Obama 2008
Obama won the NC primary. Duh. Unrelated events surrounding his victory:
Last Friday was sunny, but it was the kind of sunny that is so glaring, your eyes never quite adjust to it and you have the sensation of staring through shadows to something up ahead looming dark and ill-defined in the bright white light. I had had enough with school, and boys, and awards - I was burned out and I wanted to rage. So after an exam at noon, Lorelle and I drank a bottle of Protolcolo (some vague white Italian table wine) and ate an entire block of fontina. Down the lane Superchunk and Arcade Fire were playing for Obama awareness, and Lorelle had tickets, so of course we went. I could care less about either band. I’ve listened to them in my time, and whatever, I like free stuff. So, here we go. Superchunk’s performance was unmemorable. The Arcade Fire was excited to be there, impassioned even, but they peppered their performance with nonspecific political statements regarding the impending salvation of humankind by Barack Obama, intended to arouse a self-righteous mania within the crowd. I don’t think they should ever get political, especially considering the infantilizing content of many of their lyrics. Lyrics like, “Us kids know,” and “ Then I’ll dig a tunnel from my window to yours/Yeah, a tunnel from my window to yours,” that speak to a yearning for childhood and a desire to escape back, to reclaim a state in which we were ignorant, unaccountable for our actions, not responsible to society at large.
I really do like Obama. I agree with him on most points. I’m glad that he has a position on net neutrality, and I’m really glad that he’s calling for more service. But, the Cult of Obama is really starting to give me the creeps.
His image is plastered everywhere, his canvassers are way too aggressive, and his campaign is constructing him as a messianic figure - a dangerous undertaking. I’m excited/frightened to see how the rest of the primaries/election goes down.
On Saturday we biked over to Gimghoul, and biked away in terror. On Tuesday I took my last undergrad exam. And now it is Friday again. In the intervening time, I ate multi-ethnic foods and too much desert, paid bills, cleaned the Pleasure Dome, and thought a lot about social justice, which is to say I bought new jeans and thought about how I should not have bought new jeans because capitalism as we know it is predicated upon the exploitation of someone. Dang.
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