The utterly conservative Economist changes its mind and endorses Obama:This cannot be another election where the choice is based merely on fear. In terms of painting a brighter future for America and the world, Mr Obama has produced the more compelling and detailed portrait. He has campaigned with more style, intelligence and discipline than his opponent. Whether he can fulfil his immense potential remains to be seen. But Mr Obama deserves the presidency.
"Hard Rain" by Tony Hoagland from Hard Rain: A Chapbook. © Hollyridge Press.
ReplyDeleteHard Rain
After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,
nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people
quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.
You can't keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,
one day at a time—
and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.
Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.
I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,
but that was just another song
that had been taught to me since birth—
whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.
Blaize, I depend on you for "cheerful" - so why are you harshing my mellow?
ReplyDeleteSorry, dude. Wait. I'm "cheerful"? I will have to inform my mother. I think she thinks I'm "nutty." Which is kind of like cheerful, but more, well, nutty.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's a good poem, huh?
The Economist endorsed Democrat in 2004 too, and gives voice to heterodox economic ideas often enough. It's not all that conservative. That having been said I would have cried if they'd endorsed McCain.
ReplyDeleteMistress, you're right - they went for Kerry in 04 but considering their conservatism is of the economic variety and Bush had already begun his massive debt build by that election it wasn't a non-con endorsement. In this cycle even they see the folly of McCain's economic fallacy. Both candidates will have to spend, but at least Obama realizes the cash has to come from somewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe more fiscal conservative is Obama and I think that's why they tapped him.
And Blaize, it is a lovely poem, just a little down.