Obama's Whistle Stop Ride And His Critics

Yesterday, Saturday January 17 2009, I was talking to my daughter. She had CNN on her television. My conversation with her trailed off as I became aware of what was going on; I simply dropped the dialogue ball and let it roll to the corner of the gym ( allegorical gym - that is, we were not actually in a gym ) as I became enchanted by what was going on. The camera crews were expecting Barak Obama in Baltimore. He was coming in by train, and retracing part of Abraham Lincoln's journey to Washington. There was to be a stop in Baltimore with a brief speech, after which the train would continue on to Washington. I was quite surprised. Now the reason I was surprised was this: I was watching part of a novel I had been dilatorily playing with ( "working on" is too strong an expression ) for 20 years or more! In my story, the main character - a war vet -suffered some sort of head injury, which led to him identifying with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was not an out and out delusion for him; it was more like Chance Gardiner in Being There: the identification was more of a tonal thing, and much of the FDR effect depended upon the people with whom he came into contact and their interpretations of him. His wife, distraught at first, became more accepting of the situation. The guy was more stable and reliable, had gotten serious about politics, and seemed to have a future. She began some philanthropic work, and during her time with the poor, she became more and more to resemble Eleanor Roosevelt, at least in her social interests. He enters politics. He succeeds. Famously. Of course, when he ultimately wins the US presidential election, he travels to the inauguration by train, whistle stopping along the route to "speechify" to the loyal supporters.

HST Does Some Speechifying

Oh. I left something out. He wins the election in spite of the fact that people become aware of his FDR impersonation. In fact, his enemies early on use this identification with FDR against him with advantage. HOWEVER, what changes things considerably is the fact that the USA is thrown into a severe economic downturn!!!!! I cannot say here that I had worked out some sub prime scheme, thank heavens, but the economic situation was to be created by greed and mismanagement and......too many wars!!!!!! People I talked to about this thought it an impossible scenario. America was way too strong, and we knew how to take care of those things. Another Depression was way too far fetched. You can't just throw in a completely impossible Depression in the 21st century just to move your story plot along! So, there I was watching my novel. To be very honest, the last time I thought of this novel was in the late winter or early spring of last year, 2008, and I thought of it in conjunction with Barack Obama. The meandering of my mind went something like it might be a good book to finish up and it might help Mr. Obama in his election bid. I suppose I would have included some trenchant criticism of the Bush Administration for it to achieve such a dreamed of effect.

So, there I was watching my novel. I sat down. I thought this was probably a good indication, for in my novel the new FDR does indeed turn the country around. I prayed to clear my mind. That's what I pray for: to clear my mind. (Rather like clearing the palate from the cloying tastes which accumulate through the day - clear the mind of the mental claptrap - and I try not to think too much at times like these. I try to clear everything out and return to my early dawn consciousness that I had when God first gave me life.) A Good Omen, all around I'd say. A bit later, of course, FOX was constrained by the Law of Constipated Minds to have a round table of quirky t-heads to comment on the weighty things we had just seen, but were too brutish to comprehend. Rather like we have not been out of Dr. Moreau's House of Pain long enough to use our newly augmented animal-human wits. Of course, the monstrous Crab of Krauthammer was there, exquisitely bedecked and twitching the manta ray slits he has for nostrils. He audaciously opined that he thought it all smacked too much of Lincoln. Just like my novel. I shall use that, "It all smacks too, too much of FDR, don't ya knoooow." I have a sudden optimism. BUT more than that... Back when the sub prime thingie surfaced, I believe I wrote that I had been writing gloom and doom for a good spell, but suddenly I knew where the lethal blow was coming from; to paraphrase Ghostbusters, I knew which form of the Destroyer we had chosen. Now I not only have a feeling of optimism, but more than that, I have an inkling of where our Salvation is coming from. Just an inkling. It is not a man, but the idealism for which that one man is the symbol. And symbol in the sense of carrier of meaning, not symbol in the sense of something that stands for something else. We are in Symbolic Times. There will be great good.....and you know how to finish this sentence to balance it out. Be strong.