Putting Obama dreams into perspective

Trail-blazers are not templates

If I see another inane blog that tries to ride the Obama success wave into passing the need to achieve to the next generation, I would most probably become violently sick.

Senator Obama in his achievement is a trail-blazer that reveals just another opportunity to achievement, he is not the way or the path to success – in fact, his path to success was so unlikely, there were unbelievers up till the very moment that victory was declared.

Why not you?

I find it mischievous and silly that suddenly most parents who have written about their child being able to reach the heights that Senator Obama has reached are probably much younger than Senator Obama who is 47.

If I recall, Senator McCain at 72, was about to become the oldest ever first term president, so it goes without saying that those parents might well aspire to high office rather than already conceding to a defeatist complex and immediately passing the mantle of high ambition to their children.

Now, if those parents really do see their kids aspiring to the highest office, I hope they are already breaking their backs giving their kids the best education in the best development environment, having them mix with leaders and commoners alike and charting a clear course to this high office since they can now see the future – unlikely.

So, who came after?

We dream but rarely walk or run towards that dream, we are full of fantasies and hopes which are fine for determining a course but never really engage on that course, rather we hope that we would be translated to the new place by miracles, accidents, luck or chance.

What am I saying here? There are many English mothers who would have dreamt when Margaret Thatcher became the Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, their daughters could become great leaders too, but 29 years on, there is no woman in the horizon going for that post.

Role models are just stars

Imagine how many pathways we would all be looking down if for every first and highest achiever we decided our kids would one day become one and every of those achievements.

A good example is in the week that Senator Obama became the first African-American President-elect, Lewis Hamilton became the first black F1 champion – I should think parents would now enrol their kids in presidency and F1 School?

I do not think so, people like Tiger Woods, Venus & Serena Williams, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Nelson Mandela and many more who are high achievers and first amongst equals are role models, but being a role model does not mean that they are ready for cloning – they are not templates for success, they are revelations of possibilities.

When Tiger Woods won, I would not have been surprised that some parents might have booked golf lessons for their kids without knowing if a birdie or a bogey was a bird, a score or a joke.

They are stars, they allow us to look up, see an array of lights in the sky, point to significant situations and aspire. They are not dies through which we can force our kids so that the resulting mould is a clone of the role model.

The open doors is usually far off

These possibilities only become realities to individuals who capture a vision of what the successes of their role models mean and find a way to work harder and excel at whatever they do.

These trail-blazers might open doors, smash glass ceilings, bring down hurdles and reveal what is possible, but they usually do not have hordes riding right behind them through the openings they have created – we can all aspire to be president, we would not all become president.

The danger is not getting sucked into a do-or-die ambition where the quest for great achievement takes away our humanity and turns us into cold and calculating malevolents.

We can and dream and should dream, we can ride the waves of the successes of those who have gone before us, but one man’s great success does not suddenly confer that victory and status to every child who witnesses that day.

At most, it reveals what is possible, what happens in a lifetime might not get us to the gates we have aspired to pass through, the ability to re-evaluate and reconsider our situations in relation to where we are should lead us to become the best we can become – nothing is impossible, but do we know what is possible and what we can make possible for ourselves?

Cometh the man - President-elect Barack Obama

The coming of a community organiser

Never despise small beginnings – a community organiser in a inner-city and deprived area who for the quality of education and opportunities he could have had, dedicated himself to his supposed calling in search of his identity; today fulfilled the greatest achievement in community organisation by organising the great community of Americans and the world at large to desire his global vision and elect him as the presumptive 44^th President of the United States.

The significance of this result cannot be lost on anyone, not even more on Senator John McCain who gave the most gracious concession speech a few minutes ago.

It is the man

The corporate swell of expectation around the world seeks the leadership that Senator Barack Obama offers in new opportunity, change and hope – if he achieves nothing else, inspiration is the beginning of innovation, inventiveness and willingness to grasp opportunities – he has offered a lot of this to those who have listened to him.

I would not plumb the depths of the surreal, but I once wondered if this was the man [1], the man spoken of through the ages, the man with the answers that change the world in readiness for the inevitability of great historical significance, we are witnesses of this day.

The closures

This also culminates in the lessons that should dog men who seek to go after the achievements of their fathers, President George W. Bush having enjoyed the pleasures of political achievement through his party has after 8 years left it in tatters worse than when his father ceded the office 16 years ago – the polarisation of Americans cannot be an enduring bulwark – Senator Obama has almost destroyed that concept.

Much as I was anxious, when the choices were offered, I never doubted that Senator Obama would prevail on the day – the people who came out to vote were people he inspired to get involved, it would have been a travesty to someone else to reap the fruits of this labour of political savvy and amazing prescience.

