philos
liberté
princeps
memoria

Change


Something clicked. Not 10 minutes ago, something changed for me, and with it, the banal frivolity of faces and forms, gone.

I think there is a Someone we aspire to become. Different someones, no doubt, yet fundamentally, intrinsically, Different. I believe in this Different, because with Different, we can change the world. This generation of the discontent is also a generation of the hopeful; with no memory of personal wars, we have no baggage to unyoke, no mirror to cloak, no shadows to vanquish.

The reason I am obstinately engrossed in the US primaries (besides being fully confident of the Democrats eventual victory) and the Obama-Clinton saga is simple. I believe in the promise of change for change's sake, not neatly embossed in snazzy political slogans "Real Change"(Edwards) or "Smart Change" (Clinton).

Just pure unadulterated Change.

And though it is not enough to hope for this change, getting things done begins with that exact hope that some think Obama can deliver. The crowds may be sidetracked by the ecstasy of his poetry, or the power in her prose, but the essentially personal vote for president will not be about rhetoric.
The power to the new voters, the below-40s, bespeaks great winds of change. And so, to reduce the import, no, the potency of this coming election to a Racial choice seems almost juvenile. We do not rejoice in a possible win for Obama simply by dint of his being black or having attended an Indonesian kindergarten. It goes far beyond Obama's canny embodiment of black-white reconciliation.

Even if only by sweeping statements, it is clear that the ultimate destination of economic movement has always been (arguably) to the US. The fiery dragons China and India, Saudi Arabia if one looks to the future, seem to me merely auxiliary powers to replace our Germanys.

Yet, with our new year, we face a superpower- the Superpower- downtrodden with mounting recession, a corpulent deficit and obese public spending, rampant juvenile delinquency and an unfledged public school system. If anyone is to agree at all, it will be that their great and beautiful country must, nolens volens, reconfigure their tortured relationship with their leaders, and start healing with the rest of the world.


The Economist, in a quoteworthy commentary, attributes this year 2008 as a year for courage.
Our gen Ys are a selfish, complacent lot, and until the day we stir up the nascent political passion, this fine city cannot see Change.

And this has moved far beyond saving the cheerleader. We're saving ourselves.