Barack Obama: A New Generation of Americans

It is unavoidable. Attitudinal change is in the air as noted by columnist Leon Walker.

passing the torch

It was President John F. Kennedy who first spoke these words during his inaugural address: “The touch has been passed to a new generation of Americans”. Today I see these new generations more clearly than at anytime previously in my life.

The traditional media is crumbling before our eyes. Newspapers are folding like cheap suitcases and viewer numbers are dwindling on even this nation’s major television news networks. The internet has swallowed a huge portion of the national and world media population, providing a far more entertaining, intellectually exploratory and interactive brand of news and information. In short, the new generation of Americans began paving the way for Senator Obama by giving our American media and many conservative Americans an electronic lobotomy.

Let’s shorten the term Electronic Lobotomy to the Acronym “ELOB”.

Only now are we starting to see the effects in real terms. The new generation of Americans has alternative sources of information. They are poised and ready to dispute anything that is presented solely on the basis of traditional thinking and which is clearly without merit. The new generation of Americans is breathing in a broader America and world while welcoming it with excitement. They are willingly having the narrow and myopic focuses of conservatism undermined by information and then removing it. This movement is taking place even within the most conservative bastions of this nation.

winning hearts and minds

Who can say if Senator Barack Obama actually knew of the change that had already come to America and that so many in this nation would welcome his leadership? In spite of all that we have had to overcome, who might have imagined that after nearly two years of discussion, and argument and political skirmishes; he is on the verge of becoming President of the United States of America. What I believe is that Senator Obama has already won. I don’t refer to the Presidency, although that remains within his grasp. He has won the hearts and minds of Americans across an incredibly broad spectrum simultaneously illuminating the faces and humanity of generations of Americans of whom Kennedy spoke. He has led these new generations on the march to claim their destiny. I didn’t see it coming. Many of us did not see it coming, but it was all too obvious.

It was Senator McCain who reminded me to again consider this topic when he delivered his acceptance speech during the Republican National Convention. It was either his clear and “fundamental lack of understanding of what it means to be an American” or “an effort to manipulate the unknowing conservative masses” into believing that being American is other than that which our founding fathers intended. Senator McCain said the following words: “All men are created equal, endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights”. He suggested that “our creator,” the God of America should and must be a recognized authority. The problem is, that is not what the Declaration of Independence says, and it is not what was or is intended. What it says is: “All men are created equal, endowed by “their” creator with certain unalienable rights”.

What Thomas Jefferson meant by using the word “their” versus “our” before the word creator and using in fact the word creator versus the word God, is that for each of us there “may” be a god. This is a god of our individual choosing. In America, as is understood and upheld by recent law, there is no “our creator”.

conservatism-right?

I really do understand that the conservative Christian right in this nation wants to preserve what they recognize to be an established American way of life as they know it. The problem is that standard that they lived and became comfortable with is at odds with American law. That’s the reality of it. Sure it is tough getting the bad news when you don’t expect it after becoming comfortable with something. It’s like being the employee of the month and then getting laid off because your company is shutting down. The shock could be comparable to finding out that your kid that you have raised for 10 years was accidentally switched at birth.

Seeing America become what it was intended to be is shocking for everyone!

Personally I choose to believe that Senator McCain in his remarks last week was simply manipulating the Declaration of Independence and the masses of Americans who choose to push the concept that America is a nation of religious and Christian principles. The fact is that we are and have always been a nation that welcomes all varieties of people and worship practices. This is what it means to be American. This is what the growing and powerful “new generation of Americans” that Kennedy envisioned understands and cultivates as a strong American social ideology that is representative of the American ideal as scripted by our incredible and visionary founding fathers.

aging conservative population

The manifestation that is most undeniably clear here is the fact that the conservative American ideal is shrinking. This must certainly be what President Kennedy saw through his election experience and projected forward onto the American horizon. As the American economic engine has sputtered under the Republican Party in both Congress and the White House, they have also dealt a crippling blow to those who are conditioned by the conservative culture of the American Heartland. Many of the post baby boom era have left and been “tainted” by more liberal ideology as they were forced to relocate and raise their families, while cultivating careers in the urban centers.

It is also important to note that much of the right-wing conservative base is the upper end of the age scale. This means, of course, that they are pretty well conditioned in terms of their beliefs and are likely inflexible in that regard. Unfortunately, by the time the next election or two comes around much of the aging conservative base will be well… dead, most probably.

Even their children, no doubt influenced by their parents and small conservative communities are receiving ELOB’s through all variety of artistic and educational mediums. Only yesterday, Megan McCain, the daughter of Senator John McCain appeared on “The View” and expressed with unsurprising candor her tendencies toward many liberal views and how she had selected and attended Columbia University. The new generation of Americans is not only here to stay, but is growing and expanding its reach.

a new McCain generation

It is understood by many Americans that the voting and political tendencies of Americans are in many ways geographical. The Heartland of the nation is typically Republican and the urban centers are typically Democratic. What is interesting about this is that as stark as the contrasts may be in terms of the lifestyles in Biloxi versus Boston, the balance in terms of numbers of Americans on either side of the political fence is quite precise. This is particularly true when the electoral map comes into play.

There will be no ELOB for the old guard. This is why we may be at the most dangerous fork in the road in recent American history. The old guard of the Republican Party will continue to ravage this nation while fueling profiteering under the guise of free enterprise and capitalism. Should they have the opportunity once again, they will do so with reckless abandon. Why? This is their last shot at raping this nation economically with impunity.

Not unlike me and as proclaimed by President Kennedy, the power behind the Republican Party can see the approach of the new generations of Americans who thirst for fairness, change and progress. These mainstays of the old guard (who can’t or won’t access the internet) are like Senator McCain, who see the evidence of attitudinal change within their own families. That is the shocking reality beheld by the old guard as they behold this new generation of Americans.

Senator Obama not only knew all of this, he saw it within a clear strategy and tapped into it for the benefit of his campaign. This election will not be won or lost on the basis of gender or race. Senator Obama will see to that. He will do so because he understands that America, by virtue of its core concepts, was “destined and ordained” to be a bastion of liberalism which is only intended to be welcoming to all people. Read the founding documents. There is no discussion of god, race or gender. Time and progress have lifted these influential and powerful blindfolds from the eyes of many as ever growing numbers of our citizens simply seek happiness and freedom to exist as they see fit. That is what America was intended to be and that is what America is finally becoming.

Senator Obama has the upper hand now. He has destiny as laid out in the liberal intent of the American ideal and the American Dream on his side. He has a more youthful and open-minded base that is growing: active, excited and handing out ELOB’s along the way. Senator Obama is orchestrating America’s intellectual and liberal healing processes. Given where this nation has been, this can only be considered a winning proposition.

MLK and a new generation

I have witnessed first-hand the success of the African-American Civil War of the 1960’s in the north, coupled with the valiant leadership of those like Dr. King in the south. I watched my mother weep for Dr. King, Robert Kennedy and John Kennedy: the visionaries. Now I watch the new generation of Americans roll out the new American Dream wrapped in its intended and original ideal.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by “their creator” with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

I invite all of conservative America to have a talk with “their creator” about their life, their liberty and their pursuit of happiness. I urge them to stop a meaningless attempt to shape and cultivate the vision of a fearful, angry, religiously legalistic and monoethnic American cult society.

Come out of the shadows and join us. Join with your children and grandchildren. Grasp their hand and let them lead you into the light. It is their country now…finally.

They are the welcoming and wide-eyed new generation of Americans to whom the torch was passed.

L. A. Walker, © Leon A. Walker