Godspeed

Meanwhile, the Mac is back to what he should have been doing all the time, being a good senator and as President-elect Barack Hussein Obama speaks – I wish him Godspeed, wisdom and good health to take up this great mantle of leadership and begin to sculpt a new history for the world.

Congratulations! Mr President.

Sources

[1] Is this the man? [akin.blog-city.com]

Senator Barack Obama

How they ran

As the dawn breaks the world waits for a new page in history or the continuation of an interminable nightmare.

The last 21 months have given us a foretaste in the formidable organisational, management and leadership skills of the contending presidential candidates.

The choice is between one who began to inspire from the first day he decided to run even though he did not seem to have experience and another whose career in the military and politics is exemplary.

Having the nous

But the presidency is not only about the individual but the team that individual can assemble to give that job a good shake down.

In that sense looking at the campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama, it would appear the latter has all the nous to get things done.

Really, if John McCain were to lead just as he has lead his campaign we are in for 4 years of chaos, reactionary outbursts and an inability to really grasp the context of what each event requires and entails – we need a cool headed man at the helm not a frenetic firebrand desperately trying to prove his young has not deserted him.

Interest and desire expressed in money

Indeed, Barack Obama decided against the public funding of his campaign after he offered to take funding – I see the audacity of not just hope but assuredness, he had inspired enough people to put their money where their mouth is in political terms and raised the most money ever for a presidential campaign [1].

Spread of contributions [2] to the campaigns is higher for Obama than for McCain, which speaks volumes – this man started a campaign and created a movement – a movement that overhauled other formidable figures in the wake of his achievements.

If Senator Obama takes this ability to the White House, I think we have the making of an excellent presidency, and so may it be.

A man for Americans

In fairness, it has taken time for me to warm up to the prospect of an Obama presidency, but if good speeches are not part of the stuff of leadership, one does wonder what is.

This man seeks the middle ground that tries to reconcile the polarised American populace to the voice of reason where they can disagree without being disagreeable, for that, he is called a liberal.

Suddenly, one is made to view conservatives as illiberal, intolerant, bigoted and disagreeable, but really neither liberals nor conservatives should be seen in those unnecessarily stark terms, rather, being American first and foremost for the good of America should be what matters.

Change for the better

When I think about change in my life, I am looking to improve things about myself, when I think about change in my circumstances, I am expecting to have favourable outcomes – the possession of that mindset alone is the beginning of change and the birth of newness.

The message of change also bring hope and much hope is not seen but the desire seems to have a compelling force to inspire people to new things – that is what we need of the man in front.

At this juncture we have the call of destiny, the making of history and the dawning of a new beginning, the question is – Are American brave enough to choose the opportunity to look up in expectancy or look down in confused acrimony?

Each vote cast is for America and for the world, a soothing balm is needed to ease the pain, Senator Barack Obama should and must be that choice – destiny’s child calls, heed the call.

Sources

[1] Obama raises record $150 million in September | Reuters

[2] FactCheck.org: What is the average size of Obama's contributions and what is the average size of McCain's contributions?

America: John McCain is NOT the man

The look of a fight

I asked a friend this afternoon at lunch if when he fights he looks up, he said no, because he might just suffer a knockout blow – he is a boxer.

This exemplifies the message the Senator McCain has for the American people and the world of tomorrow, we are in a fight, a bruising fight, and we cannot afford to look up.

We have to look around in anticipation and anxiety, sometimes in fear and terror, when the sucker punch lands, our knees buckle; we are down, defeated in despair, despondency, desperation and wishing for death.

Need a leader of men

We probably do need to fight, but I want to be lead by a leader of men, not a maverick fighter pilot who’s daredevilry might well win that battle but the risks taken in the war are sometimes beyond the price we should be willing to pay.

The greater the number of age, we assume we have a sage, a fount of wisdom coming from years of application, dedication and honest dint of hard work.

Emeritus the contemporary

However, like the Economist opines, this week, it is unlikely that a struggling global conglomerate would call on a 72-year old to run the company.

I would contend that calling on the 72-year old would only make sense if that company was that man’s baby, well, Senator McCain was never the founder of America and he was never close to executive power to be called back to refloat what he built – the question of experience in that matter is moot.

However, the wizen mind of a 72-year old can be found in emeritus positions in academia, the honorary rather than executive chairmanships of organisations and in the retirement and comfort of an easy life of offering counsel, advise and mentorship – beyond that, the man is probably an under-achiever looking for a last break.

