Things can only get better
Posted by Handsome.P.Wonderful on 5 November 2008 - 9:14am.
Someone once said "God bless America...and please hurry". It feels like a good day today.
Any musical suggestions to celebrate a new leader of the free world?
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Curmudgeon
How about 'Won't Get Fooled Again'?
I'm with you.
Obama is clearly a brilliant performer. It was heart warming that Jesse Jackson who marched with Luther King (I think he might have been beside him when MLK was shot?) stood and watched as such a landmark of integration and anti-discrimation was achieved through the election of (in the slightly strange but accurate words of Jeremy Paxman) "a man with a black parent". On one hand there is a sense of anything is possible....
Yet, it feels oddly familiar. Cast your mind back to May 97. Didn't it feel sort of the same. And ten years later when Blair left office didn't it feel very different.
Obama is clearly a special charismatic individual. He looks a good man. And its great Bush will head off into the sunset. But what's the old saying Power corrupts... He now has a lot of power. And what was McMillan's definition of the problem of politics "events dear boy, events". Obama has a lot of those ahead of him. And looking at his track record he doesn't have a great deal of experience of events or exercising power.
Whilst I'm usually a glass half full sort of person, I suspect we will all be heartily disillusioned in a couple of years. And all of this renewal will be lost. Maybe its my age! I hope I'm proved wrong but there it is...I am firmly in the sceptical "Won't Get Fooled Again" camp. Bah humbug!
I kinda agree with you dolly...
BUT....you mention you're normally a 'glass half full' kind of chap and that's one of those binary things. You're either in the 'half full' camp or the 'half empty'.
Obama or McCain was (realistically) another 'binary' choice. The new guy might be utter crap. But at least he's not McCain (who, of himself, i kinda liked, but wouldn't vote for) accompanied by that vile harridan Palin.
I think that John McCain is, of the two, the guy I'd much rather have a pint with, but I'd think Obama to be slightly better at running the country. And this is as it should be. Most of my drinking buddies can't be trusted to operate the remote controls for their televisions, much less buttons marked BIG RED NUKE...
course, in the case of Dubya, it seems that a lot of Americans were happy to have the guy they'd like to drink with be in charge...
My point
was not that he wasn't the best of the two candidates nor that he and his vp were not the better team - i believe they probably were. I just think (in the words of Yvonne Elliman) he's just a man - and of the politician variety as well. No matter how we project our hopes onto him, we'll find in time that his breath smells, he tells bad jokes and cocks up under pressure. Like the rest of us. He ain't going to save the world. He's just the latest President. I think a lot people think he just might save the world and his failure to do so will lead to severe didsppointment.
I had great hopes of New Labour. I was euphoric in 1997. I am hitherto realistic/cynical about all politicians.
and re glass half full. I am of that binary choice in general. About politicians and professional footballers (even the great Steven Gerrard last night)the glass looks a little empty. PS I am really enjoying Prescott on Class - good to see he's found something he's good at.
oh aye - i'm with you on that...
He's not the Messiah. I don't for a minute delude myself that somebody could climb that greasy poll without having sold a smigdin of his soul to a few vested interests. Like i say, the only choice was either him or 'the other guy', and with the latter having the baggage he had, the Obama victory is made a little better.
However, I will say in Obamas favour...as i got up this morning, they were replaying his speech, the one where he keeps on repeating 'change' in it. Despite that (d'oh) i can't remember the text of it, i remember stopping to listen and thinking to myself that this *was* going to be one of those speeches that people would remember and that he'll have to do his damnedest to deliver upon its promise.
As for the delivery -maybe i'm a naive schmuck under it all, but he's awfully awfully good at sounding sincere. Obviously the Walter Kronkite comment that 'once you can fake it' is at the back of my mind, but hopefully it stays there for quite some time!
Life is transient..
Of course, as Enoch Powell pointed out; "all political lives end in failure." But, you know, we live a short life with very few moments like today's and so when these events do occur I think one has an obligation to be optimistic but not naive. Our society's cynicism reflex is well developed - for justifiable reasons- but occasionally, just occasionally, an event like this occurs and it really is the fulcrum in a change for good. I am not saying that today's event is such a fulcrum, but to dismiss it straight away as Business as Usual is too easy. Change will never occur if the possibility of change is dismissed.
Oh dear I am beginning to sound like David Carradine's Master in Kung Fu...where that rice paper mat.
I haven't got the entire facts
...and to anyone who knows me that won't come as a total surprise...
