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TechnoratiWhat a surprising burst of hope I felt, looking at the photo in the newspaper the next day: Barack Obama stands before 200,000 Berliners and addresses them as a "fellow citizen of the world."
It may be premature, but I'm announcing it anyway: We've repealed the Bush Doctrine. There's no turning back.
Hope has the staying power of fireworks, of course. Oooh, ahhh, and it's over. But, "This mesh of private vision and historical change is mysterious," writes Deepak Chopra. Obama is a politician with mostly short-term calculations to make, including how to align himself with the economic interests of oil and war and project enough reckless militarism to claim a share of the fear vote.
But the surge of history his campaign summons contradicts all that. At last America and the world -- and in some ways the election may mean more to those beyond our borders than to those complacently, smugly, fearfully within them -- have a candidate who is awake, not dead, to the vision and passionate global desire for . . . peace. And by this term I do not mean the false, hellish "peace" wrested violently, and temporarily, by one part of the world from another.
I mean the peace we haven't built yet, the peace that leaves no one out, the peace that begins with a calm heart and ends in the dissolution of international enmity. I mean the peace that dehumanizes no one, resists mass hypnosis and sees through every shallow, short-sighted "us vs. them" scenario ever whipped up in the name of fear-drenched triumphalism. In a throw-away world poisoned with hatred and stockpiled with WMD, I mean the peace we must create for our own survival. This is the peace that Obama can articulate with clarity and, by God (is it possible?), courage:
"People of the world -- look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one. . . .
"The greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down. . . .
"This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet."
This is why 200,000 Berliners turned out to see Obama and why he draws enormous crowds wherever he goes -- why "Obamamania" is a term at all, conjuring as it does the "Beatlemania" of 40-plus years ago that also, so it turns out, announced a shift in human consciousness.
"People of Berlin -- people of the world -- this is our moment. This is our time. . . . With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again."
This time the engine for change is a presidential campaign, not a rock tour, which is surely a sign that the vision is maturing.
I believe in "Obamamania" more than I believe in Obama himself. That is to say, I believe with so many others in the vision and the moment, and long to seize it, even as I retain caution and skepticism about the politics to which they are attached. Cheering a candidate's stump speech is one thing, but the real work of "remaking the world" will not be easy or welcomed by the powers that be.
The political forces lined up against Obama are enormous and increasingly desperate. Greg Palast and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for instance, have begun investigating one manifestation of the vote fraud to come: the ruthless Republican-sponsored purging of thousands and thousands of registered voters in the poorest (often mortgage-crisis-devastated) regions of swing states such as Colorado, New Mexico, Ohio and Nevada. Voters in low-income areas, of course, trend strongly Democratic and are a big part of Obama's natural base.
But the calculations of the Obama campaign itself are just as troubling. In his Berlin speech, he went out of his way to flaunt his insight-free policy on terrorism, calling (to no applause) for a greater U.S.-NATO presence in Afghanistan, and claiming that "the Afghan people need our troops and your troops . . . to help them rebuild their nation." Never mind that civilian casualties are on the rise, with NATO air strikes killing more civilians than the Taliban.
But that's politics, right? Perhaps Obama does the best he can to keep it leashed. I try to keep it in perspective, knowing that the world will demilitarize slowly at best, and clumsily, but that it will happen. The citizens of the world have been summoned. History has a job for us, and electing a president is only the beginning.
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
© 2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
22 Comments so far
Show AllI really don't like the tone of some these negative comments
about Senator Obama. I don't know who will win the upcoming
election but I do know that if we are to ever create a
more humane America and thus a more humane world we will
have to offer something better than a big bunch of
negative thinking that only digs the hole deeper.
