American Renaissance

A few months ago, the triggers were just starting set off alarm bells at systemicide and elsewhere. The edge of the financial crisis was just beginning to show its true colors, the presidential primaries were still at a fire pitch, and the depths of the Bush administration's mismanagement of the United States government prompted many to have simultaneous attacks of rage and panic. The America we had once imagined seemed far from reach, a distant and utopian cousin of the demented reality that lay around us.

And yet now, as we are beginning to get a fuller sense of the darkness which is about to enshroud our great nation in the form of economic suppression, there is a budding of optimism and renewal not often associated with the brisk winds of November. There cannot be a derision of the crisis we now face in the financial markets, markets that have reflected the childish and flippant attitude of policy makers and business people alike. The next administration will inherit a bevy of problems, all characteristic of a wholly unsustainable culture that will continue to face serious challenges in a rapidly changing world.

Barack Obama is poised to become the first black President of a country whose grandparent generation remembers segregation as commonplace and racism as policy. The false equation of progress and profit has revealed itself to be a great hoax, and the simple truths of ethics and humanity are proving themselves again to be the most important guidelines for our behavior. There was a great sense of guilty glee involved in the recent bubble, as young hedgefunders absconded with money they knew was essentially artificial and mortage giants continued to turn their backs on worst case scenarios and tested the limits of deregulation and modern market mechanics. The nature of this economic trend upward and downward will be taught in business classes for a long, long time.

Obama will, if he succeeds, have the unique and impossible task of leading a post-modern nation state embedded in a global economy into a new era of prosperity, sustainability, and dignity. Within this duty he will have to engage with and re-create nearly every major institution of our current systems of government and production, taking a mandate from the people of the United States. And he will be compensated with the most intense scrutiny ever directed at an executive figure in this country.

Because the nature of the task ahead is so gargantuan, so indescribably enourmous, Obama will be sure to fall short by the measures of some, and he will struggle at times to match the ideals of the public with the realities of their implementation. That all Americans believe in universal heath coverage as an ideal does not mean they are ready or willing to accept the fiscal and cultural implications of a working solution - higher taxes and the chance of a "socialist" tag.

Even in crises, however, there is opportunity. Rising from eight years of American deterioration, what we have stumbled upon in Barack Obama is a man of pragmatism and belief - a man whose judgment arises from a commitment to accurate information, prescient and competent advice, and a moral and ethical code that has been hardened and tested empirically and philosophically, in varied experience and careful contemplation. Yes, he is well-educated, in the traditional sense. He may even be guilty of the "intellectual" label often placed upon him by detractors and skeptics. But Barack Obama is a man who understands thorough preparation and vigorous study. He is also a man firmly grounded in the realities of American life, and as President of the United States his talents and methods will be employed in the service of the American people, and utilized to their fullest extent in the most pressing matters of our time.

On this election night, in this crucible of history, we will witness a change that has been too long coming. For those Americans who have been hurt, and wounded - you will be healed. To those Americans who have been swindled and lied to - you will be redeemed. To those Americans who have been marginalized and silenced - you will be heard. To those Americans who have been belittled, and disempowered - you will lifted up. To those Americans who have been disappointed and disenchanted - you will be vindicated. And to all of us - Americans - we will be gifted with a chance to recreate our nation in the image of its founders, to lift ourselves above the mire of warfare and the anxiety of recession, and to make for ourselves an America that once again may serve as a beacon of light and freedom that casts a reassuring, confident, and inspirational glow across our oceans and into the farthest reaches of the globe.

May God Always Bless America.