Soul Brother: What Obama-Critics Don’t Get

Posted on March 4, 2008 — A. Couts
Filed Under Politics |

When Barack Obama speaks, his critics are more bothered by the enthusiasm of his crowds than the meaning of his words. They see the soaring of his rhetoric as proof that his claims are baseless. They declare language unimportant, and say action is all that matters, as if the two are mutually exclusive. They attack him on lack of experience and try to confuse his patriotism, and think that white voters only support him out of guilt. But what they don’t understand is that through a deft combination of pragmatism, wisdom and powerful oratory with an ability to inspire even the apathetic, Obama offers Americans a path to reclaiming the soul of our national greatness in a way no other candidate running can. That is why we are enthusiastic.

Roughly seven years ago, we witnessed our homeland attacked by unfamiliar men born of a culture we still don’t truly understand. Since then, we’ve allowed the coating of our everyday lives in a blanket of fear, woven by leaders elected to uphold our nation. We’ve seen our Constitution shredded, treated like toilet paper with warrant-less wiretapping, missing emails, and a criminal dismissal of habeas corpus. We waited anxiously as an American city was destroyed, its people abandoned. We watched American soldiers transformed into momentary monsters at Abu Ghraib and, through our government, are repeatedly involved in the dastardly inhumane act of torture.

We’ve grown disgusted by our leaders’ ideological, cowardly, pathetic agenda that has tarnished our name around the world and made our cities and people less safe through haphazard policies and an embarrassingly mismanaged war in Iraq–one that should have never been waged, and has killed too many for too long; a war that has financially chained us to China and dragged us into a murky bog of a weakening economy and unfathomable national debt.

Still, our American pride remains. As it should. But the source of this pride, the strength of our soul, has been lost in the vicious mix of bickering, and a disregard for our standards as a people that has come to define American politics. This hollow shell where cynicism equals wisdom and the louder you speak the more true your opinion. A place where cowardice leads to abandoned civil liberties and fear of an enemy rots our subconscious. This is the world in which we now live, and must survive. A new era with new questions. New problems with a need for new answers.

Sen. Obama understands this world, a world that needs to hope. But, as Obama is first to point out, hope alone is not enough. People like to question his ability for change, but the change of which Obama speaks is not merely reliant on him. It relies on all of us to demand action from our government that will reinforce the foundation of American greatness. He is offering his superb political abilities as a tool to the American people with which to fix the collapsed veins of our democracy. And he is making this job possible by promoting bipartisan politics, translucency in government, honesty in words, strength in judgment and a refusal to sacrifice the will of the American people for a politics of pandering that now controls Washington.

It is with this great asset, a man of astounding character with a rich history of public service, that we will work tirelessly to fix what has been broken by the outgoing administration and build the mechanisms necessary to carry us successfully into a rapidly changing future. This is not a movement of infatuation and foolishness, but the march of a people seeking a way out of the fog of this new century and into the light of a new day. It is an acceptance of the dire state of our world, not a denial of reality, which motivates us to act, to learn, to be involved and pay attention. And all this will be achieved through a immovable embrace of the values that make up our true national soul: Fairness, inclusion, strength, honesty, hard work, determination and yes, hope for a better tomorrow. Anything less would be un-American.






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