The Best Invitaion Ever

The rest of the invitation reads: CNN live coverage, Live performances by the US Air Force Band, and up-to-the minute vote coverage. It's to be held at the Grand Ballroom of the Howard Johnson Hotel in downtown Bucharest, a three hour train ride from Craiova.
I am leaving for Bucharest Saturday morning, November 1st, a guest of the 12-day National Theatre Festival. They've offered me a free pass to all the plays, and a free hotel stay. Since I teach Tuesday evenings, 5-7pm, I will take a train to Craiova Tuesday morning, and then return to Bucharest at midnight and take a taxi straight to Ho-Jos.
Of the 12 Fulbrighters I met, it seems as though all but 1 of them are Obama supporters. Even the folks at the embassy seem to be rooting for him, as are all of my students and everyone I've met here. It's funny, for the past seven years when I've traveled overseas I always get the same question: "Every American we meet tells us they did not vote for Bush. Tell me, who did?" I try and explain that Bush voters usually never travel outside of The States, and if they do they don't talk to strangers. A taxi driver in Cluj asked, "Can I be honest with you?" "Of course," I answered. "If McCain is elected," he said, "America is fucked." He sounded out his curse as though he had sucked up some awful tasting phlegm and didn't know where to spit it.
My aunt Rita, one of few Republicans I know, sent out an anti-Obama email this morning, a tirade based on fear and misinformation (she listens to talk radio; go figure). One very telling part of the email was this sentence: "If you don't agree, please, don't tell me. You have nothing to gain."
And there, my friends, is the problem that America faces, and which has been exacerbated in recent years. Americans, like all people, are basically good. Unfortunately, the majority, like everyone else, are also basically lazy. What was once the "United" States, has been brought low by talk radio hosts and politicians, bought corporate mouthpieces posing as friends of the common people, who learned their skills from people like Herman Goering, President of the Nazi Party, who said, "...it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
The U.S. is a nation divided, and our common enemy is fear, the progenitor of darkness. Like it or not, we now live in a global market, our futures interdependent with every other country. My hope, and the hope of most of the planet, especially the younger generation, is that we are courageous enough to shine a light on darkness, and actively communicate with those with opposing views, so that we might learn to embrace love, not fear. This coming Tuesday, November 4th, 2008, will be a deciding factor in America's, and the world's, history.
"In this
moment
as smooth
as a board,
and fresh,
this hour,
this day
as clean
as an untouched glass
--not a single
spiderweb
from the past--
we touch
the moment
with our fingers,
we cut it
to size,
we direct
its blooming..."
--from Ode to the Present
By Pablo Neruda