I’ve been watching The American Future: A History, the latest documentary series by one of my favorite historians, Simon Schama. A book version, it seems, has also been released (see Niall Ferguson’s review). Schama, a long-time resident in an America that, in in its post 911 incarnation, became so frighteningly different from the America that was so attractive to liberal intellectuals like him, and which Republican Neo-Conservatives mightily strove to dominate for the foreseeable future, seems relieved to witness a revolt from the American people themselves: what many foresee as Obama’s impending victory seems to be a return to a more familiar, more attractive, United States.
Just yesterday, in The Guardian, Schama published Nowhere man: a farewell to Dubya, all-time loser in presidential history. Goodbye, good riddance, regardless of the outcome of the polls:
Whatever else his legacy, the man who called himself “the decider” has left some gripping history. The last eight years have been so rich in epic imperial hubris that it would take a reborn Gibbon to do justice to the fall. It should be said right away that amid the landscape of smoking craters there are one or two sprigs of decency that have been planted: record amounts of financial help given to Aids-blighted countries of Africa; immigration reform that would have offered an amnesty to illegals and given them a secure path to citizenship, had not those efforts hit the reef of intransigence in Bush’s own party. And no one can argue with the fact that since 9/11 the United States has not been attacked on its home territory by jihadi terrorists; though whether or not that security is more illusory than real is, to put it mildly, open to debate.
Bet against that there is the matter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties, more than 4,000 American troops dead, many times that gravely injured, not to mention the puncture wounds and mutilations inflicted on internationally agreed standards of humane conduct for prisoners – and on the protection of domestic liberties enshrined in the American constitution. If the Statue of Liberty were alive, she would be weeping tears of blood.
I must confess that is how I feel: and it betrays a familiarity with, and affection for, a particular conception of America that conservatives labored mightily to prove the false face of America. And to be sure, for a huge number of Americans, Obama is not the face -literally and figuratively- of their America; just as for a particular kind of Filipino-American, it is McCain, his party, and the values of that party that are their values, their preferred face: what other Filipinos and Filipino-Americans would react to with horror as too much paleface.
But I am not an American. But I am a particular kind of Filipino, not particularly representative of the Filipino (or Filipino-American) experience or possibly even conception, of the United States. We lived there for a time; I studied there, for a time; I saw many things I liked, experienced much I did not; but like so many Filipinos, found something exceedingly familiar and attractive in a culture and from a people one didn’t really have to exert much effort to get to know and appreciate.
Let me state first of all that my bias is a clear and in many ways, an unshakeable one, beginning with being bombarded by my father’s very strong opinion that the American Democratic Party was the only proper party to appreciate in the United States, because it was the party of Philippine independence, a cause that generally prospered during Democratic administrations and that fared less well under Republican ones. For this reason I continue to be astounded by Filipino-Americans who are Republicans but eventually, I suppose it makes sense for those who’ve made the decision to leave home and become citizens of the USA: emigration is at the very least an implicit repudiation of the homeland; more often than not, an explicit one, too; and if one party and its policies can be credited with the independence one feels ambivalent about, then one can understandably embrace the very party that, to too many Filipino minds, was poised to bring the permanent blessings of American civilization to their benighted little brown brothers.
That being said, I suppose I am like most Filipinos in viewing the relationship of the Philippines with the United States as more of a positive than negative one, or at the very least, who sees it from the perspective of a relationship that is very personal and not just abstract: the relatives and friends over there, the American friends over there and here, and so on. And for every George W. Bush who praised Marcos’ devotion to democracy, there’s a Ted Kennedy who was a friend to Filipinos fighting Marcos.
Which brings me to this touching scene:
Seeing Ted Kennedy addressing the Democratic Party Convention earlier this year, my thoughts came back to viewing a Democratic Party Convention back in 1984. I had no choice in the matter; every night, my father would sit me down in front of the TV and sternly exhort me to “watch real democracy at work,” trying to exorcise whatever authoritarian instincts, I suppose, might have been nurtured by a childhood spent under the New Society.
During those convention nights, I watched, and learned to enjoy, speeches; Ted Kennedy gave a masterful performance during one of those nights, but there were two speeches, in particular, that thrilled me because they evoked an understanding, or so I thought, of the reason my elders seemed so ill-tempered all the time whenever the government at home was discussed; instead of fear and suspicion it was refreshing and inspiring to hear people talk, not only of what was, but of what could, and should, be.
