Tomorrow Belongs to Us
January 19th, 2009The people clamored for change. A charismatic leader offered them hope and a new way, one free of divisiveness — where everyone would work together, for the good of all. And this man won an election decidedly.
The year was 1946, the leader was Klement Gottwald, and the country was Czechoslovakia. A few years later, when the communists consolidated power in what was gloriously called “Victory February,” the country was so unified that it didn’t need another election for more than forty years.
Philosopher George Santayana once famously said, “Those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.” And we progressives — on the eve of Barack Obama’s historic inauguration — can only hope for such condemnation. For tomorrow, when Gabriel swoops down and flies over the White House in culmination of our national amnesia, we will hopefully set a course as equally dramatic as the one the Czechs and the Slovaks took sixty years earlier.
Just as Gottwald eliminated partisan rancor, so will Obama. Just as Gottwald sublimated his country’s national interests to those of a broader international community, so will Obama. And just as Gottwald imposed economic and social fairness, so will Obama.
Tribune Obama, like Gottwald and many other forward-thinking (and some not-so-forward-thinking) leaders this past century, is a man who, through the force of his personality, can make believers of everyone — even when they themselves don’t know what exactly they are believing. So much so that people create great-sized artworks in his honor. Young children joyfully sing in his praise. Cities even rename streets and schools after him. And while some bitter folk may call this force a “cult,” one person’s cult is another person’s church.
So tomorrow, turn on your TV and watch the conception of our new reality. It will be such a spectacle that even ESPN will cover it.
Better yet, go to one of the many movie theaters where that great objective news organization, MSNBC, will broadcast it.
If only Leni Riefenstahl were alive to film it.
Victory January is upon us. “We can change the world,” is no longer a cliché. We control the presidency, we control the legislature, and we are just a little attrition short of controlling the judiciary as well. And with proper policy, education (or reeducation), and cooperation from the media, we can one day also control the people — for their own benefit, of course. In time, perhaps we too will no longer need the inherent divisiveness of elections.
As a sweet young man once sang:
The blossom embraces the bee.
But soon, says a whisper;
“Arise, arise!”
For tomorrow belongs to us.
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© Copyright 2009 by Colin Cohen. All Rights Reserved.
January 19th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Excellent! I pledge my life to the glorious new order and to the supression of reactivist elements! Everyone will learn to work for the common good - or else.