INAUGURATION OBAMA by Kate Orland Bere January 2009

Stepping into another dimension, arriving at that pinnacle of American politics, the inauguration of a new president, is not a challenge for a ghost horse--even with someone on my back. I, Lucky Strike, carry there a human who is also a time traveler--as a ghost is destined to be--Zithra is a filmmaker who visually captures images with the retinas of her eyes, only to have these randomly converted into films, films she dreams in her mind; the editing is done by thought alone, not by a machine. The visual may then be streamed into a computer for storage. We beam, as Scotty did Captain Kirk, into the center of the festivities in Washington, atop the dais on the West Front of the Capitol, hovering near where Barack Obama is to give his speech, immediately following him being sworn in as president by Chief Justice John G. Roberts.  Zithra becomes occupied with her business, her legs tightening around my midriff as she has me turn this way and that, sweeping in footage. This is fine with me, as I can then see more of the activities of the human life surrounding us, I am not shooting a film, but I am communicating what I see and think of these proceedings.

The National Mall in Washington D.C. on this day is as packed as ever it has been in its history--a swarm of jubilant humanity eagerly awaiting the turning of history's page. Although the many races and demographics of the 50 United States (et al) are here well-represented, there are, as one might expect, many, many African-Americans, most visibly ecstatic, and many who had traveled from every corner of the nation to witness Obama's historic hour: the day that the first African-American man is to assume his post as the the 44th American president of the United States. Many people here say that they had never expected to witness this day during their lifetime. A number are teary-eyed already, and the formalities have not yet begun. For African-Americans, and for all Americans who truly care about the pain and suffering of an enslaved people, this is a momentous day indeed: it will be the event they will talk about for the remainder of their lives--the individual stories of this day, just getting here to attend this day, all forming an oral history that will become legendary--a massive fiction as it is recanted, orally and on the page, through the years, from one generation to the next. Martin Luther King Jr. Day falling just yesterday, on the 19th of January, has no doubt made this moment all the more emotional.

My mind drifts back to previous inaugurations, which I have made it a point to attend through the years, for an inauguration is always a deeply symbolic event, happening only every four years, ushering in the agenda of that particular administration for the next four years, for both America and the watching world. Not much of the world remains unaffected by the transfer (or renewal) of power in the White House. Of course, as a ghost, I do not hold citizenship, except to Hades perhaps--this is why my commentary may interest you as I have no other stake in the matter other than my intellectual curiosity--my own good horse sense. The Inaugural speech forms the catalyst for the coming days, weeks, months and years of what will be the President's agenda for that time-arguably the Speech puts into motion (or does not) that agenda. It should, in my view, and I realize I am but a horse not a human, ideally mobilize those who agree with the president's message and wish to take a supportive role. Ideally, it does not mobilize enemies of the president, but  in some cases it does precisely this. The majority of persons hearing the speech probably could not give you more than a rudimentary description of it, even minutes after this crowd will disperse--but ideally they do take away the tone and tenor of the inaugural address--the key ideas--and promise themselves, solemnly even, to do better. This idealism will glow through the inaugural balls and will hopefully not become lost on the fuzzy, swollen tongues discovered the following morning. Hopefully the words of this new president will carry forth, casting the flyline of hope that Barack Obama seems to offer Americans--and those who watch with curiosity from around the globe--as he gracefully casts that slim, fragile flyline of hope into a deep river of doubt.

I am remembering Franklin Delano Roosevelt's speech to Americans at his Inauguration on March 4rth of 1933. I am wondering if Barack Obama intends to attack directly the morals of the banking institutions, and the wealthy, as FDR did in his speech, or praise directly the Constitution which protects America and has upheld this republic, so far at least, throughout all of the obstacles that have been thrown in its path. FDR said:

Our Constitution is so simple and so practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