But I'm reliably informed that many of the things he has regualrly pilloried Republicans for he has done so publicly and then tacitly voted for
it's like the old Bill Hicks thing - "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking...mmm....I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs......hang on - there's just one hand holding up both puppets GO BACK TO SLEEP AMERICA"
* Also - wouldn't it be more of a triumph if the man's race was irrelevant?
An elephant in the room
In the middle of all the new-era-this and historic-that spin in all the world's media this morning, my wife commented that great though it undoubtedly is for 13% of the American population to finally have one of their number in the White House, they might have catered to the missing 50% of the population first.
Somebody has to ask...
I can't be the only one who (genuinely) doesn't know what you mean, Archie. What missing 50%? What 13%
I suspect...
...Archie's wife, like mine, is a Hillary supporter (my wife had a bit of a problem with Obama, purely because Hillary didn't win the nomination). My own view is that a black president is good and a white woman would have be just as good. As long as it wasn't another old, white man.
The 13%
?
The African-American population
50%
And by 50% did you mean those who didn't vote?
% % %
If 90% of the 13 % voted for Obama what % of the 50% mentioned above voted for him so that he won 54% of the vote ?
Ice Cube
It Was A Good Day
(complete with the rhyme, "...cos I didn't need to use my AK" - snigger)
Manic Wednesday
Given that the BBC is reporting that the exit polls show that Mr McCain won "the white vote" by 55% to 43% despite the mess that America is currently in, how about the Manic's "Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart"?
Get the obvious suggestions out of the way:
One Day Like this - Elbow
A Change is Gonna Come - Sam Cooke
Black President - Nas
and of course the song that got the ball rolling in the 1970s:
"Chocolate City" by Parliament:
Couldn't find Harry secombe's version.......
Mighty Might Spade & Whitey
Which comes with party atmosphere and a truly terrible guitar solo.
Been a long time coming
I know it's cheating to point to another thread (and this one isn't just replicating it) but people came up with some wonderful songs here, pre-election:
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/painting-the-white-house
Today I've been listening to lots of the old civil rights songs - Nina Simone, Sam Cooke and so on, and they've never sounded so moving.
There really isn't a song...
...that could better this magnificent performance. I confess I had a tear in my eye whilst driving to work this morning when they played this on the Today programme. But then I did cry when I went to see Armageddon at the cinema so pay no attention,
Surely this?:
Ah yes...
...the relentless, pumping sound of Go-Go. That came and went didn't it?
Not in my brain it didn't.
Nor, indeed, on about ten year's worth of Designers Republic record sleeves.
It may not be..
as popular as it once was, but it's still going. I'm listening to GoGoRadio.com as I type!
Obvious choices, but...
...Obama's speechwriters were clearly thinking of Sam Cooke's A Change Is Gonna Come and Lee Dorsey's Yes We Can.
http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2008/11/04/sevens-politiko-a-change-is-g...
http://redkelly.blogspot.com/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/us_elections_2008/7710079.stm
"It's been a long time coming...change has come to America".
Or possibly
With all this 'Yes We Can' stuff, Bob the Builder. It all smacks of 1997 and the hot air of Blairism to me. Still, give the bloke a chance, he can't do any worse, etc.
Bruce Springsteen
I see Bruce has a new stars and stripes branded version of Suicide's excellent 'Dream Baby Dream' available on iTunes. It sounds a great combination in theory, but in practice it's a bit dull.
Jay-P meets "Mr Rascal"
Jeremy Paxman just spoke to Dizzee Rascal on the Newsnight special on Barack Obama. There wasn't any friction, or goofs, and it was a reasonable discussion. But I'm still cringing.
Did Paxo. . .
call him "Mr Rascal"?
Yes.
He did.
If only Ol' Dirty Bastard were still alive. I'd love to have seen Paxman discussing the election with Mr Bastard.
Ah, here it is - Mr D. Rascal on "Newsnight":
Why is he imitating Tim Westwood?
And why does he keep talking about an insignificant Vietnamese province (Naat Minh)?
And where can I get one of those caps with the peak at the back?
But Archie...
...he can't be imitating Tim Westwood! Tim Westwood is a white 51-year old man from Lowestoft. If Westwood spoke like Dizzee he'd sound like a complete twat.
Exhibit 1, M'Lud
Guilty as charged
And the amazing thing is, for Westwood, this clip is almost BBC 'Received Pronunciation'.
I wonder
What his old dad, the former Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, would have made of all that. Sons of the manse, man, they're often the rummest of coves.