The Maturity of the US
Some people go through life without sharing or witnessing anything worthwhile, they live and die without leaving a mark on this earth. I have been fortunate to have witnessed several events during my life that are called historical events that left a mark on the face of history.
A historical event does not necessarily have to be a good or positive one, it could be a sad one, the assassination of a good president, launching an unjustifiable war, anything of that kind while a historical event that will be remembered, it is not a pleasant one.
In my life so far, I have witnessed the 1952 revolution or Coup d'état depending on which side of the truth you stand, the landing on the moon, the 1967 war and defeat of the Arabs, the 1973 war the only one that was not unanimously called a defeat for the Arabs, the fall of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany and fall of the Berlin wall, not to forget the 9/11 attack, all are events that reshaped the history of many nations and peoples. But last Tuesday, November the fourth 2008, I have witnessed and was a part of the “Maturing of the US”, an event that shook not just the US but the entire world.
Why do I think that this election marked the “ maturity” of the US, it was not its birth, for the US was born several centuries ago, but just like a human being, it grew, and it learned many things, good, bad and Ugly, it was exposed to many things as a nation, and like an adolescent, who knows what is right and what is wrong, but continues to do the wrong thing, the time always come for him to reach maturity, where he not just knows the right thing, but do the right thing, and the US had known the right thing all along, but this was the time to mature and do it.
When I first heard of Obama, I thought that he was another African American name to be added to the others before him who ran for office, they have actually been running for office since the 60s, in every election there was always a black candidate, a symbol but never a serious contender, none of them ever won a single state, none was ever nominated as the candidate of their party, and none was ever even nominated as a vice president. So hearing about Obama for the first time, I thought here is another one to be added to the list.
But not until the first debate, and he was debating some of the most known ,strong , experienced and savvy candidates, with many years of political participation and support of the Democratic party, I noticed a very well balanced, educated, intelligent, well informed, calm and collective candidate, his views were NOT from the same school as the other black candidates in the past, his philosophy was not the same and was not running on (I am a Black man) agenda. He was running on a platform of personal responsibility, not crying for injustices against blacks, but for blacks to be responsible for their actions, and that separated him from the others. My interest in him lead me to try to find out about him, and to my surprise and pleasure, I found him to be highly educated, to be one who sacrificed a lot, to be at a disadvantage since his birth, to be self made successful individual who earned everything that he acquired. I could not do anything but support his candidacy, despite my Republican affiliation.
All through the primaries, and every time I listened to him or see him on TV, I was convinced that I could not vote for anyone else.
I wrote an article in mid July that was posted here and on other sites on the net, it was written prior to the DNC convention, and prior to nominating him the Democratic party’s candidate, prior to the selection his VP , prior the collapse of wall street and the banking industry…etc, in this article I predicted few things and I leave it up to you to make your own judgment about its accuracy, here is one paragraph from the article titled” a win for McCain is a win for Ben Laden”
Therefore, while I predict that Obama will win this election, and by a very comfortable margin, despite all the pundits predictions of a very close election, and despite all the polls that show a dead heat, all indicators points to the desire and need of the American people to have a major change or overhaul in the course this country is taking. The economy is a major factor, and whatever the congress and the white house try to do to improve it and turn it around, there is no way they will, the combination of inflation due to the oil prices, that impacted all other prices specially food , a higher unemployment, the problems with the banking industry, the airlines, the housing and real estate slowdown, the deflation of the values of homes, the foreclosures and bankruptcies, the skyrocketed heath care expenses ……and the list goes on, many of these problems are happening in a new way that is unprecedented in this country, where the remedy of one problem complicates the other. The American citizens for the first time in their life if they are 60 years and younger, have never seen or experienced before, on the top of that they still have a very unpopular war in Iraq, there is no way the independent voter –who will decide this election - will vote for the continuation of the same policies, and McCain will never be able to dissociate himself from these policies of Bush regardless of how much he tries, simply because they are very similar.
Obama ran a unique and outstanding campaign, financed to the last dollar by contributions from the voters, therefore he owes no one anything, unlike all the previous presidents, who won the Whitehouse, but had to pay back all those who helped them get there, be it special interest or lobbyists, Obama on the other hand owes all to the voters, so it is more likely that he will govern with this in mind. Not to mention that he, as the first black president, will do all he can to make sure that his legacy is that of a great president not a mediocre one.
Now that he has been elected to lead this nation, there was a sigh of relief not just in the US, but all over the world, he had more support abroad than right here in the US, the entire world resented the Bush administration, resented the unilateral actions and decisions, resented the way they dealt with rest of the world as if they owned it. But now it is not the end of the line, it was not the goal just to elect Obama and all the world’s problem will be resolved, it is only the beginning, the task ahead is gigantic, the problems resulting from the foolish and misguided policies of the Bush administration are incalculable, the hole they dug is so deep, and it will take tremendous work on everyone’s part to resolve. The economy is as close to depression as it can get, the health care system is broken, the housing foreclosures is at a record high, the unemployment is the highest in the past 18 years and mounting, the education ,environment, deficits, energy, require immediate attention, not one indicator seems to be in a positive territory, add to that the US is involved in not just one but two wars that are being fought longer than world war two, a crisis looming in the middle east around Iran’s nuclear programs, and of course the Palestinian Israeli conflict and peace talks that has been stalled, on top of all of that, the creditability of the US that has been shattered in the eyes of the international community, that is what Obama fought for, and that is what he got by winning this election.
George W Bush will go in the history of the US as one of, if not THE worse president, he inherited form Clinton an economy with surplus, and he is leaving the Whitehouse in a couple of month with a mountain of problems that it will take an act of God to resolve, but on the bright side, if he did not run this country to the ground, Obama may have not had a chance to be elected, and to make history, to bring this country to maturity.
P.S. while typing this article, every time I wrote the name “Obama” , the spell checker did not recognize it and underline it in red, I think in no time, this will change, when all spell checkers and dictionaries will recognize this name and add it , after all, dare they not recognize history!!
