Introduction: American Politics -- The Rise of Obama and 'Change We Can Believe In'

For those of you who have not read any of my work yet, my name is David Bain and I am a Canadian.

So, for those of my readers who may be American, the question might quite legitmately be asked: 'What right does a Canadian have writing about American politics?'

The answer is this: the President that the American people choose in this next election is going to have a huge influence on world politics -- which includes Canadian politics -- in at least the next 4 years or so if not longer. And right now the world is a very unstable place between the war in the Middle East, the rise in the number and the impact-extent of natural disasters, and the instability of the American economy which is influencing Canada, as well as the rest of the world.

I am trying to usher in a partly new, partly old -- but revived -- brand of politics that emphasizes such ideas as: 'checks and balances', 'homeostatic balance', 'Integrative-Multi-Dialectic-Democracy', 'Integrative Humanistic-Exisktentialism', 'Integrative Rational-Empiricism', 'Integrative-Romantic-Enlightenment-Idealism', 'Integrative Constructionist-Deconstructionism' or conversely, 'Integrative Deconstructionist-Constructionism', 'pragmatism and functionality'...and more...

Now there are a lot of fancy, technical terms just mentioned. Most of these are not as forbidding as they may sound for those of you who may not have a philosophical background -- which is where most of them come/came from.

Real-live examples can go a long way towards 'closing the gap' between their 'strangeness' as they may now sound and their 'pragmatic-functionality' once you become more and more familiar of how they are being used.

Right now Obama is my political man. I emphasize -- the words 'Right now'.

In my DGB philosophy -- and this is borrowed from Heraclitus (one of the earliest Greek philosophers), Korzybski and Hayakawa (General Semantics), and Perls (Gestalt Therapy) -- 'Everything is subject to change'.

So far Obama has shown that he is a great orator -- has shown that he can revive and restore lost political hope, faith, and optimism in a Western World -- America, Canada -- that has lost most of its hope, faith, and optimism in its politicians based on false and/or broken promises, false expectations, false assertions, misled values, goals, and dreams...

For most Americans, the Bill Clinton years must seem like a 'lost Utopia' -- a time not long ago when there was a stable, productive American economy with a more valuable dollar, less debt, less terrorism and less war...

Now unfortunately for the Clintons, and Hillary in particular -- perhaps Bill Clinton 'lost some of his old charisma, charm, and composure -- and intruded too harshly into his wife campaign for the Democratic nomination.

I didn't follow everything from the very start, but from what I understand and now perceive, Hillary Clinton started out as the prohibitive favorite, had all the 'big money' donators when she started, perhaps underestimated at least one of her opponents, got off to a slow start herself while Obama wss 'wowing people with his great oratory speeches'...turned to 'old-style politics' and 'throwing every possible criticism at Obama hoping that one might stick'...got a lot of help from the Reverend Wright..and the pastor after that...Obama was accused of being 'elitist' and started to lose the 'lower-middle class working voter' to Clinton...the more that people told Clinton that she should 'give up' the nomination, the harder she worked, and the better she finished...It was like she was a 'baseball team behind 9-5 in the seventh inning and lost 10-9 in the ninth inning'...Towards the 'last innings' it was her husband who became more and more unglued, unravelled, losing his composure, in the face of defeat...I didn't read the newspaper article that set Bill Clinton off, so perhaps I am being unfair here if his tirade against the journalist was justified...

However justified Bill Clinton may or may not have been in calling the journalist 'slimy', the Clintons themselves didn't completely run an ethical campaign... There was some 'good, old-fashioned trash-talking', Hillary Clinton trying to get the Democratic Ethics Committee 'to move the goalposts wider when she found herself down by too many goals late in the nomination match'. She apparently knew -- and agreed -- that the Florida and Michigan State delegates wouldn't count when she started her campaign but made a big issue of this later when she knew that she needed these votes to improve her final count.

Hillary Clinton may have her 'Demcratic' and 'political' strengths -- she may yet do a lot of good for American politics to the extent that she can help with the implementation of universal health care, help lower university tuitions, help increase old age pensions, help the plight of middle class and lower-middle class workers and families in America...but at the same time, there is a lot of 'old-style, down and dirty, behind the scene, Washington politics in Hillary Clinton -- and I do believe that is much of what the American people want to see cleaned up in Washington...That is why they have turned and/are turninng to the 'fresher', less tarnished politics -- 'The Change We Can Believe In' -- of Barack Obama.

What attracts me mainly to Obama is 1. his 'integrationism' as opposed to the 'Either/Or Divisionism' of Republican politicians like Bush and McCain.

Sorry, Mr. McCain but for the first time, you really put your foot in your mouth the other day -- exposing the type of politician you are going to be. There may be many bad things happening politically in China and Russia -- as if there aren't in America -- but the last thing America needs right now is two more new 'cold war enemies'. Didn't you learn anything from Bush's 'axis of evil' speech. 'Good' and 'Bad' Divisionism tends to only exaperate already existing political problems -- if anything, turning the countries you label as 'bad' in an even worse direction -- and speaking unilaterally a la Bush -- without any 'wholistic support from the United Nations as a team'(which America completely alienated itself from when it walked away from the United Nations diplomatic negotiating table...)

War was more important to Bush than peace...or so it would now seem...and now after a decimated economy, McCain wants to 'wag the finger of righteousness and blame' at China and Russia. Look inside, Mr. McCain, look inside first. Address the internal problems of America -- and the estrangment of diplomatic, international public relations -- before you start to add two more countries to America's 'house of blame' and 'list of enemies'. If there is one thing that I think most Americans have learned from this Iraq/Middle East debacle -- it's that 'they can't police the whole world alone and expect to economically, physically, and/or emotionally survive.

America needs a whole host of international allies that it can't keep walking away from when it doesn't like what they say. Nor can it keep attacking 'rogue nations' on the basis of 'unilateralism' without the proper international -- read United Nations -- support.

America, if you are going to preach democracy to the whole wide world, then you better play by democratic rules -- and unilateralism is definitely not democratic -- or be viewed as international, political hypocrites.

If you are going to break the rules of democracy on the basis of 'perceived American narcisssitic wish and/or need' -- then internationally, America is going to be viewed as 'preaching democratic hypocrisy', a 'democratic sham', a 'democratic dog and pony show' being used to attempt to hide -- or not hide -- its underlying narcissism, arrogance, and democratic corruption. That's Bush, less so but partly Clinton, and now McCain -- old style, dirty politics -- moving the goal posts wider in the international community of politics to accomodate narcissistically perceived American need.

Right now, I will stick with Obama's 'integrative and wholistic idealism' -- ideals that are more or less a carbon copy of what I am trying to trumpet here in Hegel's Hotel.

Every man and woman has the right to trumpet his or her own particular brand of idealism -- at least until it is shown that their idealistic talk is a 'sham', a 'dog and pony' show for other more covert and underhanded, sinister, manipulative, narcissistic, hypocritical, corrupt agendas...We haven't gotten there yet with Obama -- so here is for hoping that he continues to sincerely and transparently create -- 'Change That We Can Believe In'.

dgb, June 6th, 2008.