The quest of our fathers

A man driven to achieve more than his father and his grandfather is a worthwhile son of his father, but there comes a time where that man should be content with what he has done and built on that rather than desperately want to prove yourself beyond your capabilities.

Then the one time he could have sealed the claim that he stands up to his party, he buckled and jettisoned a lifetime of collaborations, friendships, partnership and liaisons for a lady he had only previously met twice to bolster his ticket, they have already begun to bicker - perish the thought of a White House domestic tiff.

The son of perdition

This is the son of perdition and definitely not destiny’s child, the world has seen enough fighting, enough belligerences, enough divisiveness and enough pain, we need a promise, a hope, a yearning, a vision and a destination that fills us with great expectations.

Senator McCain was a man of great renown, but the call of today, the fight of tomorrow and the making of history requires another man, another ideal, another proposition and a validation of a campaign that has been so well organised and fills us with a hope that makes us look upwards – That man is NOT Senator John McCain.

Rising from the Ashes of the Bushes

More than hilarity with Hillary

I must have been way behind the curve when I heard Hillary Clinton campaign with Barack Obama early this morning.

Something the presidential campaign seems to offers us a number of perspectives expressed in fetching words that one cannot ignore the import of what is being said.

Little did I know, when Hillary Clinton said, “America will rise again from the Ashes of the Bushes” [1], she had said this a few times before [2], and it gets to the heart of the matter.

In the cases of Bush 41 [3] and Bush 43 [4], their tenure might well be recorded in history as that of poor stewardship – of the economy, of opportunity and of American prospects. They have made a bonfire of every fabric of what exudes American supremacy, status and independence.

They may well go down in history as instigators of change, not so much because they advocated change, but because they created the circumstances in which the people could no more abide the continuation of their policies, the time for radical change had come.

The Republican approach

What I found most striking about Hillary Clinton’s speech was that she moved beyond the context of making John McCain a personification of George W. Bush and simply used the more effective blanket coverage of Republican policies.

John McCain might well have the fine defence of saying that he is not George W, Bush but it would be apostasy to declare that he is not Republican.

As I have hoped, a few more people are voicing an opinion about John McCain’s judgement [5] in selecting Sarah Palin as his running mate and there have been no more a damning assessment of the lady than from General Colin Powell [6] to suggest that she is not ready to be President because that is what a Vice President is supposed to be.

The voice of reason gets aired

The voice of reason seems to be getting louder and clearer to hear within the cacophony of negativity and distractions that pervade every organ of interaction and communication.

It is comforting to hear that Senator Obama is by no means a terrorist, that being a Muslim does not make you a un-American or unpatriotic, that taxes should be reviewed and the issue of redistribution as propounded by some is disingenuous and if Obama were a socialist, one wonders what would be said of the $700 billion government bailout of private enterprise banks.

Reason should and must prevail, this starts from the top at the White House and this allows me to end this piece with Hillary Clinton’s words again – sending the Republicans back to Washington to clean up the economic mess was like “sending a bull to clean up the china closet” [2] – that does not need any further explanation.

Sources

[1] Hillary Clinton: US will 'rise from the ashes of Bush' if Obama is elected - US Election, World news - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk

[2] Hillary: America Will Rise Again "From The Ashes Of The Bushes" – Huffington Post

[3] George H. W. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[4] George W. Bush - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[5] Im-Palin-g McCain's picket [akin.blog-city.com]

[6] Powell endorses Obama for president - Meet the Press, online at MSNBC- msnbc.com

Between reflective Obama and reflexive McCain

Still no bailout yet

There were probably some people waiting with bated breath to hear that a deal had been done for the $700 billion bailout of US banks.

In fact, at one time, the news suggested that a deal had been done in principle and not long after it appeared no deal had been done yet [1], people have been shouting at each other – I suppose you can call that debate.

The maverick decides

The move by Maverick McCain to suspend his campaign [2] and move lock, stock and barrel to Washington to trash out a deal with the emotion of concern that almost left us impressed with his commitment was a stunt in everything but name.

Barack Obama refused to be barracked into conceding that leadership was about dropping everything for one thing when generally leaders have to contend with multiple issues in different spheres and still be on top of things.

In fact, once again, the man showed a sense of balance and proportion that one would have expected of an older head like McCain’s who by tradition, one would have thought would be wiser too.

Need for an unadulterated debate

The Presidential candidates do indeed need to work on helping trash out a bi-partisan deal but that should have been done in the background without infecting the debate and negotiations with campaign distraction – McCain’s move was more to stir up the waters and try to wrestle from our minds the fact that he is not that clued in on financial matters.