There was the Rev. Jesse Jackson:
What thrilled me about Jackson wasn’t just his rhetoric, but what he represented: equality of the races, for all races. Something I was quite conscious about because that was the year I’d experienced feeling the urge to speak up for my country when I discovered the Filipino-American War was referred to as the “Philippine Insurrection” in our American history textbook, which made me bristle; fortunately, the teacher was an entirely liberal man he himself made this Mark Twain short story required reading for the class:
And so, for me, 1984 was, indeed, a very interesting year: it was, to begin with, the year in the title of George Orwell’s novel, the sort of book that would make a precise connection with someone in America to experience a culture different from the police state that was the Philippines; it was the year I was introduced to Mark Twain, and his writing against the annexation of the Philippines; and it was an election year, for someone whose only living memory of elections had been the charade that was Marcos’ validation as President of the New Republic he inaugurated with such pomp in 1981. It was, also, the year after Ninoy Aquino had been shot, when the world had focused on the Philippines and Filipinos had begun to consider that their choice wasn’t limited to the bloody revolution of the Communists or the bloody repression of Marcos’ Constitutional Authoritarianism.
There had to be a middle path and what more centrist model could there be, than comfortable America’s? And the other speech that made me sit up and listen was Mario Cuomo’s:
These golden-tongued orators, for someone discovering the joy of words, and who had begun to feel the stirring of political thoughts -of the interplay between leaders and followers, nations and people, ideas and idealists, and how it had all be chronicled and how those chronicles, in turn, explained what was happening, now- well, to a young impressionable mind such as mine, they were the stuff of which indelible memories are made.
In those still-Imeldific days, with its talk of Metro Manila as “The City of Man,” and where the fences had been raised to shield the eyes of visiting Republicans from our shantytowns, to hear someone say, “this nation is more a tale of two cities than it is the tale of a city on a hill” referring to his country, of course, but said in a way that might very well have been addressed to Marcos, why that was enough to instill in someone as firm an understanding of Social Justice as any exploration of the Great Thinkers in College (indeed, when that time came, I mostly fell asleep in SocSci I and II).
Of course, listening to Cuomo lash out at Reagan for subsidizing foreign steel, and hearing the concerns of some contemporary Filipinos over Obama’s vow to start bringing home US jobs, serves as a reminder that the Democratic Party as the party of Philippine independence was in large part, whether at the time of William Jennings Bryan, or in the 1930s, when independence was finally settled as a matter of when and not if, with the entirely selfish assistance of US sugar interests:
And so it remained, with the Rescission Act after the war, stripping Filipino veterans of their benefits; or even in the 1980s, where American enthusiasm for democracy and human rights regularly got trumped by the need to retain their bases; or, in the era that’s evolved after the last umbilical cord, the US bases, has long been cut, in Democrats not being very different from Republicans in attending to their own national interest regardless of appeals for solicitude for Filipino ones. This is simply a reminder of a basic lesson no amount of American tutelage or Filipino navel-gazing can ever really teach: the meaning of sinking or swimming entirely on one’s own efforts. Contrary to what many might say, we have not been a total failure in this regard, as a people; we are, by every measure, middling at the job of independence; yet we have set such a high benchmark for ourselves -and rightly so- that our frustration, individually and collectively, is high, and despair a real problem -the world, as it’s evolved, making it so much easier and lucrative to simply pack up and leave, to work or live, or both, abroad.
To see the maps -and how I wish we could come up with similar things, for our own politics, to graphically explore our political realities- is to see how divided, literally, America is:
But it is also to see a shift; and for those, like me, with a particular kind of affection for a particular kind of America, to derive a certain satisfaction and comfort -the comfort of a return to something familiar, and which seemingly seemed poised to be gone for good- from what is going on.
It’s a return to a more inclusive, a more idealistic, less fear-driven and optimistic, view of the world, for Americans the world they affect so much; and for those who find affinity in those ideals, and in the expression of those ideals, a return to the motive power of words, and of their promise of a society where Social Justice is a living ideal, a commonly-held aspiration, and where might is not what defines right.
