My Letter of Thanks to President Barack and First Lady Michelle Obama

Dear President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, thank you for the grace and dignity you brought to the White House. You made it a thoroughly beautiful place, that exhibited and has come to symbolize truthfulness, profound understanding, inclusion, joy and values that sustain individuals, families, relationships, friendships, communities and whole societies. 

A place of intelligent, humane government, wisdom, humility, a real striving towards world peace through dialogue instead of war. Of the importance of equality in every walk of life, and of triumph through adversity.

For so long politics has been portrayed as a dirty game. I know the worst needs to be exposed but often that happens at the cost of the best. Russian-driven fake news aside, a democratic society with freedom of speech isn't easy when our salacious instincts are so powerful and they're constantly spoon-fed a diet that's so rich and so gratifying to them. Let's face it, the dirty parts are more dramatic than the clean. The distorted picture is hard to resist if your only source of information is a media driven by the need to make money, employing journalists who need to make a living, and to support their families.

Some people instinctively search for something better, but many either soak up that rich and gratifying diet and utterly abandon independence of mind, or they're nauseated by it and give into cynicism, become enervated, lose interest, and don't realize that by not searching for the best, they're strengthening the worst.

But you have been a shining example that's been right out there for everyone to see, and that some have been blind to but that most have ultimately embraced. You entered the minds and hearts of millions, at home and around the world. You elevated politics, reminding us all that it should be, can be and is something of beauty, something that inspires and gives hope. A means through which people can be drawn together and society can be healed and constantly improved.

We've seen, up close and personal recently, that instant gratification of baser instincts, of the salacious part, lasts a few seconds and then the after-effects kick in. They last much longer than a few seconds and they spread like a virulent disease.

You have proved that living with courage is attainable and rewarding. That wisdom isn't always instantly gratifying but that it makes space for giving and receiving love, for experiencing joy and fun, for the best kind of bonding experiences. That going high creates massive challenges within, but that when we rise to them, the sense of fulfillment and peace, the knowledge that we've contributed to making the world a safer place for ourselves and everyone around us, that we've opened the door to give and receive love and respect—that is unparalleled, long-term and sustainable gratification. And nothing beats it!

I'm not an American citizen, although I've longed to be one forever. It was hard to watch the election process and be powerless to play an active role. I wanted to be on the ground, talking to people, helping out, doing my bit. America has always epitomized for me a society where those who have to fight for equality do so with incredible courage, persistence and resilience, though the worst of times. Joined and supported by those who do have equality and want it for everybody. A society where the power and importance of hope and faith are recognized and nurtured.

These past eight years have illustrated those qualities to me more than ever before. You changed the way America deals with its own problems and, as a member of the international community, although it's the "biggest kid on the block", your Administration has behaved with restraint and respect, with profound understanding of long and short term consequences for all.

I've raged and mourned, along with millions round the world, the results of the election. But I've been uplifted at the power of the fight to preserve values that are under siege in many place round the world. It's always true that the worst time bring out the best in the best people.

Mr. President when I watched your press conference last night, I soaked it up with a mixture of intense intellectual satisfaction, relief at your sane and coherent responses, pleasure at the way you spoke about your beautiful daughters, infinite sadness that this was your last press conference, and profound gratitude for everything you have done for the world and for me in my own life. I didn't want you to leave that podium.

You and the First Lady have "lived your lives out loud" and illustrated every day, in so many different ways, that real power, real strength, is a quiet thing but it somehow speaks the loudest, its voice travels the furthest, and its message reverberates in hearts and souls forever.

Referring to the US Olympic athletes, you said what a pleasure it was to interact with people who are the best in the world at what they do. Well, every person who has interacted with you and the First Lady, have had that experience. You've carried the weight, the burden of responsibility with grace, good humor and dignity. I've seen how it bowed you down, though, and lately, although your sadness at the end of this incredible era is palpable, it's seemed as if, in shedding the burden, you've not only lost the weight of it, you've lost years!

