Quotable: Mark Morford on the whole Obama thingy

Posted on November 6, 2008 by Sabina Becker

“Hell yes, this is a time for screaming. For dancing, crying, celebrating with a rare feeling of renewal. It is a time for feeling it fully. A great thing has been done. A great shift has just transpired. Best news of all: There is no going back.

“Forget what I said before. Gloating is allowed, a great joyous I-told-you-so straight in the scowling faces of the racists and the warmongers and those so horribly terrified of the new and the different and the possible. Please feel free to let those rivers of gratitude course through you like molten joy coupled to the train of possibility pulled by the giant hand of hell yes.

“Above all, it is a time to exhale, to relax a little, to get the hell on with it. I know I speak for roughly five thousand fellow media lackeys when I say, sweet Lord, I am just so glad this damnable beast of an election is finally over. It’s like a combination of the day after Christmas and post-coital orgasm and giving birth. You can only sit in the wobbly afterglow, warm and buzzing and dizzy, insanely grateful you didn’t get a stocking full of Satan and Alaskan moosemeat and dirt, or a baby with three tiny heads and a nail gun where his arm should be.

“This, I think, is perhaps the most important sentiment of all. Not merely relief, not liberation, not even unadulterated joy.

“It’s gratitude. Deep and satisfying and good. A sense of profound thanks that, well, we made it through. The hopefulness prevailed. That Obama not only survived and flourished, but appears more determined and assured than ever. What’s more, our massive, ungainly democratic system? That hugely flawed beast of burden, gutted by eight solid years of the worst kind of abuse and misprision? It still seems to work. Well, mostly. How astonishing is that?

“And now, here we are. What a time it has been. What a time it shall be. There is no turning back. And for that, we can only say, thank you. Thank you, thank you, oh sweet God, thank you.

“Now pass me that damn champagne. “

–Mark Morford, “Yes We Did”

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4 Responses to Quotable: Mark Morford on the whole Obama thingy

  1. Tosh says:
    November 6, 2008 at 12:17 PM

    Sabina,
    I’ve got to take issue with your apparent gleefulness in seeing an Obama victory, and your apparent misconception that he’s somehow drastically different than Bush.
    The truth of the matter is that, yes, he certainly isn’t nearly as bad as Bush, he still isn’t even close to being on the left.
    This is the guy that voices strong support of Israel, who refuses to address the issue of private contractors in Iraq and has said the US will maintain military bases there, who cannot guarantee a withdrawal from Iraq until 2013, and who wants to INCREASE military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
    This is the guy who has many times voiced his opposition to the leftist movements in Latin America that you and I so strongly support. He is a free-trader, assuring that he won’t make any fundamental changes to things like NAFTA. The guy who voted to give $700 billion to the wealth bankers to bail them out of a crisis of their own making. The guy who does not support single-payer health care.
    Obama is, in the end, a neoliberal with a much nicer face. He’s a Tony Blair type. Supporting the same policies, the same goals, only with much fancier rhetoric, and a nicer image.
    His victory isn’t something we should be too excited about. In fact, we should criticize his policies with the same fervor that we did Bush’s.

  2. Sabina Becker says:
    November 6, 2008 at 8:51 PM

    Yes, you’re right, he’s not a leftist. But at least he’s not a fascist either. The war in Iraq WILL end under him, of that we can be sure (and glad). And once in office, he might just end up seeing that the wars elsewhere are not worth pursuing, either; at least, not if he intends to repair his own broken country first.
    The neoliberal part is certainly true; Latin America won’t be in for an easy ride with him, either (and they’re under no illusions that they will be.) But at least he’s going to talk with everyone, and that’s a start. Once he sees where they’re really coming from, and no longer relies on the frauds of the media to give him his ideas about their countries, he’ll have to either change for the better, or face a lot of very discordant music. At home, too, since NAFTA has been a disaster for the US as well as Canada, Mexico and anyplace else it’s been imposed.
    Mostly, though, I’m just relieved that it’s not another four years of Bush–which McCain would be. And if the old poop died and Sarah Palin ended up taking over–owwww. Let’s be glad we won’t have to go there.

  3. Slave Revolt says:
    November 7, 2008 at 11:49 AM

    Of course Obama is not a leftist–but he does represent the leftwing of the corporate business class.
    If he reverts back to supporting rightwing destablization in Latin America, then we know what we have–and I will not vote for him again.
    Some US left-whiners are under the impression that we need a socialist savior, and that anything that doesn’t meet that standard is to be disparaged.
    Fuck that. The truth is that the US public is way dumbed-down, and they they/we participate in this out of laziness and fear.
    Only community activism and grass roots issue movements will help improve the lives of everyday folk. This is the same as it always has been.
    The vitriol I have read from some intellecutals on the leftwing is telling–because you have to look at these folk’s records. They do absolutely NOTHING to align with their beloved oppressed.
    My months of canvassing form Obama wasn’t given impetus out of the notion that Obama was a savior type–but what did give me enthusiasum is that Obama’s instincts and history bode much better than any other presidental candidate in my life-time.
    Cynics come from the right and the left. Again, see if the person bemoaning the current state of affairs is actually doing anything significant to change the state of affairs by organizing with other people.
    There are some good reasons that ‘intellectuals’ are viewed with suspicion by the working classes.
    Some of these people would actually have been more happy with a McCain win–because it confirms that everything is hopeless and all they have to do is continue on in whine-mode in perpetuity.
    Ooooh–but we are chumps for voting for and supporting Obama. How fucking lame.

  4. Tosh says:
    November 7, 2008 at 4:56 PM

    I don’t think we will see the end of the Iraq war with Obama. We MIGHT see the withdrawal of troops by 2013 (which is after his first term) but he has also stated that they will maintain bases there and private contractors.
    So even if the violence ends, the imperialist endeavor will go on. The US will continue to subjugate Iraq to US interests. In that sense, I don’t see it as being an “end” to the Iraq endeavor.

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