FDR, like Obama, faced a nation in serious financial disarray and a people devastated by cruel monetary losses. The biggest difference now is that Obama has a much more enormous faltering economy with a far greater population facing the spectre of unemployment to address, and the crisis is far from over--it may just be the beginning of a deepening void brought on by, must I say it, decades of decadence and an abuse of power by banks, financiers, Wall street hucks like George Madoff, right on down through the ranks of citizenry. Simple vices can destroy a nation: greed, gluttony, selfishness, arrogance. The Boomers were the children that Richard Nixon in his Inaugural address (in 1969) called a generation of youth "better educated, more committed, more passionately driven by conscience than any generation in our history." This assessment has not borne itself out when it comes to governance: over the past sixteen years, America has elected two boomer presidents who have in effect brought the American economy to ruin--Bill Clinton by indulging his sexual appetites while changing the laws that had for decades protected the American citizen from the greed of his banker and George Bush by war-mongering in a part of the world where a common horse thief could tell you one simply cannot win even if it were a virtuous war, which it is not.  Iraq is a war over oil at bottom. Not one honest American citizen believes otherwise. Since Clinton you may credit with high intelligence, his move shows his conscience lies squarely in his wallet. Since Bush is of Texan oil stock, as is his past-president Daddy, his move was inevitably driven by his affiliations, with Slick Dick Cheney there to guard his moves, and propel forward, at any cost, the Iraq war. Has anyone seen Dick Cheney during this Bush presidency? If I am a ghost, he is yet a better one.

Now I see them wheeling Dick Cheney out in a wheelchair, and I have to give a horse chuckle at that--he probably is afraid to stand on his own two legs lest someone should attempt to shoot him. Ditto Bush, who is looking more than a little nervous as he walks out onto the dias of the Western front of the Capitol for the ceremonies. Things are heating up, although it is, even for me, mighty cold standing here, especially for Washington D.C. We can see now Barack Obama, with his wife, Michelle, and their two young girls, Malia and Sasha. Obama, at 47, a child of the 60's & therefore not a Boomer, but rather of the Generation Jones, is one of the youngest presidents to take office. Slender, and tall, with a youthful, genuine grin and wide set intelligent eyes, his visage has inspired confidence and trust--the guy can actually speak eloquently, unlike Bush, and does not ooze lies and sleaze, as did Bill Clinton. The people believe he is deeply committed in his love for his wife, Michelle, and she seems equally dynamic. Barack Obama has a fine reputation--one that has not collected any dirt--for surely if there was dirt, his enemies would by now have discovered it. Grace in his walk, directness in his talk, sincerity in his eyes, intelligence in his words: what I ask in my mind is: can this man survive through this storm? I fervently hope so. He must be very, very intelligent. Mistakes will not easily be forgiven, especially major ones--for enemies do lurk and this pedestal he is being put upon has cracks in its foundation. Not even his own failures or weaknesses so much perhaps as the weaknesses of those who are placing him there, and a virulent national history.

Looking at this man, as he makes his vow before the people, I think with amazement of his upbringing and the unlikely path that brought him here to this pinnacle of power. For Obama was born of a Kansan mother and a Kenyan father in Hawaii, August 4th of 1961. Stanley Ann Dunham (her father had wanted a boy)was in Hawaii because her father was a talented and determined man and he had chosen the new state of Hawaii as a perfect environment in which to prosper; Barack Obama Sr. was there because the state of Kenya had sent him there to be educated as one of the promising young intellectual sons of his nation, readying for the Kenyan independence looming in 1964. Kenya would need, it was understood, educated leaders--and therefore a group of youth were sent to study at Western institutions. The marriage between Ann and Barack was an unlikely one as Obama SR was the very first African man to attend the University in Hawaii. Inter-racial marriages, even among whites and Asians, were rare in those times. Ann did the unthinkable [then] to marry Barack, after becoming pregnant with their child. Not long afterward Barack JR was born, Barack SR. left for the Harvard School of Economics, where he would finish a graduate degree before leaving the U.S. to return to his Kenya, to take part in building a new independent country. Ann filed for divorce in 1964, requesting no alimony, moving on with her own education. Barack’s mother met Indonesian student Lolo Soetoro while finishing her undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii and accepted his proposal of marriage in 1967. Ann moved on to Jakarta, with her new husband, taking her young son Barack JR with her. There Ann gave birth to her second child, a daughter, Maya.