Thank you for bowing out of the White House in such a mind-bogglingly graceful, soulful and completely undefeated manner despite the results of the election; in fact, in a way that has left me, and I'm sure millions of others, notwithstanding our fear of what's coming, with a sense of the gentle closing of one door and the opening of many others.

God bless you and your family, and keep you safe.

Goodbye to Dignity in the White House

Embed from Getty Images

President Obama & the First Lady at the 2016 CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

President Obama & First Lady Michelle Obama at CBC Foundation Awards Dinner

It's a daunting prospect, four long years without an American president and first lady who have been a joy in every way and a constant reminder of the true nature of integrity, dignity, compassion, understanding, courage, sanity, coherence, brilliance of mind.

First Lady Michelle Obama spoke to OprahWinfrey in June this year about the next generation of women. When Oprah asked what single piece of advice she could give to young women, Michelle Obama's response, and she included young men, was that "We can never be complacent... The work always continues…We have seen in recent times how quickly things get taken away from us if we aren't vigilant."

Indeed. And that was in June. From then on the nightmare has just gotten darker and darker, as every decent human value has been assaulted by Trump and his cohorts.

Do we even know how to be vigilant enough anymore? Did we ever? Conservatives are very good at vigilance because they're often driven by anger and fear, which are the most powerful motivators to action. Liberals aren't so good at the kind of vigilance that's necessary to stop sociopaths from getting into power. Too often they try to see the best in everybody, which is good as an overarching philosophy, but not if it blinds you to the reality of what people's anger and fear will drive them to. And it's not much of a motivator. Let's all try to get along. If somebody is abusing your child, do you try to get along with them?

Don't sweat the small stuff. People say it a lot, but the small stuff is the early warning signal, it's the hairline crack. Small cracks never go away, they always widen, and if you catch them early, not much damage is done. The more you ignore them, the less sensitive you become to them until you only wake up when your house has collapsed.

Throughout the lead-up to the election, every intelligent person and journalist with a conscience and the capacity to separate media-driven hysteria and fake news from reality was shouting warnings about Trump. But it was too little too late.

Where has everybody been during Obama's terms, where the GOP has done everything it could to obstruct him and not do its job? Where was the liberal media outrage at Obama's unpopularity when he was doing a sterling job despite the obstructions? Where was our outrage at the vicious racism that was directed at him and the First Lady and at the up-swelling of racism and white fear of losing status quo that led to a burgeoning of white supremacist groups?

That's not where it all started, but it's where it could have been stopped. The GOP got away with not doing its job. It got away with the gerrymandering, with targeting minority voters, making it harder for them to vote. Those were some pretty sizable cracks.

It was small step from there to a candidate who would campaign on enabling hatred and assault on human decency in every aspect and encourage Russian interference in a presidential election and was too stupid to understand how that would imperil American democracy. A small step to millions believing fake news and to the main social media platform through which it was disseminated not identifying it until it was too late. The mainstream media didn't identify it either. From there it was easy for an FBI director to 'innocently' release a statement that would sway the election and hand it to a sociopath.  

Yesterday, apropos apparently of Putin's speech to his military leadership that Russia needed to upgrade its nuclear capacity allegedly so that it could penetrate sophisticated defense systems, Trump tweeted that the US needs to increase its nuclear capacity until people come to their senses about nukes. When I saw the news last night my blood ran cold. So best buddies Putin and Trump are in stand-off already.

Two out-of-control narcissists, hungry for control and desperate for affirmation, and both with the power to set off another world war. The alarming thing is that Putin is a terrible man but he's intelligent. The same can't be said of Trump, who is frighteningly gullible and manipulable. 

This is what happens when an over-enabled cheat, obsessive liar, a racist, a sexist and a bigot with an over-sized ego is elected with the help of a partisan FBI director and Russian intervention.

From the Obama Administration to this. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot. Vigilance; we need to upgrade our idea of what it entails. I've seen a huge outpouring of frustration on Twitter and Facebook from people who were vigilant, and who did speak their mind, over and over. Who turned out for the vote. But it was too little too late. Even as a non US citizen, I could have done more. A whole lot more.

