The New President

President Obama’s inauguration was quite a remarkable experience.  I’m not referring to the actual ceremony in Washington DC, because I didn’t go.  I’m referring to the general sense of the public that I gleaned from my travel on the train that day, the atmosphere at work that day and speaking with colleagues and friends.  How does one best describe it?  I think it was a mixture of hope, given all the economic turmoil of the last few months; pride, given that everyone acknowledges that this is a highly intelligent man; and good ol’ fashioned American optimism.  I wasn’t around when President Kennedy gave his speech with the “Ask not….” line and don’t know what the reaction was.  I can say that when President Obama was about to take his oath at noon, the entire office it seems was crammed around every available television set in the building.  And when he completed the oath, there was an eruption of cheering.  And then I watched as hundreds of people paid rapt attention to what he said in his 20 minute speech.  It was a remarkable thing to experience (not the speech, as much as the emotions of the people around me).

Clearly, Obama represents a beacon of optimism for almost everyone in this country at the moment.  Not just economically, but even from a social perspective in a country where just 60 years ago, racial discrimination was stark reality of life.  The new President seems to symbolically represent the coming of age of the American Declaration of Independance which famously states that all men are created equal.

Will Colin Powell Please Run for President?

On a recent Meet the Press, Colin Powell endorsed Senator Obama for the U.S. presidency. Now that in itself is nothing remarkable…except perhaps for the fact that Powell is a Republican.  But what impressed me most about what Powell said in that interview was the following:

“And it is permitted to be said 
such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.” Well, the correct 
answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. 
But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with 
being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there 
something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he 
or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop 
the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is 
not the way we should be doing it in America”

This sounds like a very sensible man, one who understands what the U.S. fundamentally tries to stand for.  Although this is just one sound bite, it’s one that makes me really wish that he was running for President.  Here’s the interview on Youtube:

Patriotism and the Use of Force

Today, I was talking to a colleague from Turkey and we got to speaking about the flash point that is being reached in her country with respect to the violence on their border with Iraq. I casually mentioned that I hope that it wouldn’t get to a point where the Turks declare war. Her response was surprisingly defensive. She spent the next 10 minutes explaining why it was necessary for the Turks to use force to ensure that their border is completely safe and secure. This got me thinking about the general use of force that is usually advocated by fierce patriots of nations, especially to address issues of geographical boundaries. I suppose given past and recent history of invading maurauders (whether Mongols. Mughals, Sadaam or China), this is the only way to handle such problems. I guess it boils down to why humans feel to need to conquer…From a theory of utility perspective, it can possibly be explained by economic gain or social gain (read the huge inflation of egos).