"The citizens of the world have been summoned. History has a job for us, and electing a president is only the beginning." Typical American pap just like the "World Series" no one outside your field of vision gives a crap. Germany and the US share a common history both the perps of the greatest crimes against humanity namely the final solution and the atomic bomb. They give each other succor. While it is true that the sins of the father cannot be visited on the son it is also true that we should not forget. This for me explains the German fascination.
wow, this koehler dude is really tripping. obama is one of the bush/cheney gang. he means what he says: "we need more troops!" the bad guys won. it's all over kids. there will not be any "remaking the world", bush/cheney gang already "remade the world" and they wont give any of the amerikan commonwealth back. aw, who cares anyway.
nice going amerika1
I knew a German woman back when I was a teenager. She was a sex addict.
It's doesn't matter what the chimp-in-waiting says or does. The spectacle remains a production of Matrixvision. You have to take off the goggles if you want to see reality and build your society accordingly.
"However I noticed numerous signs and banners, all naturally praising Obama." Hey people, if you want your face shown on TV, take a sign as you go in.
This may seem slightly off topic but I see a connection. When I lived in Key West it was obvious to me that the German women who made that fascinating island their home were drawn (bees to honey style) to the Black men, especially Jamaican types. It almost seemed like some kind of inversion of their once-nazi fathers quest for the "pure" Aryan race.
Germany is a nation that was so brutalized by its own aggressive impulses that it now owns the status of "enlightened (or post) warrior status. As a result there is a certain spiritual humility that sets in, and while it may not be conscious, it allows many Germans to see in OTHER (race, religion, culture) the possibility for that which would guide its new and reformed quest. In other words, the white male has had his day and we see a world that has made weapons and global trafficking in arms' sales a key result of His power. Just the symbolic gesture of turning the sword over to OTHER (and granted, if Black is the litmus test here, no need to make the case for the tribal blood shed so brutally across much of Africa) could be grounds for hope.
Desperate times call for experimental measures. Personally, I'd like to see more females in decision making positions; but as I have related in former CD threads, the females I would wish to see in such places would NOT be daughters of Zeus, Athene clones of the patriarchal way of "just carrying on business as usual." They would be daughters of a different drummer. And men who understand truly that need for diversity, are welcome at the big table, too. The narrowness of perspective has limited all forms of global initiatives towards peace, economic justice, sustainable ecology, etc. Ultimately we are SOULS housed in bodies, and gender is secondary; but gender is also a socialized construct with powers allotted to each quite different across the globe and down the ages. NEW forms of sharing power are without doubt a recipe for a saner world.
Thanks, MiMiCcS, I've been curious about what the big draw was. I also read that Obama's campaign had banned signs and banners at the event. However I noticed numerous signs and banners, all naturally praising Obama.
They don't tell you they got 200,000 Berliners in one place with a concert. Price of admission, listening to his speech.
Are we talking about the same Barack 'OBomba' here?
This article illuminates one dimension of Obama's candidacy that has deep appeal to many of us who recognize the global nature of many of the challenges now facing our planet. Having lived and worked overseas for 20 years in Africa and Asia with an NGO doing community development in small villages, we also came to know and respect those 'other' people who are struggling hard to make their future better, too. One thing that became so clear to our organization in the process of our work was that a positive future for us all depends upon our ability to recognize that we must all come to see ourselves first as common citizens of our small planet, who are in this struggle together.
Continuing to emphasize a narrow exceptionalism that leads to divisive distrust and brutal competition will only intensify the enmity between peoples and nations. The complex problems facing our global community now can only be solved if we find ways to respect one another in the process of searching for the solutions that all must take part in implementing. The many walls dividing us must be torn down, and it will take inspirational leadership from our nation to start this process. Otherwise, it finally just boils down to our imposing more narrow and dangerously destructive policies that are basically about our succeeding at the expense of a world growing ever more angry at us, and increasingly dangerous as they become ever more desperate. That is the way to more of the failures we have had this past eight years, and the consequences get more frightening as we dread what the next moves (more 'preemptive' wars?) of such blinkered leaders might lead to.
Bob calls us to embrace the potential we have, as global citizens, to create the peace that leaves out no one. Let us hope for leaders who are wise enough to seek that as well for our troubled world. While Obama may not be the perfect candidate, he at least sees that it will take global cooperation to make any meaningful progress now if ever peace is possible. Clearly, the rest of the world is hoping that he can help set a new tone to global cooperation. We can be sure, on the other hand, what McSame will bring with him to the table. "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran..."
