pots and pans

I was too excited to sleep and all the reports from the BBC, interviewing regular, incredibly excited and inspired americans was just too much for me to stay in bed anymore. It's so strange. I don't have high hopes for the obama administration, I am simply inspired by the movement of the people.

Americans have chosen to come together in one important respect: we will not be represented by people of questionable integrity and intellect motivated only by the interest of a few. And I know so much of this "change" is impressively powerful propaganda and spin but, goddamit, it was the right spin, the spin that I was looking for and clearly what the majority of americans were seeking. Obama has managed to harness the mistrust, the cynicism and suspicion of progressively-minded people and link it simply to a need for change and to himself as a catalyst, the first, on a national level, to crest the coming wave of new political leadership.

I don't believe that racism and bigotry and hate based on ignorance have been blasted from this country by electing a black president but it is heartening to hear so many people of different backgrounds and ethnicities sharing their own inspired and excited feelings regarding the significance of this change. I believe america is a country founded on opportunism, greed, dominance, and fierce and unyielding autonomy. None of these forces come together to foster any level of compassion or openmindedness but from it's inception, due to it's rampaging pace and growth, america has been in discussion with a strong and tempering force for reflection and compassion that at key moments has found footing and a voice, inciting change for the good of the people.

America's history has nurtured the debate between these two forces and for the first real time in my life, I feel that america is maturing: remembering this discussion, collectively leaning towards cooperation, towards community, striving towards some common ground where we can just begin to consider that we all may have more in common than not. I keep thinking on the words of the poem by Emma Lazarus, carved at the Statue of Liberty monument and I feel that today they ring a little truer:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"