Re: <nettime> second thoughts on the American election

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

Agreed. And not all Dems and Indies are friends of Obama. There are
wide gaps among his supporters, separated by race, by age, by politics,
by income, by gender, by prejudice, and more. His avowed intention
to combine these disparates into a workable whole has come to
pass for the election but it is not at all certain this is more than
a temporary infatuation with him and his eloquence, and, to be sure,
disgust with the current regime.

Obama has not yet gone beyond quite effective rhetoric and promissories,
and that is what marks him as a professional politician, for now, and it
remains to be seen if he can perform up to the level of his promises.

Many of his supporters have filled his inviting vessel with their hopes
and aspirations. Can he work magic in deed as well as word? Let us
hope he can, we can, if you will, beyond hope of the electoral stage.

There are ample precedents for a winning demogoguery that becomes
its opposite, by slow degrees as it fails to deliver to all those who
succumbed to wishful thinking -- wishes all too common when
desparate.

Vote for Obama's and our success in the long run by not expecting 
him to do what is ours to do: work for democracy among the people
and never pin our hopes on a leader, and certainly not on the present
form of heirarchical US government.


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