When Barack was 10 years old, in 1971, his mother sent him back to Hawaii to be schooled there, and to live with his maternal grandparents. It was around that time that Barack saw his father for the last time, when Barack SR visited Hawaii and spent time with his son. Obama SR died in 1980 in Kenya, at only 44 years of age, in a car accident, after a long decline into disillusioned poverty and alcoholism, his political and civic career destroyed by his strong opposition to the ideas and plans of the new President Kenyatta. Ann meanwhile, left her second husband in Jakarta in 1972 and returned to Hawaii where she continued to study, eventually completing her Ph.D. in Indonesian anthropology. Ann died, however, of uterine cancer in 1995; she was only 52.

I reflect that Barack Obama II has sprung, then, from parents who definitely held strong views, had fine intelligence, even brilliance, and had the courage to live their lives without compromise, notwithstanding their weaknesses. They both died relatively young. It seems no surprise they managed to create a unique individual who has sought to craft his life by making very conscious decisions. Barack Obama has not chased the dollar bill, nor has he made erratic decisions--he considers his every move, it would seem, carefully. As a black (mixed-race) political leader in a "white America", where two brothers, one a president, and one a potential president were publicly shot in cold blood, Barack Obama will have to tread carefully. All the more reason why his speech prompts such intense curiosity--what will this man say at such a time of public crisis, where clearly there has been many to blame for this financial disaster--to rouse the people to action and awareness, and yet not inspire hatred in the souls of his enemies. For every president has enemies, no matter his color.

As President Barack Obama begins to speak, I do hear echoes of the Inaugural speeches of the past--especially those of FDR (‘33), JFK (’61), Nixon (69), and Reagan (’81). Each of these presidents faced a crisis of varying proportions in their time--and what is striking is how they framed their speeches to meet the crisis of the moment. In Barack Obama's words I hear the honesty of FDR--although not the direct challenge to the banking institutions, nor the blame--I hear the passion of JFK, albeit more distilled and not the heated threat--I hear the elegance of Nixon, his attempt to reach "the people", to empathize, and to appeal to the simple qualities that matter in life: "goodness, decency, love and kindness," yet without the annoying smugness of Nixon--and I hear a similar integrity of tone as that of Ronald Reagan, without the emotion and the crocodile tears. The elements of Obama's speech are: a direct forthrightness, a humble yet somehow bold presentation, an ambitious and hopeful, yet somber, realistic outlook, and perhaps most important, a promise for immediate action. He says, in essence, wake up America, from your slothful sleep, and take heed, for there is work to do, your service to apply. Our planet needs protecting; we must harness our resources more intelligently; we must rise and rise immediately to meet this crisis--this challenge. Why? If for nothing else, because of the faith and the vision and the forbearance and courage of your ancestors. For their sakes, and for your own, and for the coming generations, sacrifice and hard work will be required to get us out of this mess we are in and nothing else. Obama is saying, "it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things--some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long-rugged path towards prosperity and freedom."

I am thinking of the generations past--for not so long ago, life for the human--and for that matter the horse--was much tougher physically. Humans have, as in that new animated film, Wall-E, almost automated themselves into a state of moral oblivion. Is it possible that the world economy has become too complicated for even the most intelligent of humans to configure and control--to manage? To manage without the majority being robbed? In what he is saying, and how he is saying it, President Barack Obama II is inviting, in much the same way that Martin Luther King JR did so many years ago, all Americans to share in the burden of building, in this case, a sound economy, in MLK’s case, a basic staple--freedom and equality as a foundation for life. These two things must go hand in hand: for if you do not have one, you cannot have the other. Today Barack Obama cashed that check Reverend King spoke of in his freedom speech. Let us just hope that this check is not returned as well, for now the bank may be insufficiently funded.