... and they call it democracy...

Bruce Cockborn had it right when he whimsically, and perhaps sarcastically, stated “and they call democracy”. Of course, he was referring to the unrepentant pillaging of the Reagan administration, who, in passing, is held up as the epitome of US pride, patriotism, and success at the presidential level (that is another subject but it is an astounding one), against innocent men, women and children in Central America. But the metaphor is a good one. Doing injustice to another in the name of democracy seems, to say the least, a little perverse.

So for years, I have been mentally returning to a seminar I took with Mike Apple while I was a graduate student in sociology and rural sociology at University of Wisconsin Madison.

I was just conversing with a student, a likable guy who supported McCain, and asked him how he felt about the entire world being so jubilant about Obama's victory. His answer was so prophetic, simplistic and penetrating that I thought it worthy enough to share. He responded by saying that "the world would not be so jubilant when they find out that he is an American".

Wow!!! Obama is, afterall, an American. Will that mean that he cannot, will not and should not be engaged in and with the world? Obama faces an uphill battle in balancing the needs of human decency and maintaining control of the US agenda.

What does it mean to be an American? Can minorities also be "Americans"? (The same questions could be posed using Canadians, French, British, Norwegians, Swedes, Spaniards, Greeks, Italians, etc.)

But, ultimately, there is something in the air, for right now anyway, that is different.