Inauguration Day

Today America has a new President.

Contrary to the cynicism espoused by Tim, I am cautiously hopeful that something good will come of this change. It has been pointed out that Obama is by no means superhuman. He is not a savior, or the single solution to our problems. He is, however, a tool – a means by which America can, given a fierce desire to learn from the lessons of our past, and an unwavering resolve to fix a system that is most assuredly broken, return to the principles and ideals which defined our past and helped make us great.

I’m under no illusions about my level of oratory skill, but when, after I went to submit my e-mail address for “updates” on the new WhiteHouse.gov, I was prompted (yes – it’s required) to enter a comment I was forced to think for a moment about what I would say to President Obama if I could (and to put my thoughts in writing…).

In the end, I sent him this note:

Congratulations President Obama! You have helped a nation begin once more to hope. That’s a lot of pressure to live up to, but as long as you strive to be open and straightforward with us I think you will find that we will strive in kind to remember that you are a man, not a figure of history. As a man, all you can do is your best; that is all we have any right to ask of you. For my part, I hope that you will remember the same of us, and that you will ask the same too.

We are each of us human, and no one of us is ever going to be able to solve the problems of the rest. It is that realization, I have found, which forms the root of President Obama’s appeal to me. I tend to be centrist in my political leanings; I’m very conservative on some issues, and very liberal on others. Naturally, parts of President Obama’s agenda are at odds with my personal beliefs. I do believe, however, that the greatest gift of man lies in our capacity for ingenuity. I believe that America is great because, at the time of its founding, it attracted settlers possessed of a certain unbreakable spirit. It called to the adventurous, the entrepreneurial – those who firmly believed that all they needed was the right opportunity. America is built on the sweat of these men and women who refused to give in, refused to give up, and refused to accept the notion that something “could not be done”.

If America has fallen from the place we formerly occupied in the world, it is because we have become complacent. We have lost our reverence and respect for the spirit that forged colonists into citizens, and colonies into the United States. President Obama’s strongest appeal is not his disdain for Guantanamo Bay. It’s not his promise to spend billions of dollars to “fix” the economy. It’s not even his promise to end the “failed policies” of George W. Bush (a good many of which, I will admit, rub me the wrong way). It’s his willingness to admit to the American people that his kind of change is going to take hard work from all of us, and his ability to inspire faith and hope despite that harsh dose of realism.

No matter what any of us may think of his policies, we have to admire his politics. No one, no matter how naive, can claim that the American democratic system is what it should be; rather, it exists as an ideal which we move closer to and further from. If for nothing else than the chance for long-overdue change, the audacity to believe in the possibility that one man could be unwavering in his commitment to that ideal, I support President Obama and wish him all the best. For the first time since I can remember, I believe there is a chance for America to heal its divisions, cast off the shackles of a system that has failed to adapt to a new global and cultural reality, and to truly move forward into a new era built on the spirit that helped turn it from a rebellious colony into a shining beacon of hope and opportunity.

Is Racism real?

Click here and read this article recently printed in my school’s newspaper.

Nixon makes some interesting arguments about the idea of race and especially about about the reasons why it’s a problem in the states. A friend sent me a facebook link months ago about this, and as I recall I refused to join the group. The information provided is somehow just too one-sided for me – no matter how wrong what happened to the Jena 6 is, stifling the other side of the story to focus on the racial injustice is also wrong.

From what I’ve read, the fact remains that these kids DID beat another kid in retaliation for something. If that’s the case, then they deserve to be in jail. Yes – they deserve a fair trial, and yes – the people who hung nooses to make a point also deserve to be in jail, but that doesn’t mitigate what they did or answer the larger question of why this happened in the first place. Students like the ones who protested in Red Square at Georgetown are making a valid point, but they’re also going out of their way to use rhetoric that distorts what happened. In many ways, they’re falling prey to the same racism they accuse others of leveling against African Americans.

They aren’t the only ones either. Nixon is right – it’s getting harder to be WASP in the US; it seems these days that everyone has to overcompensate lest we be “un-PC” about race. What kind of society is that really promoting? That’s not getting rid of the problem – it’s adding another problem on top of it to make it appear like the problem has disappeared. Humans tend to mistrust and fear that which we see as different than ourselves. If those Georgetown students truly want to see the death of “racism” in our country, then rather than emphasizing their differences it seems they ought to follow the very advice The Hoya was so recently accused of forgetting. They should help promote nonviolent and peaceful dialogue between diverse groups of people in our society. Maybe then people will begin to see just how much we all have in common. It seems, as always, that America has a long way yet to go.

I thought Cheney was the puppetmaster?

Wait a minute – wasn’t Cheney supposed to be the one secretly in charge? So why was he the one that did the about-face on Iraq policy? Maybe it WAS Rove after all… For those of you who’re not history buffs, Cheney is speaking in past tense because he’s talking about the Gulf War. In all fairness to him, it could be argued that this war is “different circumstances”; what I’m curious about is why Saddam Husein went from “not worth very many… dead Americans” then to suddenly being worth thousands now…

I’m not really pro or anti the Iraq War, but I’m no fan of Cheney, and I’d be curious to see his reaction to being confronted with this video…