I forgot to post last week about Election Twitter, an aggregate of all the ‘twitters‘ about McCain and Obama. On election night, it was great to see the constant stream of fragmentary thoughts from around the world, a visual buzz of humanity’s collective consciousness, as it becomes aware that something historic is happening.
Barack Obama is being hailed as the first Internet President, and his administration looks to be taking tech issues seriously, so perhaps the election twitter is one of the more appropriate artefacts of that particular historical moment.
Tag: USA (Page 16 of 27)
Simon Hoggart on Obama’s acceptance speech:
Here is a man, you feel, who is already looking back on his own life as a central moment in the American narrative. In a sense, he hovers over himself, watching and hearing his own performance, as if being elected President was the supreme out-of-body experience.
I think this attitude, conscious of being a crucial part of a larger history, could lead to wise decision making that eschews the partisan for the conciliatory, and the short-term for the long-term.
Reading the second-day coverage of this election, one can clearly see how history conscious the media are too. They have been aware for weeks that this moment would be transformational, and have had time to prepare their most eloquent, flowing, go-down-in-history prose. Sadky, very little of it will ever be read again – instead, it will merely be rewritten my new hands, as future pundits with the benefit of hindsight file reminisces of a pivotal moment. Only Obama’s acceptance speech will endure (and even this may be superseded by his Inaugural address next January). I half wish that the papers reverted to their dense, colourless reportage, and let us conjour whatever historical significance we wish in our own minds.
Is there a difference between living the history, and merely watching it unfold? I think so, and for those of use observing the moment overseas, I think the detachment was particularly acute. We are delighted and relieved at the news… and yet we were unable to participate. The celebrations in Grant Park, Chicago were genuine, but we were elsewhere, and so we had to watch them on a flat screen. That most important of sounds, the noise of the thousands cheering, was dialled down by the sound editor, so we could properly hear Obama’s words. It is historical, yes, but by the time we come to experience it, it has already been tampered with.
Barack Obama campaigns in Virginia, 17th October 2008. Photo by Dave Elmore
I’ve spent all week batting away careless cliches from good friends and colleagues, declaring that all Americans are stupid, and we can’t trust them not to make a mess of things on Tuesday.
George W. Bush has been a terrible poster-boy for a complex country, and his two election victories (or, as I prefer to style it, one victory, and one “victory”) have persuaded us that most Americans are right-wing evangelical neo-cons. Of course, the country is more diverse than that, and many have indulged in thoughtful debate over the issues.
Plenty of conservatives have been endorsing Obama. Here is a New Yorker, The Cunning Realist, cautiously backing the Senator from Illinois:
It worries me that too many Obama supporters believe one person can snap his fingers and solve this country’s daunting problems. Hope is a great thing. But as the economy has imploded in recent months and the desperation out there has become palpable, the size of the crowds and the hope that surrounds Obama have made me a bit uneasy. I don’t mean hope in the traditional “government will fix things” sense that the Democratic Party represents – we all know what will happen to the size of government if Democrats control Washington, and we can thank George Bush for setting a fine example – but hope in a more poignant, human sense. Where is the line between hope and inevitable disappointment, between faith and unrealistic expectations? Maybe we’ll find out.
This is the other, more founded worry that I’ve heard over the past few days (weeks, months). That Obama will inevitably be a disappointment, that he will turn out to be “just like all the others.”
This really all depends on your definition of the terms, which affects whether the prediction is trivially true, or blinkered pessimism. Perhaps you define the bending and breaking of promises, and all the compromises a President must make on any given day, as evidence of a betrayal? In that sense, President Obama will undoubtedly disappoint. However, to govern is to choose, and it would literally impossible for him to fully satisfy the demands of his base, both on economic decisions and the social/cultural aspects too (for one thing, his base is very broad and will disagree amongst themselves on many issues). A competent and sober Obama presidency will undoubtedly deliver less than the idealistic, liberal supporters would demand. For the sake of unity, perhaps that is actually a good thing. Crucially, I would say that if expectations are confounded, that would be the fault of the crowds doing the expecting, and not President Obama.
In other ways, I think it is palpably absurd to say that Obama will be just like other politicians. He ran very different Primary and General Election campaigns to any seen before. He has taken a strong stand against “dumb wars” and the Human Rights abuses that have sullied the American Government’s reputation at home and abroad. In this case, it is by no means obvious or to be expected that a President Obama would eventually, inevitably disappoint. Quite the reverse – hoping that he will maintain some integrity on this point seems quite a rational and practical expectation, given the evidence of his approach that we currently have available.