Some interesting readings: Campaigns in a Web 2.0 World in the NYT; a Vatican official ventures an opinion on the Democratic party; in Slate, If Obama Loses, Who Gets Blamed? and in Politico, Dems Sketch Obama Staff, Cabinet.
Obama wins by over 3 million popular votes.
Electoral vote:
MaCain – 129
Obama – 338
Obama is not just the U.S. president for Americans he’s also the U.S, president for the world. With the H of R and US Senate with him, I have high hopes for alternative energy (China is going to follow suit because it has to position itself to supply the U.S.) and the end of oil wars in the future.
and note that mccain’s concession speech put the man back to his old endearing self.
If the best legacy a Philippine president can leave is an effective population control program, America’s next president should work on alternative energy as his legacy. It doesn’t have to be a Naderite movement. The main objective is to significantly curtail the U.S.’s oil dependence and create a foundation for the world driven by alternative energy.
God Bless America and may America love the world not as an empire but as a leader.
hu hu hu.
has dodong conceded already? i bet it’s not fun to him anymore. will he relocate now to south america rather than paying higher taxes?
yes anthony, i have learned to clear my throat so many times in America. The first day I came, it is no longer familiar but i am immune to it.
over 3.5 millions of new registrations of black voters made a big difference. I am hopeful that after all the waiting and prolong excitement, something good will happen. It’s THEIR beginning . And It is not about winning but GOVERNING.
For my fellow Republican pinoys, we have come this far. This is nothing compared to how we took the process of evolving ourselves from day one. We can only move on.
God Bless
**** clears throat again**** 🙂
Hoorah for a Republican future with Sarah Palin as the frontrunner for your party nomination in 2012.
Sarah “Have we been pranked?” Palin for 2012 presidency? God bless America!
But for now, I think nightmare for some FilAm neocons (in their bigoted minds, at least) has just begun.
Twice they voted for GW Bush, labelled by some as international terrorist, now Obama, alleged to be connected to some terrorist. Truly now it can be said Americans deserve what they get.
The Philippines is in a more lighter bind although no one can say who is in worse situation between the two. We voted for somebody but got stuck with another not of our choice instead.
In that sense it cannot be said we deserved what we got.
Huhuhuhuhu, hikbi.
mlq3,
frontrunner, are you kidding me? she’s one of the reasons why McCain lost those swing voters. she had her 15 minutes of fame but soon people will lose their interest in her. she can become a senator in her home state though.
great Obama! Kenyans are cheering for you. Nice post. Musicobsession staffs are congratulating President B.O.
Fil-am neo-cons?
But even DJB rooted for Obama.
And i really do not know why, except for Sarah.
Is there now a neo neocon?
Or a neo neo-liberal?
Asan na yung mga mathematicians natin na ipinagpipilitang MALI ang mga pre-election survey????
Huwag daw tayo makinig sa survey dahil media bias lang daw ito at dahil hindi daw nagpapasurvey ang mga republicans?
Asan na ang mga hindi nagpapasurvey? Ilan dinagdag nila sa final result???
Happy days for SWS and Pulse Asia…
😀
Now it’s time to make Obama jokes and sketches and I reckon it must be very hard.
He is a bit boring comedy material…hopefully, comedians will make nice impersonations soon…
Wala palang effect yang mga padasal dasal ng evangelical christians.With cry cry arms raised to heaven.
God hates evangelical christians. If he did, McCain would have won by a landslide.
CBCP take note.
@ grd: I think mlq3 said those lines with tongue firmly in cheek. I don’t suppose an intelligent person like him would cheer for a dumb broad like Sarah “Clueless” Palin.
@ musicobseesion: If you are an Obama supporter, pease don’t call him President B.O. – just doesn’t sound right, you know? Whenever I see those letters, something smelly comes to mind.
McCain during his concession speech::
I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.
@ richard: The key word in my sentence is “some”. In fact, I’m only referring to a few rabid FilAm Republican commenters here, one of which has been unusally quiet since news of Obama’s win has been confirmed (the guy’s probably busy packing to leave USA).
For the non-USAmericans, let us enjoy the 100 day honeymoon period when Obama can do no wrong.
