I don't much do politics on this blog, but I do like to observe it and think about it and analyze it.
I will be traveling to the United States later on this afternoon, because I can and because this seems to me to be a moment in the history of our southern neighbours that I would like to observe up close. Much of my family lives in the United States, and I have come to learn that we Canadians are just as ignorant about the US as we like to think the US is about our country. Maybe not ignorant about the daily news, but certainly about what it really, actually feels like to be living that ridiculous, beautiful, terrifying experiment. It's easy to pronounce on the problems and challenges of the US, which are many and incredibly complex; less easy to live with those problems and challenges, and to make meaningful efforts to solve them from within.
I don't tell people who they should vote for. That's too personal a decision, in my opinion. Anyone who has read my past writing in THIS magazine can take an educated guess who I would vote for today if I could vote in the American election. But that is not why I am linking to the video below.
I'm a writer. I'm all about the words. And if this election were about who came up with the best words to describe their campaign, Obama would have already won:
the book room: novelist, John Degen interviews other writers, and talks about copyright way too much
1 comment:
A nice, thoughtful post, John. Watching Obama's victory speech last night, I was struck again by how articulate he is. Especially compared with the outgoin' Dubya. i'm happy, proud and relieved for our American neighbours. Five minutes after Jon Stewart announced the new president elect, I was on the phone with a good friend in Kansas City Missouri, crying happy tears. Yes we can, indeed.
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