The contrast, remember, is with George W. Bush, and John McCain. Obama is neither of those men, and therefore, on some level, it is impossible for him to disappoint! Certain worlds that are possible in an Obama presidency are not possible in a McCain presidency, and vice-versa. For a left-leaning, liberally minded soul, that should be a source of great comfort.
Even though expectations are ridiculously high for Barack Obama, I would suggest that if anyone can actually deliver on the promise of postive change, it is “that one”. He recruited and unprecedented number of campaigners to his banner during the two year campaign, and has inspired them enough to maintain momentum and financial donations right up until the present day. If he is clever, he will use this army of enthusiastic volunteers to win the cultural arguments, and to provide the succour and strength to the rest of the country during the austere times that surely lie ahead.
Sure, Barack Obama cannot change the world all by himself. The point is, he’s not by himself, is he? I will be judging him by what tasks he sets his activist base after the election.
Text messages from the Obama Campaign keep the activists active. Photo by David Erickson
By the way, it strikes me the MC Yogi YouTube is a classic example of the way in which social media can be used to create value and sell content. A pithy case study of the lessons of marketing in the 21st Century.
Consider the Obama track in question, which has just been shortlisted on the Daily Dish’s ‘Take Back the Campaign’ competition and seems to be doing well in the ad hoc poll. As a result, it is likely to get pretty stratospheric viewing figures in the next few days. It will certainly be viewed and downloaded by more people than, say, the next British No. 1 single (two hundred and nine thousand views on YouTube, so far).
And yet, it has been provided at no cost to the consumer. How do we reconcile that with a concern for artists rights. Shouldn’t they be paid for the work they produce? Aren’t we free-riding on the back of their talent? They’ve squandered their royalties, haven’t they?
Not quite. The fact is, in this case, exposure is everything. I wouldn’t have heard of MC Yogi, and neither would Andrew Sullivan, if the track had not been available free on YouTube. The Obama track is a loss leader, a free sample. Providing free content makes economic sense. This is more true for MC Yogi, who I hadn’t heard of until last weekend, than it is for Radiohead or Prince, who both marketed their music through high profile give-aways. In these cases, there probably would be some loss of royalties.
More importantly, the free sample serves to create a loyalty amongst new customers. If they admire the free track, then they are more likely to show their appreciation but buying the full album. As some recent research (pdf) from British Music Rights and the University of Heartfordshire shows, young people have no problem with buying music legally if they think it is good value for money.
The icing on the cake is that the medium of delivery increases margins for the artist, while at the same time decreasing costs to the consumer. Once a track or album is created, actual delivery to the end-users via MP3 download and YouTube can be achieved at minimal cost.
None of these insights are news to people working in social networking and new media. But for many people, even in the creative industries, giving something away for free still a novel approach. So it is worth pointing out positive examples of these new marketing techniques, as they happen.
Time to bang this particular drum, again, methinks. Here is Barack Obama campaigning in Virginia, taking on the divisive rhetoric of McCain-Palin:
This is the real war that is being fought, on every longitude around the globe. Between those who seek to divide and rule, and those who seek to unite us in our shared humanity.
Where does multiculturalism sit in all this? Perhaps it is a means to this end. Multicultural policies are essential in a diverse society to allow everyone to flourish. And done right, they can also foster better understanding of our shared humanity. From my conversation with the Dalai Lama:
“Actually, my rough impression is that in the UK, ‘multiculturalism’ means a society where there are people from different backgrounds: Multi culture, multi racial, multi religion. In this sort of society, it means we need harmony, respect each other, and recognise others rights.”
The Dalai Lama suggests that most cultures and the morals that underpin them are based on religious faith, so to talk of multiculturalism is really to talk of ‘multi-religious faith’… What is important is finding the common ground between religions and therefore cultures, identifying those common morals that can unite us all. Multiculturalism, then, is not so much about celebrating differences, but emphasising our similarities.
It also occurs to me that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with its talk of freedom of religion &tc, is a multicultural document (that’s a good excuse to link to this animated version). The paradox is, that by accepting and allowing that people want to live in different ways, we recognise a shared humanity. (I’ll try to put this more eloquently some other time).