Contact Us Advertising Information Online exclusives Cover Story Buzz Feature In Case You Missed It Vote 2009 Boulderganic Fall 2009 Student Guide 2009 Boulder Weekly Sweet 16 Anniversary Boulderganic 2009 Summer Scene 2009 Email Newsletter Legal Services Best of Boulder 2009 Annual Manual 2009 Newspaper of the Future Kids Camp Guide 2009 Wedding Marketplace 09 Jobs available Student Guide 2008 Best of Boulder 2008 Annual Manual 2008 Join Our Mailing List
|
November 13-19, 2008
editorial@boulderweekly.com
Back to Letters
A Sign of the Times
by Ben Corbett
The announcement of Obama’s victory was more than a milestone. It was a tangible pivot point. And as that frozen moment opened itself up for the world to walk through, for a brief second you could actually feel the difference between before and after. Something big had changed. The hopeless cynicism that hung so heavily over the future quickly shifted into a national euphoria. There were tears. Much joy. Walls came down and people were actually embracing, as if embracing renewed possibility. Horns blew. Fireworks went off. And then the moment ended.
In retrospect, many will point out that the whole affair seemed over the top. But in these times, sensationalism is the choice hor d’oeuvre at a banquet of disillusionment, and the bipolar swings in American temperament smack of the tumultuous ups and downs of the 1960s, an era that in many ways we are currently reliving. Then, as now, the whole thing boils down to resuscitating the American Dream which, after Kennedy’s 1963 assassination, has been like some terminally ill patient in an Intensive Care Unit with respirators and all variety of tubes and mechanisms sticking out of it, kept barely alive for years, only to fatten the wallets of greedy doctors that profited considerably on the slim hopes of selfish loved ones. By all appearances, Bush’s 2004 reelection seemed to be a pronouncement of death. That is, until Obama came along and said, “Hey, wait! We have a pulse here!” A faint pulse, given. But everyone rushed down to the morgue to see the miracle anyway.
Where were you when they announced that Obama won? In the future, this question will always be remembered as the one that replaced “Where were you when Kennedy was shot? Obama is very much the new Kennedy for the next generation with his ability to charm and entrance and stoke the beliefs of the world’s youth. After the hype blows over, it’s hard to say whether the President Elect can deliver on his sweeping promises. Left and right, the critics are already lining up with their political microscopes, ready to pounce on the next administration’s every move. Like Carter with Nixon, Obama is in the awkward position of being an apologist for his warmonger predecessors. And while the comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq wars have become almost cliché, Obama’s biggest test, and where he’ll meet the most resistance, will be in ending the Iraq war. An initiative he cannot tackle alone.
Back in December 1969, when John Lennon launched his “War Is Over! If You Want It” print campaign, posting billboards up in eleven of the world’s biggest cities to end the war in Vietnam, he became a direct threat to the American military-industrial complex. It took serious balls for Lennon to use his celebrity power in putting not only his career, but his life on the line to rage against the daily massacres then occurring in Southeast Asia. More than he would ever know, Lennon was caught in the cross hairs of a powerful elite that wished to eliminate him. Today, much like Vietnam, the slaughters and bombings of innocents are occurring on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet there’s no John Lennon in the spotlight campaigning fastidiously to end these conflicts.
Back in 2006, to hype the release of the documentary, The U.S. Vs. John Lennon, Lionsgate films hung two “War Is Over” billboards, one in New York City and the other in Los Angeles. “It’s unfortunate that the world is at war,” said filmmaker David Leaf. “I think a story about John Lennon, who was fearless in his campaign for peace, is particularly relevant in a time when fear seems to rule.” Over the years, the billboards have popped up sporadically around the world, from Finland in 1991 to Yoko Ono’s new initiative back in 1998, when she personally funded and relaunched the campaign, and even in 2002, when guerrilla propagandists clandestinely posted a “Jihad Is Over!” billboard on New York’s East 14th Street. Last month in the rural village of Niles, Ohio, of all places, a solitary and massive billboard with Lennon’s “War Is Over” motif jutted into the sky over route 422 as part of a museum exhibit.
A voice crying in the wilderness? Perhaps. Yet, even though these vintage “War Is Over” billboards hinge on commercial aspects to make them feasible in today’s world, the meaning is still there (you can print yours out at www.imaginepeace.com). And they appear to be an early tremor of a cultural renaissance echoing the revolutionary sentiments of the 1960s. Sentiments only punctuated by Obama’s election, which was radical in a way that most have yet to acknowledge. However, the bid for ending the war is the most daring garment in Obama’s wardrobe of ideas. Without a groundswell of majority support, meaning the continuing pressure from those who elected him, Obama doesn’t stand a chance at pulling it off, nor may he be compelled to.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
back to top
|
| |