The foreign policy presidential debate which might take place today would indeed have been overrun with questions about the financial turmoil hitting the markets – it is unlikely that Senator McCain would have been able to convey an air of competence on those matters – in fact, we are just about getting bored with the military and prisoner of war anecdotes that bear no particular significance to the lives and people of today.

News comes in now that Senator McCain would be attending the debate after all [3] – Bless him! Or did I mean something else?

Reflect on the reflex

This man is impulsive, reactionary, driven by sensational whim and devoid of the coolness under pressure that is needed to run a ship of state that is global in its remit.

The fact is 300 million Americans will be electing for 6.3 billion people of the world the next person who can dictate the pace and direction of the near-future world order.

If indeed suspending his campaign in order to concentrate minds had yesterday achieved the impossible and unlikely result, we might have praised him for having great insight and foresight; but as it stands, he has again been reckless and intemperate in the appreciation of issues; I am beginning to have a greater fear for John McCain as president than the looming tsunami of a recession turning into a depression.

None of the options available would have been my choices, but with the choices we now have, I am as sure as I can be that McCain cannot be the right option for a world that needs the calming influence of a reflective leader rather than the impulsive determination of a reflexive maverick.

Sources

[1] BBC NEWS | Business | Bush says bail-out will be passed

[2] McCain suspends campaign to work on Wall St plan | U.S. | Reuters

[3] McCain will attend debate, campaign says - The Debates- msnbc.com

Im-Palin-g McCain's picket

Cultivating relationships

I have made many acquaintances but have very few friends, in fact, the people I call my friends, I have known for at least 15 years, putting that in the time frame of my last long-term partner, beyond that, it goes back 24 years.

Some 22 years ago, when I was made the class representative and a good representative I was, we were a noisy class and when someone challenged me about being the ring-leader of the noise-makers, I had to say if I did not represent my class in noise-making I would not be representing them effectively.

The real context of this is I left that school with 3 good friends, one of whom I have lost contact with in Russia, one with whom I have little contact in Nigeria and the other with whom I talk to quite frequently in London.

These along with the other friends are people I can trust with a lot, talk to about much and expect to act in my behalf just as if I were there without any fear for their judgement and whilst being assured of the quality of their person and integrity.

I am proud to say that where I have recommended these people on my own recognisance they have been accepted in my person and proved to be just as recommended and better.

I have also entered into business dealings with people through having first known them, known their judgement, their values and realised how we can work together for a common good, I do not take these issues lightly at all.

My congratulations to Sarah Palin

It is on this note that I first congratulate Sarah Palin [1] on being selected by John McCain as his vice-Presidential running mate. Until she was selected, I did not know anything about this governor of a backwater state called Alaska [2] apart from the bridge to nowhere [3] which has since been abandoned [4] by her and the indictments [5] of Ted Stevens [6], the longest serving GOP Senator.

What we read about Sarah Palin is interesting, a mother of 5 children, the last being born only in April 2008 with Down’s Syndrome, she is a devout Christian, pro-life and pro-gun politician who seems to be working at cleaning up Alaskan politics.

She has been governor for less than 2 years and might be implicated [7] in trying to obtain the sacking of her ex-brother-in-law who was undergoing a messy divorce and child custody batter with her sister as a serious abuse of power.

Gay abortions of gun marriage

On the issues that excite the conservatives about her candidacy, I find myself more pragmatic than fundamentalist and agree more with Senator Obama’s views on abortion, gun-control and gay marriage as he articulated in his acceptance speech [8].

The need to work on preventing unwanted pregnancies than jostling with the issue of abortion could mean condoms and contraceptives have a place in society, if we are less emotive about presumed societal decay. People would always have sex, it is probably better we ensure they have it safely and avoid regrettable situations.

Being painted as an Annie, Get Your Gun figure does nothing for me, it fact that gun use in the country differs from what guns get used for in the inner cities; there is a need for balance in enacting laws with due respect to the 2^nd Amendment to protect rights as well as protect lives.

If people have a right to love regardless of gender pairing, that love-relationship constitutes their family unit for those concerned such that sharing, caring and privileges should by rights and fairness accrue to that relationship.

I still contend that it is only those whose heterosexual marriages and relationships are weak that think gay marriage would impact on marriage as an institution. If same-sex couples had basic rights conferred on their partnerships, there would be no need for the marriage debate, but the absence of such partnership rights makes many want to go the whole hog and I see nothing really wrong with that.

Time for the United States of Americans

America within itself needs conciliation through pragmatic analysis of social issues not the promotion of political figures that accentuate the wedge issues that divide the people, polarise the nation and try to make traitors of people who disagree about these things.

We need the vision of a new president who brings together the whole country in the unity of purpose looking to change and grasping unto the edifying message of hope than one who dwells on the divisions that has turned America into one of the most divided countries on social issues.