Because this isn't just America's problem. It affects all of us. The racist bigot who is about to take over the White House has enabled white supremacy in the US, which has a ripple effect around the world. He will happily screw up international trade agreements and relationships and create massive uncertainty in the global economy. It would thrill him to increase nuclear capacity and give the order to bomb the shit out of a country at three in the morning because somebody in that country told the truth about him, or because he read something on a fake news site, or because he realized that the hair he has left is thin and straggly.

Before the election, I went to a lecture given in Cape Town by a visiting US professor, a passionate Democrat, unequivocally damning of the GOP and Trump. He said that up until recently his only involvement in politics has been to vote, but it's not enough anymore. It's not enough for any of us.

How did America go from the best to the worst? While we were sleeping. We thought we were awake but we were dreaming. Now we've woken up to a nightmare. What's left to do?

#goodtrouble

— John Lewis (@repjohnlewis) November 11, 2016

The Obamas Fought White Identity Crisis. Now It's Hillary Clinton's Turn To Do It.

Everything awful that can possibly have been said about Hillary Clinton has been said. Every sinister interpretation about her actions has been made. Every conspiracy theory has been elaborated on and substantiated by exactly nothing factual. Millions of dollars from tax-payers and wealthy Republicans have been spent trying to dig up facts that don't exist, trying to turn lies into truth. Her whole life in public office has been characterized by this battle. Notably absent has been a public willingness to penetrate the myths and their origins. Hillary met with conservative resistance in 1979, when Bill Clinton was elected Governor of Arkansas. She was interviewed on In Focus and asked if she felt comfortable in her new position, if it could be called a position, to which her response was,

"Well I do think it's a position and I do feel comfortable, but there's still a lot to learn and a lot to be done that we're just becoming acquainted with" so she couldn't really comment too much yet. When the host asked if it worried her that she didn't exactly fit the profile expected of First Ladies, she said, "No. I assess everybody by who they are, not by how they look." She might as well have added "And not by the things that are said of them," but she had no way of knowing what was in store for her.

No way of knowing that a huge sector of America was still unprepared for a woman who had the audacity to be intelligent, courageous, and outspoken.

It's been a long journey for Hillary Clinton from then to now. She was very openhearted in those days, not afraid to speak her mind. She didn't change because she became somehow untrustworthy and corrupt, or gain a reputation for being unlikeable because it was the truth about her, but because she encountered a savagery she hadn't known existed. Because it didn't exist in her family or in her. She did change her appearance, she did give people what they wanted as far as that went. But she stood her ground on her principles, and a certain misogynist element of America has never been able to forgive her. Women are not supposed to be powerful.

Or likeable. Everybody who knows Hillary Clinton likes her and not in a milk-toast way. They're enthusiastic about her. She's warm, she's funny, she has a great laugh, her smile lights up the room, she's a brilliant listener, she cares. Her 'unlikeability' has nothing to do with who she is.

It's not just an American thing. Julia Gillard, Australia's first female prime minister, learned it the hard way too. When she was first elected, she said she expected the supportive and the negative rhetoric but believed it would dissipate after a while and that she would be treated as any normal prime minister. It didn't happen. The misogyny she encountered, such as the Leader of the Opposition's comment "If it's true that men have more power generally speaking than women, is that a bad thing?" and "what if men are by physiology or temperament, more adapted to exercise authority or to issue command?" The misogyny ramped up over time until Julia Gillard had had enough and said so.

Her 'misogyny speech' went viral. Recently on GPS she said it probably resonated with every woman who has ever met with misogyny and longed to speak out but missed the opportunity as it arose. Fareed Zakaria also asked her if she thought Hillary Clinton was being held to a different standard. Her answer was a categorical yes.

