Foreordained

You know how we always complain when the Xmas decorations go up after Halloween, and we think “why can’t they wait until it’s time”?

Well, Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Mile High Stadium in Denver was a foreordained happening.  It didn’t have to wait for election night.  And however ridiculous that sounds, it’s because it embodies the foremost fact about this election: America knows it has to have a president like Obama or it will become, in George Bush’s ill-chosen words a propos the United Nations, irrelevant.

The music and the fireworks, the streamers and the balloons, celebrated America’s awakening after a much longer sleep than that officially acknowledged.

Continuing on the theme of yesterday’s blog: “America’s High Wire Act”, I will say again that the appearance of a return to the “fundamental values” of the Democratic Party has only been possible because even the most cynical politicians realize that the United States has over time dug itself into a bottomless pit.

The world is moving (largely without us) toward resolution of an eternal struggle, which is now rendered more complex by the requirements of sustainability (or maintaining the planet as a human habitat), and belonging.  In many parts of the world, tribal and territorial conflicts overlay the struggle for fairness.  These need to be sorted out, but we must not lose sight of the fact that belonging is a fundamental human need, while nationalism is a construct whose time has passed.