A number of adjectives come to mind when describing the recent election of Barrack Obama as the next president of the United States: exciting, surprising, frightening, uplifting, etc. As the nation's blackest president to ever be elected (sorry Bill, you've been moved down a spot), and also one of the youngest, he's got a lot riding on his shoulders.
These are simply statistics, however. What impresses and intrigues me most about him at this point is the effect he's had on the young voters of this country: more were involved in this election than any other in American history, and it's about damned time! America's youth (myself included, at this point) are a difficult group to engage in politic discussion, much less involvement. Why is that? I suspect it's because we are told from an early age that America is the "greatest", "strongest", "most influential" government in the world. This being the case, why should we bother taking time away from our busy lives of having fun and thinking of our own best interests in order to get involved in seemingly irrelevant topics like (yawn) foreign affairs?
Well, maybe that's beginning to change. Even the most naive of teenagers can't help but be at least peripherally aware that the US economy is in a disastrous state. And even if they don't know what exactly that means, one can't help but notice when mum and dad say they can't afford to buy them a new $300 cellphone so they can chat with their friends on the opposite side of campus. Oh, and they can't really expect to be able to get a job and save up to buy it for themselves because there aren't any good jobs available! Well, that last bit might be a bit of an overstatement, but still it's no secret that simply having a high school diploma will get you nowhere, and a college degree is on the brink of becoming similarly outdated. To put it bluntly: suddenly, young Americans are receiving mixed messages about their so called "God-given" rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Things are tough these days. And, although many see the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Obama as a cause for renewed optimism, I hope that most of us realize that a simple slowing down of the rapid decline of our economy over the next four years should be seen as a victory for him, and for us. Whether you like him or not, no one in their right mind can reasonably deny that George Bush has dug a VERY deep hole for America to climb out of. And although I believe that Obama has the vision, fortitude, and resolve to turn things around, I think that, at best, we'll find ourselves inching our way out of this abyss, rather than leaping from it during his presidency. I hope that the pessimists of this society realize that it took 8 years for Bush to get us into this mess, but it will take far longer than that to get us out of it.
