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9193. marjoribanks - 11/8/2008 8:41:19 AM 8am on the 5th here (late night USA time on the 4th) and I made my way up the beach to the shack where we normally eat breakfast. It’s long holidays for Diwali here, and I have been profitably teaching my two older boys to boogie-board in the waves that lap up on our favourite stretch of sand.
This is a remote spot. There are visitors but there is very little concrete infrastructure. Instead bamboo huts and palm-thatch cottages, and thick jungle all around that reaches to the bay. Rugged, beautiful, other-worldly, it does not feel anything like civilization.
The television is working for a change at the beach shack. Breakfast with CNN, and then that astonishing moment when the election is called for Obama. The shack is empty but for us, and the waiters and cooks are bemused at the high-fives going around the table.(I’ve been discussing politics with the older boy (almost 9) these past few days)
And then that goosebump moment, as we all fall silent, and Barack Obama emerges on stage with his family.
Cynical I am, seen it all I have, burned by politics I do feel – but what an unforgettable, spine-tingling moment of high drama to see that beautiful black family take centre-stage in America.
The emotion was literally too much to bear, and I am not ashamed to say that the tears flowed and came again as Obama made that superb, nuanced speech. I thought of W.E. du Bois and James Baldwin and Richard Wright and Malcolm X and Jim Brown. I thought of my one-time mentor and colleague who helped desegregate the top tiers of American newsrooms whose fierce anger at racism still colours his emails at age 85. I missed Harlem at that moment, and thought of Bayard Rustin and MLK.
Then, so far away from America that it might well be another planet, the staff of the beach shack filed out of the kitchen and stood around me in silence, visceral reminder of another day when the world gathered around their television screens, and a literally palpable global feeling grew that “we are all Americans.”
In my own lifetime, I did not imagine there would be another chance like the post-9/11 one – so full of potential for a better new world with the nations of the world standing together, so pregnant with hope – but here it has happened again. Congratulations America, you've still got it.
9194. alistairConnor - 11/8/2008 12:57:29 PM Yep, it's clearly an epochal moment, beautifully captured, Marj. I just got off the phone with my sister in New Zealand, we were both still elated about Obama, the loss of the election in NZ seems minor in comparison. 9195. alistairConnor - 11/8/2008 1:03:05 PM So : in NZ, after nine years of Helen Clark's Labour government, we get a centre-right/hard right coalition government.
The hoped-for result was for a weakened Labour to hang on, bringing a strengthened Green Party into coalition and government. Not This Time.
My main satisfaction at the results : the 5% threshold has finally done for charismatic, mildly corrupt centrist Winston Peters. The wily beggar has bitten the dust after thirty years. Christ, he turned out to harder to kill than Rasputin. My nightmare scenario was that a Labour/Greens coalition government would have to rely on him for a parliamentary majority... another 15000 votes, and that might have been the case... I prefer honorable defeat. 9196. jexster - 11/8/2008 2:55:20 PM Berlusconi's a Buffoon 9197. wonkers2 - 11/8/2008 5:55:21 PM Moving comment 'banks. I felt much the same way. My sister had an election watching party the evening of November 4. It was a joyous occasion as the electoral votes piled up for Obama. And his acceptance speech was quite moving, cooler than MLK but almost as good. 9198. jexster - 11/8/2008 6:19:27 PM Wipe the Pollack Entity off the map
CHICAGO – President-elect Obama has spoken to the president of Poland about relations between the two countries but didn't make a commitment on the multibillion-dollar missile defense program undertaken by the Bush administration, an Obama aide said Saturday.
That contrasts with a statement by Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who said Obama told him the missile defense project would continue.
9199. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/8/2008 9:12:44 PM 
9200. wonkers2 - 11/9/2008 2:52:29 AM I wonder who's telling the truth--Obama or Kaczynski? The project is a waste of money IMHO and unnecessarily provocative. 9201. Marc-Albert - 11/9/2008 5:17:21 AM
I hope the Palestinians and other Ayrabs are not putting too much stock in Mr. Obama and his trusted Chief-of-Staff to help find a solution to the Jewish occupation of Palestine.