Once the standard USA double standard interventionist policy, which is party-independent, kicks-in we will slowly begin to hate him too. (Hopefully, not as much as Dubya, who is suddenly looking very loveable now that he is going away…)
And please say a little prayer for the 3000 Dubya political appointees who will be out of jobs. With the economy tanking, only Condi Rice has a guaranteed job. Bankers and investment firms, the usual pangsalo ng past administration cast-aways are not hiring.
d00d0ng: It is fun to watch the Bradley effect.
Obama being voted into the White House is signal that “only for White dudes and duddettes” can be set aside by a Chinese-American or Filipino-American, Cuban- or Peruvian-American, Iranian-American or Egyptian-American, Pakistani-American or Kenyan-American thinking of being a future Vice-President of the United States of America.
Obama-win is a historic event for real.
One of the messages from the Obama-win :
“No more excuses . . . . throw your buckets down and get busy.”
@UP n
The next goal is to have a NATIVE american indian elected as President.
Enough of these hyphenated immigrants. LOL
ps.
You forget that if McCain would have won, he would have been the first Puerto Rican USA President.
“Wala palang effect yang mga padasal dasal ng evangelical christians.With cry cry arms raised to heaven.
God hates evangelical christians. If he did, McCain would have won by a landslide.
CBCP take note.”-nash
The CBCP should take lessons from the Rev. Jeremiah Wrights. Mas effective ang kanyang padasal dasal, landslide ang panalo ng kanyang kumpare.
Bert,
Let’s give this new guy a chance. Maybe 2 years.
As to who is in worse situation. I always think that Fil-Ams are alright either way. Those who were left behind in the Philippines still have to deal with that squatter in Malacanang.
sms (possibly from racists) circling here in R.P.:
With Obama becoming the first black US President,
Binay has a chance to become the first black Philippine President
—–
Obama to the White House…err, the Black House?
nash: the thirty-first Vice President of the United States — Charles Curtis, vice-president to Herbert Hoover may have an Anglo-name but he was 1/8 American Indian from Kaw nation (Kansas).
cvj,
A true positive thinker deals with his/her own failure and does not blame anyone for that failure.
As to MLQ3’s declaration that Fil-Ams ‘lack community spirit’, he probably forgot that a Fil-Am deals with 2 communities. The American community where the last census shows that he/she is not a burden to the community and the Filipino community in the former homeland where he/she remits several billion dollars a year.
nash,
You Probably mean Panamanian not Puerto Rican.
well, i guess i was proven wrong.
americans rose to the occassion amd proved me wrong.
very nice win for Obama. even up to the end of campaigning, his advisers were telling him to heighten his political ads attacking McCain but he would not assent to it, as he personally told his aides, “I will not put my foot down on his neck.”
speaking of not kicking a man when his down.
Obama ran his campaign honorably, sticking to the issues, and refusing to be pulled into the ad hominems that the Republicans employed.
just for that, he gets my admiration.
now, if he can only run the country the same way he ran his campaign, we can all breathe a sigh of relief.
todays starts the day that the whole world will be watching to see if Obama is the real deal…
or if we were all just hoodwinked by his golden tongue.
my god, i still can’t shake the feeling that Obama is too good to be true. somewhere deep down, my senses are tingling.
maybe its just me reading too much Left Behind books.
“Enough of these hyphenated immigrants.”-nash
What’s wrong with hyphenated immigrant nash?
Ngayong alam na natin na maski pala Kenyan-American pagti-tiyagaan ng mga Kano lalong may pag-asa na kayong mga Fil-American na maging presidente ng USofA.
Enough of those white American president, America is fed-up with them.
“Twice they voted for GW Bush, labelled by some as international terrorist, now Obama, alleged to be connected to some terrorist. Truly now it can be said Americans deserve what they get.”
Forgive him for he knows not what he is saying.
baycas,
Obama is not the first black US President. He is the first Mulato US President.
My point exactly, although i don’t think you understood what follows from this, i.e. an unfortunate side effect of this attitude which i believe detracts from the community spirit.
@bert
nothing. all americans are hyphenated.
but it’s time for the native american indian to rule his land too.
