Should We* Care?

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First asterisk first.

* I'm still undecided as to whom the 'We' denotes. Citizens, legal (and illegal) residents, pets, robots, bacteria? All of the preceding?
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The inauguration of Barack Obama has come (and not yet gone), and it's likely that at least one person from every single nation throughout the world watched the ceremony with considerable interest. Now, as the title (hopefully) suggests, should 'we' care? is a pertinent question, and not because I say so. I haven't resided in the United States for over five years, which isn't an ungodly amount of time, but it's enough time to (somewhat) distance oneself from the day-to-day experience of being American (whatever being American is supposed to mean, I'm disinclined to argue) and grow accustomed to being the other guy.**

That said, and do be lenient about interpreting the forthcoming analogy, the United States is like an exceedingly popular (and wealthy) high-school kid that rammed his dad's Volvo into an oak tree while driving drunk. He survived, and his hospital room is littered with Get Well! cards and balloons, but the lad's gonna require some serious physical therapy before he'll be on the track team again.

I'll cease this pathetic analogy before it goes too far; as to liken Obama to a gifted surgeon, therapist, and whatnot would be gratuitous, lame, and well beyond the original point.

What should be said is this: a multitude of people across the globe are excited, to say the very least, about Obama and the implications of his presidency, and to be candid, I believe that 'we' should care about what those various peoples think.

Sure, not everyone is pleased with America's decision, but many of those same people already have a hard-on against the United States (or people of the non-Caucasian persuasion) for a variety of reasons, and you won't change their minds quickly, if ever. I'm referring to the other folks, those that recognize that in today's global economy*** you can't have a major player falter, as it will inevitably affect the franchise. (I don't know too much about basketball, as you can probably ascertain with ease.) My mother buys Australian licorice by the boatload, and that puts Denz into his new Toyota Supra (manufactured in Mexico), which in turn pays some Japanese manager's salary, and he subsequently takes his family on a trip to Vancouver for the sole purpose of buying a bag of world-renowned Canadian carrots. Some Canadian dude jerks off into a toilet shaped like a maple leaf with the money gathered from the lucrative carrot industry, and so on. It's all cyclical, baby.

If anything, I'm saying that 'we' should care that the other inhabitants of our world take an interest in the current president of the United States. Like millions of other Americans, I stood in line, happily awaiting my chance to vote, and not everyone had the opportunity to do so (American or not), but there are many ways in which to express confidence, be they economic, political, or societal, and Americans can ill-afford to ignore that ringing voice in their collective ear, one that screams "Hey, quit screwing around."

I loathe to spell the name Obama as H-O-P-E (like the good folks at Pepsi would have liked us to do), and I'm no prognosticator, but hype can be a good thing, as the momentum may be what propels the new administration into a future unburdened by overwhelming cynicism.



** This is not to propose that I'm Mr. Cosmopolitan; far from it, but you won't see me complaining that Korean carrots lack the genuine, i.e. Canadian, flavor that carrots should have. So.

*** If you want to argue against the notion of a global economy, that's cool; but let's save that for another day, shall we?