On n'est pas sorti de l'auberge.
He will be our man at the White House (Maariv)
9202. Marc-Albert - 11/9/2008 5:19:24 AM I think a reality of US politics is that you can't get into the White House unless you are somewhere between staunchly and rabidly pro-Israel. (Bela in Random International) 9203. alistairConnor - 11/9/2008 12:40:25 PM That is the conventional wisdom, M-A... But then again, there was that famous anti-Semite Jimmy Carter... Had he been a little bit more skilful and realistic, and got the Syrians on board, the whole bag of knots could have been ancient history by now. There's no fundamental reason why it should be harder now, a mere couple of decades later, to solve problems that are millenia old.
The major reason why nothing will progress in the next couple of years is named Netanyahu. 9204. jexster - 11/11/2008 8:08:54 PM EuroTolerance? Apparently not. prominent EuroTrash calls our spade a spade! 9205. wonkers2 - 11/12/2008 11:43:17 PM Letter to NY Times Reader Opinion Blog
39. November 12, 2008 12:24 pm Link
Twice in recent weeks otherwise excellent NY Times editorials endorsing and congratulating Barack Obama referred to the “necessary war in Afghanistan” without explaining what is so necessary about the war, what we expect to accomplish by it, at what cost and what the likelihood of achieving our goals there is, and whether to goals are worth the cost. Dexter Filkins outstanding recent report on Afghanistan didn’t inspire confidence in the likelihood of success of our policies there.
In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the NY Times let the country down, lending it’s front pages to misinformation about WMD and its editorial page in support of Bush’s foolish, costly, counter-productive invasion of Iraq. I urge your editors to re-examine your position on Iran. The lack of public discussion of this issue is unfortunate, in my opinion.
Moving troops from Iraq to Afghanistan may well be be jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.
W2 9206. jexster - 11/14/2008 2:49:32 AM EuroTrash Credit Insurers Pull Plug on GM and Ford 9207. wonkers2 - 11/14/2008 6:21:19 AM Paulson was on the Lehrer News Hour tonight. He appeared worried and not at all confident that what he's doing is working. The U.S. economy is in quite serious trouble in my opinion. My view may be jaundiced due to the huge black cloud over Michigan thanks to Jexter and his buddies in California driving Lexuses to dinner at the French Laundry. 9208. alistairconnor - 11/14/2008 5:17:12 PM Let me spell it out, Wonk.
Guilty : the Bush administration, whose tax cuts on RVs gave a perverse incentive to Americans to buy damn great tanks that Motown built for them, rather than downsizing to prepare for an oil-poor future.
Guilty : Ford and GM strategists who took the easy money building damn great tanks (which they had a monopoly on, since no other auto maker on earth is insane enough to make them their strategic product line; but which are unexportable, for the same reason) rather than developing cars for the future.
Out of luck : the workforce who, through union power, maintained their earning power against a sinking tide. They are now stranded.
In crisis : every car maker in the world, because nobody's buying.
DOA : the American car industry, because when people start buying again, they have an unattractive product line. 9209. wonkers2 - 11/14/2008 6:30:01 PM Very true. GM, Ford and Chrysler were shortsighted in betting so heavily on SUVs. Also, they missed the boat on diesels. GM and Ford have been skating on thin ice for a long time because they are so heavily leveraged. They lobbied successfully with the help of the UAW and Iron John Dingle against improvements in fuel economy standards. 9210. wonkers2 - 11/14/2008 6:41:39 PM However, the failure of the U.S. auto companies will have a cataclysmic effect on the American economy. 9211. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/14/2008 7:17:47 PM The cataclysm is coming one way or the other. Paulson is a still a whore for Wall Street and ineptitude continues to be rewarded because cronyism still rules in this administration.
As Claudius said: Lance the boil and let the puss run out. 9212. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 11/14/2008 7:18:25 PM a
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