Conservatives and liberals alike have to recognise that they are all American first and the politics of being disagreeable because of the difference of opinion has to stop – I must contend the Obama offers the healing balm of reason that John McCain cannot deign to offer to his most beloved country.

This is no great thing

Nevertheless, I am not excited by any stretch of the imagination about McCain’s choice of vice-President. It is amazing that after so many years in Washington, his numbered years and the need to buttress areas where he is weak, he has chosen to lay such a responsibility on someone he has only met once before, with whom he has no particular affinity.

Nobody can convince me that this selection is borne of some deliberate and considered thinking that binds people who have developed a relationship of mutual aims, goals and vision.

The fellowship of minds

I have just started a new job today, the company has in the past employed the best consultants money could buy to solve intractable problems with solutions that sound amazing but yield none of the expected results.

The team has now regrouped into one that seeks shared experiences with others who they have worked with before to address the problems with the fellowship of minds that are geared to succeed rather than push a particular solution provider’s agenda which just accumulates hours of expensive waffle.

I find myself amongst people who I have worked with in different companies over the last 5 years, who I know, who I respect, who have a shared vision and acknowledging each others expertise and who have gathered together to be a winning team – we know we would crack those problems because we have developed a relationship of peers and expertise.

After an exemplary life

The choice that John McCain has made is the most cynical ploy to emotively use gender sympathies and religious adherence to befuddle voters into a false sense of thinking sameness brings comfort, it offers the opportunity for a complacency that imagines things would be done the way we believe we would do things. How further from the truth can we be about judgement and the assessment of character?

It is a presidency not a bishopric that is at stake, it is about human government not church government. I would be fearful of an ultra-religious person who dreams dreams, sees visions and reckons that God commands them to take some action without considering all the consequences for the basis of secular government.

America has been too divided along wedge issues to tolerate more of the same again for 4 more years.

I am surprised that no one sees that after 72 years of a rather distinguished and exemplary life John McCain could find no friend, colleague, confidant, mentor or protégé in his long political, social, business or military life and career to join him in the most important quest of his life but a stranger.

No judgment no story

This man has no judgment; he fails woefully at what should have been the culmination of relationships with other men and women he has met in all walks of life; this should have had a history and story that fills us with awe, but he picks someone he met only six months ago.

He is both a maverick and breathtakingly reckless; the levers of world government must never be within his grasp.

There is no greater poverty of spirit and goodwill than to share your greatest stage with strangers rather than with friends, with people you hardly know, in order to prove you are different.

This is exactly what makes John McCain unworthy of the calling to which he aspires, he has made vain a lifetime of experiences to hug the limelight alone and he has dangled a juicy bait that has everyone whooping too distractedly to realise that they are being patronised by a consummate denier of his legacy and his original platforms for the want of power.

A picket not a ticket

It has left the Economist asking Bring back the real McCain [9] in their leader this week, just as John Kerry compared and contrasted Senator McCain with Candidate McCain in his speech [10] at the Democratic National Convention last week.

The selection of Sarah Palin does not present us with a McCain-Palin ticket, rather it is an appalling McCain picket; it is not revolutionary but reactionary, it not inspired but desperate, it is not conciliatory but anarchist, it not cultured but vulgar, it is not considered but rash, it is maverick in its context and reckless to the extreme.

For a man of John McCain’s stature to impose on a nursing mother he hardly knows regardless of her abilities and suitability a responsibility so large as to create the most exacting pressures on her needs to satisfy motherhood and the call of office is in the least irresponsible and at the most heartless.

If the 3:00AM advertisement [11] would ever question the ability of anyone to meet the demands of a great crisis, just imagine accommodating that under the stress of nursing a child that most definitely needs that extra bit of care and having another child away in harm’s way in a war that should never have been started.

I am sorry, this selection is not gentlemanly at all and it proves once and for all that Senator John McCain is probably better a senator and definitely not material for a president by any stretch of the imagination.

The man is just not the man we used to know.

Sources

[1] Sarah Palin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[2] Alaska - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment

[4] 'Bridge to nowhere' abandoned - CNN.com

[5] Nation & World | Ted Stevens indicted, longest-serving GOP senator | Seattle Times Newspaper

[6] Ted Stevens - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[7] Alaska Public Safety Commissioner dismissal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[8] Obama: We are better than these last eight years - CNN.com

[9] The presidential race | Bring back the real McCain | Economist.com

[10] Transcript: Sen. John Kerry On Foreign Policy : NPR

[11] Hillary Clinton, 3am commercial White House Ad - Truveo Video Search