Obama Nation


I confess that whether or not Obama wins the Presidency, I am convinced he will be the winner in a deeper sense, as is Howard Roark in Ayn Rand's novel, "The Fountainhead." Roark embodied the observation by Rand that "Some men want to be great, and some men want to be known as great." I am fascinated to watch the confrontation of Obama with the shadow, as he sees an older man he admired and trusted expose the narcissism behind his gifts. They were for Wright's mother all along, and in his innocence, which is actually very charming, the aging preacher defended his mama from being disrespected.

The western sun reflects upon
the snow white villas scattered on
the hillsides of the city of Yas Waddah.
The Countess dressed in black and white
has a rapacious appetite
and everyone is food who surrounds her.
Selected men they worship her
they stroke her cat and learn to purr
that they'll kill anyone who offends her.

(Poppy Trail ©2000 Dan Lee)

One of the interesting things I find in watching the Obama drama unfold is the difference between the men who are mentoring and supporting this young man who has such extraordinary gifts, and those who would like to bring him down to ordinariness. If he can just lose whatever quality it is which lifts him up toward leadership, he might be acceptable.

This does not come from the lower middle class. It is imposed on them by the media. The very qualities which define the media are also unconscious to its members. They do not themselves think Obama is guilty by association with a minister who is having a lot of trouble becoming an old man, and does not want to give the mantle to the young man. No, it's not them. It's the working class, or the middle class white people, and as they report this negative reaction from middle class whites, the people who think of themselves as middle class whites begin to feel they have been disrespected. Sometimes a sacrifice is a created need.

Social mobility is upward, unless you move into Bohemian society, in which the identification is with the class just below. It's a kind of Kundalini running through the spine of the western culture, flowing up one direction and down the other. Disrespecting upwardly mobile people who are already insecure is a bad idea. Hillary understands. They have to be fed their own reflection, because, black or white, we have beneath it all the same narcissism. As Mark Twain observed, God created man in his image and man has been returning the favor ever since.

What is most fascinating about Obama is how little they can actually find out about him that they can use against him. It has to be pretty much guilt by innocent association. The funniest one was the Weatherman, William Ayers. He's now a professor living in the same neighborhood as Obama, and they were on some board together. As with Wright, and with Rezko, he came into contact with people in the course of normal business. There is never any evidence that he did anything wrong, conspired with anybody, or took part in something unethical.

If these three things were forced retroactively to change, it would mean that he was some kind of bat, with special radar that can pick up somebody with a chink in the old press kit, or that he was, right out of college, some kind of rich man who could hire detectives to check out everybody in the periphery of his associations. "Any link, however tenuous or ridiculous, to anybody with scapegoat written all over them, has to be severed instantly."

"I understand, sir. I worked for Howard Hughes."

"He got sort of ... eccentric ... as I understand it."

"You should have seen his fingernails. Uh ... Obama?"

"Yea?"

"You're half black, and half white."

"Yes."

"You know the white people will see a black man and the black people will see a white man?"

"Black and white people will see a black and white man."

"Still; they'll try to make you the scapegoat."

Watching this unfold is like watching good literature unfold. Wright is a classic character, who fancies himself the protector of the black church, by which he means liberation theology. But he's just smart enough to outsmart himself, like anyone captured by Trickster. It's so obvious when he's stepping up to that microphone and playing to a closed house, that he's just doing what a little boy did under the shining eyes and bottomless fascination of his mother. He had a gift. He could preach the word of the Lord and do good works.

And so long as he faced down, toward the class just below, he was a leader, a teacher, and a liberation theologist. But the shadow was already visible in his rants against the government. The government isn't a single entity, and if it has any morality, that is projected on it from a particular perspective. It is an apparatus of service and of control. It collects taxes and provides services. One of those services is enforcing order. Reverend Wright railed against some vague powerful conspiracy.

And he's not psychologically sophisticated enough to see that the entire dynamic underlying the surface drama is the mother father and son. That is why I love Reverend Wright so much; he is like a child, a cherub who is dancing for his mother and then, as little boys always do, fearing his father, whose woman he's competing for. There are your sins of the flesh and divine retribution by an all powerful male god.

I just love this shit. It's the pleasure of watching the architecture beneath the story, in the same way people enjoy opera and classical music.

Obama is young enough he is now in the unfolding of his own hero's journey, and we can watch it. Hillary is as well drawn a witch as I've ever seen. She even has a witch's laugh. She is returning to her ultra conservative roots as her shadow comes home to roost, and she knows that the only thing in life she wants is a third and then a fourth term.

And as I watch this I find it daft to think a two term President can't get around the term limits by running his wife. The world is full of dynasties. And the people who supported the first two terms of the Clinton duo think the third term will be more of the same. They don't stop to think that more of the same that worked eight years ago might be totally out of the flow of today. I supported BIll Clinton and loved the guy, because he built a good working government. But he was in his prime and at the height of his powers.

Now we have this amazingly talented man who combines the best of black and white, an internationalist who can restore the nation's place in the world, and Bill Clinton is doing the same thing Reverend Wright is doing: he cannot let go of the power and give it to the younger man. It's the devouring father energy. It's what unfolds in Polygamy compounds. The old men do not want to give power to the young men, because they want it for themselves.

And it shows on their faces. With Wright it's easy to see because he is so child like. He thinks he's just doing such a good job of being a smart boy his mama is gonna swoon. With BIll it's different. He really can't let go of competing with the younger men. I personally think he got really fucked up when he failed to address the nation about his sexual adventures in plain and honest terms that the working families of America can understand.

"My fellow Americans, for every Elvis behind the gates of Graceland, there's a Jerry Lee Lewis behind the gates of Disgracedland. Whereas my wife is a cat, I am a dog. And in response to your disappointment in my behavior, all I can say is, Elvis has left the building. Thank you very much." Instead, he committed the amazing feat of disemboweling himself with his own dick.

"You'll get through this; take some more viagra."

"I can't. My head's gonna explode. My neck muscles are tight as steel cables."

"Are you thinking about sex?"

"Yes. I'm thinking about it. It makes me feel terrible now."

This entire cast of characters would make a great television series ... something with the kind of quirky humor of Twin Peaks. McCain is even the perfect representative of the military industrial complex, where money goes to die. He is a hero for being a prisoner by choice. He has a kind of urge toward breaking free, into real change, the way Goldwater did, but he is influenced by influence, the same thing that brought down Colin Powell.

I am always looking forward to the next installment of Obama Nation.

Posted: Mon - April 28, 2008 at 11:08 PM