@supremo
ay oo nga, my bad…. ang dyslexia ko kasi.
time to go to my gp and avail of my universal healthcare…
devilsadvoc8
there are some good orators who turned out to be really good – sina churchill, roosevelt, lincoln
mga sweet talkers. actually, the art is dying na nga. bring back good orators!
even john mccain’s concession speech was brilliant, better than b.o’s acceptance speech.
and there are some good orators who turned out to be really disappointing – sina chiz escudero, miriam (pagbigyan, kahit her delivery is good theatre), apo ferdie marcos, bencard…
I do HOPE that our very own politicians would learn to accept defeat just as Senator McCain did on this historical US Presidential Election.
Sana… wag na sila umapela na dinaya sila sa darating na eleksyon, kung talagang talo na sila.
Manolo, I’d love to hear to you everyday, not just watch you on TV. Go make a podcast. 😀
🙂
The leftist agenda will now focus more on redirecting the rightist agenda back to the center. The democratic party will have a big challenge on how to implement it’s nationalistic/protectionist agenda at this time of crisis with unemployment rising. This is Obama’s problem not ours.
But we all know, Obama’s foreign policies and securities are less favored by majority.
On Barack Obama and the Future of Asia
The Relationship of US and China is a partnership started on trade, commercial and economic.The relationship between US and Japan is more broad and comprehensive. It is based on security, economic, cultural and social ties.
In regards to Philippines, we will probably have to reevaluate our role with APEC and WHO
These two governing bodies are also independent from the World Bank
and the IMF
My question would be, how does Obama implement its CHANGE, a leftist agenda, without causing too much imbalance to those established organizations?
What policies, sanctions and qoutas that our government must maintain and prepare strategies beneficial to our country?
In my opinion, we will go back to basic. Buy our own and achieve national sufficiency. We must elect a president that will clearly define our economic goals within our country FIRST
Remittances will continue 🙂
@UP n grad
” 1/8 American Indian from Kaw nation (Kansas).”
Ano yan? Pinoy billboard model? “I’m 1/2 pinoy, 1/5 german sheperd, 1/8 gorilla?” 😀
Genetics alone does not determine ethnicity. It’s a product of upbringing.
Liking ‘adobo’ does not make you a Pinoy the same way as having a view of Russia from your window makes one an expert in Russo Foreign Policy.
Kaya nga ito ang criticism ko sa mga ibang African-Americans for example. They only hang on to the ‘african’ bit because of the phenotype when in fact nothing in their upbringing is remotely connected to africa. At least Barack made a real effort to connect to the kamag-anak from the father side.
In pinoy showbiz, the writers make a big fuss about which hollywood c–lister is ‘half-pinoy’ ek ek when they are not even remotely half because of upbringing…
but anyways, this is just pedantry on my part.
let’s all love one another and be our brother’s keeper (unlike someone here who says keep family values at home…..)
the christian right and the american hierarchy may not have been able to prevent a landslide but they reversed gay marriage in CA and outlawed it in FL (overwhelmingly) and AZ.
supremo, every immigrant has those two communities in mind. not being a burden is and should never be the sum total of civic involvement. and the lifeline they provide to relatives at home is a noble thing, but again, if it stops there and doesn’t extend to demanding of those left at home that they nurture a society that gives people true freedom of choice through true freedom of opportunity, then they are condemning themselves to an unfair martyrdom, permanently subsidizing their loved ones which leaves them little room to contribute to the development of their homeland as well as their motherland.
roland, salamat, pinagiisipan ko nga.
cvj,
‘My point exactly, although i don’t think you understood what follows from this, i.e. an unfortunate side effect of this attitude which i believe detracts from the community spirit.’
Do not confuse self-delusional positive thinkers from normal positive thinkers. Taking a positive approach to life doesn’t mean ignoring others or the community. Positive thinking actually boost community spirit. Although too much positive thinking reduces awareness.
@mlq3:
woohoo, hoping to hear your commentaries on my ipod. hehe. 🙂
Nash,
stop your nonsense, When you’re in Rome be a Roman. When you’re at home , be a home maker ( family values). I will give you credit to family values. Yes it can only be applied to a business targeting customers with the same values. Try selling dinuguan to white people. Let’s see if you can expand to that market. LOL. When you’re in business , makes lots of money.
you’re such a baby …. finish your college. you must have missed Philippines. kapuy kaayo ka uy 🙂
Martin Luther King’s vision, has finally come true.
its a big Wow… hehe. 😀
When is there going to be a 1st ever Filipino-American President of the US?
XD