President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have been exposed to the same bullying, spite, murderous persecution driven by white male identity crisis—although the role played by conservative women in supporting it shouldn't be underestimated. For the last eight years it's been like the Civil War take 2, except that the first was never really won. The Obamas have triumphed with tremendous dignity and in doing so have renewed, strengthened and invigorated all that's good about America.

Now it's Hillary Clinton's turn. She too has survived everything that's come at her and never let it thwart her and now that she's running for president she's looking the monster right in the eye. By standing her ground against the worst she's exposing it in all its glory for sane Americans and the world to revile.

The first presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and the GOP candidate had the most viewers in US history. More than 80 million watched Clinton behave like an outstanding president. Close to 70% saw her as a winner.

They saw that she was ultra-prepared, which telegraphed that she respected them enough to do her homework well. They saw her confronted with bluster, lies, misogyny, rank stupidity, horrific racism, disrespect—bullying of every kind. She didn't once lose her composure but more than that, she knew how to deal very effectively with it without returning kind for kind. Hillary Clinton conducted herself with humor at times but never stooped to being snide. She was graceful throughout but there was never any doubting her steel, which Trump, for all his puerile and disgusting but considerable arsenal, couldn't get past. It showed what she'll do when she encounters that same behavior as president, which she will, in Congress and internationally. It also showed that she learns through challenges—referring to decades of facing the same kind of obstacles—without a hint of bitterness.

About 66 million watched the second debate and saw the same woman. When asked questions her answers were, as always deeply thoughtful and insightful. Her opponent's were incoherent, as always. 57% saw Hillary Clinton as the winner.

At least 50 million people for the 1st debate and 37 million for the 2nd got and believed the message that Hillary Clinton respects them, takes her task seriously, has the capacity to overcome barriers, and can be trusted with the job as president. I think the tide finally turned with this debate, not because her opponent had a meltdown—which he did—but because she rose to a very challenging occasion in a big way, which she has done her whole life.

It's no surprise that the NYT puts Hillary Clinton's chances of winning at 90%. Talk about triumph through adversity. Which is what America is really about.

The photo is from the video of Hillary Clinton's interview on In Focus in 1979.
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Congratulations Hillary Clinton! #HistoryMade

Congratulations Hillary Clinton! Her nomination win is thrilling, especially given how hard and long she's fought for it. She gave a fabulous speech; full of joy and humor and respect.

It's been a lifetime of fighting for her and she's had the harshest of allegations hurled at her for years and years and years. None of it has been proved but it hasn't stopped coming. Yet she pushed through it all and has triumphed. What an exceptional role model, teaching girls and women in every country that the highest hurdles, the most seemingly insurmountable barriers, can be overcome. Following on from Barack Obama's presidency where he and First Lady Michelle Obama triumphed by pushing through barriers equally impenetrable, equally challenging in every way.

For all its faults, there's a reason why America leads the world. Eight years ago they shattered a glass ceiling and they've done it again. One historic president is going to be followed by another. Historic indeed; on the day Hillary Clinton's mother was born, Congress approved the 19th Amendment allowing women the vote. And now her daughter is the Democratic nominee. Come November she will be the US President.

I'm so looking forward to her taking Trump down. Ironically, the negative exposure she has had for so long is going to work in her favor now; anything he throws at her will be old news, courtesy the GOP and Bernie Sanders and some of his supporters.

But there is a goldmine in Trump's life for Hillary to dig up. And we've already seen that she's the only one who can unseat that terrible man.

I'm going to open a bottle of champagne tonight to celebrate how far women have come. Yes, it matters to me that the next American President will be a woman.

Suck it up, Susan Sarandon! Whether you want to admit it or not you and your vagina are going to benefit from Hillary Clinton's presidency. Though you probably won't be grateful, the majority of Democrats and Independents in America will save you from a Trump presidency and the destruction you so happily said you would welcome if Bernie didn't win.

Over time all the lies that have been fabricated about Hillary Clinton will be exposed, all the conspiracy theories and predictions will come to nothing. She'll make a great president. Barack Obama's outstanding legacy will be honored. And young girls will know that their dreams can become a reality.