All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command
"Get Together," The Youngbloods, 1967
You can hear it on the great "Forrest Gump" soundtrack, this call for brotherhood that Clear Channel Communications tried to ban after September 11 from its 1,200 radio stations, along with other songs that were "lyrically questionable."
You're probably not going to hear the song at any John McCain - Sarah Palin rallies, where fear is the order of the day. You know the mood is mean when Senator Arlen Specter, considered a "moderate" Republican, openly touts the Bradley Effect as a McCain secret weapon:
As Rebecca Traister says in her "McCain Gets Mean" report from Pennsylvania today in Salon.com, here is Specter "crossing his fingers and hoping for racism." This is exactly what Europeans fear about Tuesday's election. I am more concerned about polling place confusion, accidental or planned.
I have been in overdrive the past couple of weeks, helping spread the word on Barack Obama to radio, TV, and press audiences in Brussels. My wife has, in her words, become an "Obama widow."
Not that Obama needs any help over here: about the only European political parties that are against him are on the racist extreme right. Today on Belgian TV, socialists and free-marketeers were united in wishing for an Obama victory. Everyone wants a clean break with the party of George W. Bush. But in my debate mode, enumerating Obama's and the Democrats' strong points on foreign policy and the economy, I think that I am neglecting the key factor in why his campaign has caught fire. Hope.
"Hope Is Not A Method" is an excellent 1996 "business" book by retired Army Chief of Staff General Gordon Sullivan and Michael Harper. I fully subscribe to the General's counsel, as would Barack Obama. But while hope alone will not bring America out of its Hobbsian obsession with fear, it serves as a nice capstone to why the Obama campaign has captured the imagination of America and the world.
I fully expect the McCain - and especially Palin - camp to continue their hammering on the theme of fear, whatever the outcome on Tuesday. If elected (which I certainly do not wish for), their administration would be a Bush/Cheney fear-fest on steroids. In opposition, they will feed the right-wing talk radio circuit, now abetted by thousands of internet crazies, busily concocting videos proving that Barack Obama is [fill in the blank for whatever makes people most fearful]. Bill Clinton put up with the crazy fringe for his entire eight years in office. What he had to endure will probably seem tame compared to the frenzy provoked by the thought of an Obama Administration.
Meanwhile, in the real America that just might elect Barack Obama president, hope will be rekindled. Hope that America can once again urge countries to respect human rights without fear of ridicule, and without dictators justifying their torture by citing George W. Bush's caveats. Hope that America's economic well-being will not be jeopardized by Wall Street sharks who take their bonuses and run. Hope that freedoms won by generations of sacrifice will not be trampled by leaders who divide in order to rule.
Last month in the Washington Post, columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote about the 2008 Presidential campaign in terms of hope and fear. He reminded us that in 1932, Herbert Hoover tried to "sow fear and panic" about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, just like McCain/Palin are trying to do now with Barack Obama. If you are wondering how the Depression might have panned out under a re-elected Hoover, check out the McCain Spending Freeze solution.
"You hold the key to love and fear, All in your trembling hand. Just one key unlocks them both, It's there at your command." The key is a vote for Obama. A return to Constitutional governance, a 21st century New Green Deal in the wake of a 1929-like meltdown, and an engagement with the world from a vantage point that does not look down the barrel of a gun. No, he's not the Second Coming. But he may be the last, best chance in a long while that America has to redeem its good name and to recover its spirit. No need to be afraid of that.
