yes I will now not be a spoilsport. That was first elected a black U.S. president, is undoubtedly a historic moment in a class.
But - why you should believe now, everything will be different and better here now that I can not get into his head. reward
The party of "W" Bush with yet another presidency that could and could not even be somehow true. But SOOO big is Obama's lead in the polls now not back down. Even the turnout is already no more than a record, at best, a percentage point more than in 2004, it is now. Because this time was able to motivate the Democratic team player, traditionally Republican voters disenchanted with politics, however, remained at home. So, America wanted a change, sort of, but still not so clear.
Here in Princeton, first, the relief was great. In the city nearly five times as many voters have voted for Obama as McCain, blue for what had previously been to read the many garden-white-red posters with the rising sun. "Now we can see you at our next meeting, at least in the eyes," emailed Betty, in their book club I'm the only foreigner.
just patriotic Americans, they beyond national borders were looking out, at last ashamed for their country or at least cared about its reputation abroad. Due to the disastrous climate policies. Because of the Iraq war, because of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. You could feel it, it was often said even.
Nevertheless, at the Obama enthusiasm many not really ignited. "Ultimately, I'm against McCain rather than vote for Obama," says Debbie, who had by-election campaign sticker on the stroller of her daughter after all, identified as "Obama Mama". For the inauguration, but she wants to go to Washington and also take her six year old son. "Because it is such a historical moment."
Will America reinvent themselves - or has it already - because Obama has become president? If you look at the candidate of his shadow cabinet: Hardly a new face, all veterans, many from the Clinton era. Does not look like the first break.
How should it be, asks Chris, a journalist and nonfiction author who observed the U.S. imperial power for decades inside and outside. Obama had finally become part of the Washington establishment. Who actually wanted to change, would have voted for the Green Ralph Nader. "But they have chosen a better pop star."
Chris sees the U.S. economically and politically with the abyss, "and there is nothing that Obama could do about it." He counts for a lot of reasons for his pessimism: the impoverishment of the middle class and the impoverishment of the people at the bottom of society. The loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs. The disastrous state of infrastructure, visibly ailing bridges as well as on the decline of the public school system. The newspaper death. The excessive waste of energy on all levels, from industry to air conditioners, clothes dryers and SUVs.
Even this election, he reads as a symptom of an incurable disease, the hubris of the imperial power: even the Americans praised himself for the fact that they had made a black man as president, and declared all again World, look, we are the best we can achieve anything if we want to.
Chris lives of his books, and provocative theories sell better. The forecast, the American empire is doomed, has probably produced as many sellers like their counter argument that the U.S. is just really anything is possible, also a new beginning. Represented approximately by the Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye , quoted straight back in the mirror and of course now widespread optimism.
And what does the art? It is hard to remain optimistic when the extremely successful - and frighteningly gloomy - HBO series " The Wire" does. A portrait of the American city, here it is is not Baltimore, it blacker. Here the police do not win against the bad guys, and here no one really wins.
"I did not start as a cynic," protested "Wire" writer David Simon in a lecture to students in his hometown of Baltimore. 20 years ago he was still clearly more confident. But whenever this country - whether at national or local level - since an election had said Simon, had taken a decision against its institutions the value of the people and for the value of money: "Capitalism has become our god. "
The lead America in the fall, believes Simon, because fewer and fewer 'have-alls" are complicated by more and more "have-nots" inward-. At this point, he also sees the racism of our time at work. When whites want to look in the suburbs, no TV reports about the predominantly black drug-hell of the cities, if they continue to zap because they think that I care about anything that has to do with my life nothing
. Not ten miles from our idyllic-rich small town this is Trenton, the capital of New Jersey. A world as it describes "The Wire." The nothing in common with our here.
has
order for the remains there, for example, Princeton's streets and public parking spaces between zwei und sechs clock in the morning absolutely no parking. Who has not yet Garage parking permit who does not live in town or is on residents to visit has to look in the night here, nothing. And to protect its citizens in a place does with 30,000 inhabitants, in which a car theft "big news" is two police authorities. That in the times in which economic crisis was still the question.
"We are a society are unwilling to take seriously their own problems under the microscope," wrote Simon after the "Wire" series to his audience . The American culture shun all Contradictory and complex, or just looking for simple solutions. "We like to excite and provoke, but we are opposed to a hard, painful analysis of situations which could bring us at the end to recognize our problems -. What would be the crucial first step to a single one to solve it"
"The Wire" is about "the America we pay for and tolerate," said Simon. "Perhaps it is possible to pay for, and demand, something more."
Now that America assumes the money, will probably not have much choice but to hope for a miracle. Shows that it still the "land of opportunity" may be also the change in thinking. And as things now Obama has the greatest miracle potential. If not he just the latest and most spectacular "Exciting" was.
(Princeton Post XXII)
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