President’s chair sends shivers down my spine.

Much has been said in the last week about this historic election restoring the USA’s reputation. Let’s hope so, but it’s a long road ahead. There are still two wars to deal with, the unabashed greed of unbridled capitalism to correct and the growing threat of evangelical, rapture-seeking militant Christianity to quash.

As Leonard Cohen said, America is the cradle of the best and of the worst. The worst will definitely rear its ugly head again. In the meantime, let us just savour a moment in which the best has prevailed and that means so much to so many around the world. That change is possible. That ignorance is defeatable. That there is always hope.

Psst, Liberal Party, your desperation is showing.

Last week, Canada’s second (or is it third now? fourth?) party, trumped up a five-year-old plagiarism charge against Stephen Harper. I say trumped up because, in the first place, the guy doesn’t even write his own speeches. Secondly, I’m not entirely sure what this “big revelation” was supposed to demonstrate. That the Prime Minister sometimes struggles to engage in original thought? Puh-leeze, tell us something we didn’t already know.

In any event, PMO staffer Owen Lippert immediately fell on his pen to shield his boss and, despite a flurry of international media coverage, the story was quickly ash-canned as yet another Liberal gaff and was rightfully relegated to voters’ lists of “who gives a crap?” moments in an otherwise forgettable campaign long on rhetoric and short on ideas.

Really, is this the best the party of Mackenzie King, Pearson and Trudeau can come up with these days?

It would be laughable if not for the fact that the only real alternative — four more years of Harper’s knee-jerk pandering to special interests — isn’t much of a choice at all. Mr. Layton, of course, would like us to think the NDP matters, but outside the GTA, it has simply become yet another centre-left party bleeding votes from others who might actually have a chance to challenge the neo-Cons. And when are the Greens going to get it over with and pop the big question to the Grits? They’re already living common-law, why not make it official?

Is it any wonder a recent poll indicated 15 per cent of Canadians would rather vote in the election going on south of the border? At least our U.S. counterparts have a clear choice. It’s a classic battle between good and evil (although it depends on which side of the stupidity line American voters stand as to whether they see McCain/Palin or Obama/Biden wearing the white hats).

The point is, it is a seriously discouraging time in Canadian democracy when nearly one-in -six voters cares more about a foreign election than our own. And who can blame them? The Canadian campaign is starting to remind me of a Three Stooges flick with Stephane Dion, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May bumbling over one another trying to poke Harper in the eyes.

The Conservatives should be able to put this one on cruise control to bring it home.

As if we didn’t already have enough reasons not to care about the local race back here in good ol’ Regina-Qu’Appelle. In Western Canada we’re used to elections being over by the time they reach the Ontario-Manitoba border, but at least we should be able to look forward to a good, old-fashioned scrap at home. Unfortunately, despite the cheap perfume of election-induced bravado, whatsisname, whatsisname and whatsername are already starting to look like also-rans to Conservative incumbent Andrew Scheer.

At this point I hardly care. Call me idealistic, pessimistic or just plain disillusioned, but I want more from our leaders than the petty attempts at political hay-making last week’s plagiarism accusation, in particular, and this election, in general, is giving us.

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re going to get any different until we stand up and demand better.