Doom n Gloom July 31st, 2008 1:46 pm
Robert, in case you have not noticed we are no longer citizens. Now we are consumers.
That was great!
you know, without even getting intot how ridiculous it is to put faith in words over action, is not Mr. Obama, as Mr. McCain, a sitting senator? Would his time not be better spent actually producing legislation\action to correct\attack current administration\policy? It would certainly go alot farther with me if he were actively (publicly and procedurally) pushing Pelosi, Conyers, et al., to impeach, for starters...I don't know what everyone is so excited about when these people already have the very jobs that would seem to give them great ability to influence America's future for the better, yet their very actions indicate that is not of interest to them...true talk about the fragile nature of the economic and ecologic systems of our entirely-intertwined and increasingly-toxified world would carry much more weight with me than vague, frequently war-mongering phrases, especially when those phrases are uttered in lieu of meaningful action that these people currently have the rare opportunity to influence...
BO's promise to continue the phony "war on terror," as well as his fellow Dems continued support of ever-more secret Presidential "powers" and "war on terror" funding suggests that much of the so-called Bush Doctrine will remain fully operational, albeit with less bragging and better euphemisms.
Constitutional viability and law is being challenged from all directions. Regardless of perspective excercising the franchise also figures as creating a record for history. The wave of youthful voters entering the arena is important. Challengers at every polling place.
Great column, Robert. You have captured this moment in history very nicely. I certainly hope that the Obama campaign will help turn attention to the transparent attempts by the GOP machine to steal the 2008 election as investigated by Palast and Kennedy, et al.
What's the occasion?? CD seems to be ladling out an even greater supply of Kool-Aid today. Or is it just my imagination?
There is something to be said about the vision of being one world on this earth. If you walk with that knowledge, a lot of the distance between us will dissolve. However, people are intent on keeping the differneces alive, and then predate on them to make themselves look good. That is the attitude we loose if look at ourselve as world dwellers, wherein the boundaries between us construct instead of destruct.
The right wing and the Islamic Militants work in the destructive way.
We are already bombing pakistan via drones. It is in the part where the Pashtuns rule. Pakistan can not rule this area, it has been forced to withdraw its troops from the area. Is this region, then, still a part of Pakistan? Or is it just considered so on paper? Pakistan is incapable of ruling this area. Why not call it what it is, a independent state, most responsible for the mailaise in the world.
With only three choices, who would you vote for, or not vote, Obama or McCain?
Robert, in case you have not noticed we are no longer citizens. Now we are consumers.
"It may be premature, but I'm announcing it anyway: We've repealed the Bush Doctrine. There's no turning back."
It is not just premature, it is delusional. Obama meant precisely the opposite when he said when discussing aggression against Pakistan and Iran:"All options are on the table."
The author must be confusing the Democrats with the Greens.
as i have stated before - obama is a psy-op created to delude the americans who watch tv that their vote has some meaning, which it does not
just ask the supreme court
the american foreign policy as summed up succinctly by marj simpson - kill them all and let god sort the good ones out from the bad ones
obama sticks his nose up israel's ass and all he can smell are the magnolias in bloom
he has promised to turn the region into a deeper hell hole by bombing pakistan
i read an interesting stat last week about tv: the average age of the major network nightly newscast viewer is 60 - your reward for doing so - katie fucking kuric - looks good on ya
average age of cnn viewers is 58
you old bastards have been deluded for so long that there is no hope for you
young people, who have in small numbers moved to obama largely ignore voting and the sick hateful process that is a campaign
as chomsky says, when something evil takes place the young people often ignore it because it has nothing to do with them
like voting - nothing to do with them
when the supreme court overrides the public vote and awards the presidency to bush - they don't get upset because it has nothing to do with them
it is a waste of time
something that old, cynical fools take part in because they watch too much tv and have nothing better to do
pathetic
no wonder your kids hate you