Doc Searls Weblog

13 responses to “The Leader”

1. 

   Mike Warot

   November 5, 2008 at 1:31 am

   Now we can get rid of the Red and Blue states, and go back to being a good old fashioned United States.

   Whew!

   Reply
2. 

   Mike Warot

   November 5, 2008 at 2:46 am

   Doc, you say blogging is provisional…. it may be to someone like yourself who can apparently turn out well crafted prose while jet-lagged and bandwidth starved… but for the rest of us, the call to be provisional just gives us too much license to just fire off a piece of raw text without giving it enough reflection… much like this sleep-deprived comment

   Reply
3. Obama proves that there is nothing more powerful than an engaged community « Alexander van Elsas’s Weblog on new media & technologies and their effect on social behavior

   November 5, 2008 at 3:07 am

   […] felt his victory speech was amazing. Obama shows great leadership when he talked about similarities instead of differences. Hope instead of fear. He is not trying to […]

   Reply
4. 

   Russell Nelson

   November 5, 2008 at 3:37 am

   I’m glad you have hope, Doc, but I see the cities arrayed against the rural areas.

   Reply
5. 

   vanderleun

   November 5, 2008 at 3:49 am

   e pluribus unum

   And so say we all.

   Reply
6. 

   C3

   November 5, 2008 at 4:36 am

   Living in the UK- I gave up watching the news sometime around midnight and fell asleep watching the returns from the East Coast; apparently I made it till Pennsylvania was announced and a had a conversation with my husband but I don’t seem to remember sleep-talking .
   It was so great to see the turnout for the election. Those voters really made me proud. Yesterday was incredible People felt like they could make a difference for the first time in a long time. Independent of location, of age, of social status, of financial position, of gender and even of political affiliation.

   Let’s hope that difference is a gracious, calm, focused and positive on an on-going basis; focused on the huge challenges we have today and the ones which will crop up. I know the new leader-elect embodies those qualities. In talking with my native Chicago boss, I said I don’t know that we need another JFK but that a new FDR would be great.

   Today I feel so homesick but for the right reasons. You all have seen a fantastic thing happen today. Now the work begins!

   From Obama’s acceptance speech:
   I know that our journeys are separate but our destinies are shared.

   Let’s celebrate today- the work starts tomorrow and it will be a fine day to start this work.

   Reply
7. 

   Pauly

   November 5, 2008 at 1:45 pm

   “Relieved” is the best word I can find right now. Now we have to hold the Democrats to the fire against overreach. Which strikes me as easier than the last 8 years have been, notwithstanding some of the more classically and repressively “liberal” impulses in the new Congressional makeup. This truly is a centrist country (and let’s forget about the “center-left” and “center-right” posturing when the left/right dichotomy is so demonstrably obsolete) and this election rekindled my optimism on that point and on the fact that “yes we can” also keep some of the congressional excess at bay while getting to work at rebuilding infrastructure, credibility in foreign policy and not least opening the economic “force multiplier” that is a true internet commons.

   Reply
8. Obama: The morning after and some last thoughts

   November 5, 2008 at 1:48 pm

   […] Daryl Tay (Canada) I felt his victory speech was amazing. Obama shows great leadership when he talked about similarities instead of differences. Hope instead of fear. He is not trying to […]

   Reply
9. 

   Lisa Gates

   November 5, 2008 at 2:34 pm

   Doc,
   Yes to tears.
   I think about vision. The kind of vision that comes dressed up with inspiration and feet on the ground. Amen.

   I never write poetry. Don’t even know if you could call it poetry technically…but I wrote this “wish” about 9 months ago…

   When You Put Your Lips Together in the Shap of an O

   I want to live for the sound of thunder
   in the heart
   the kind of sound that moves
   into the belly and agitates the feet
   and sends a stomping wave of passion
   a leather, rubber, canvas carnival of clapping joyous feet
   that run from sea to sea on the memory of water
   and makes us remember what it felt like to be heard
   to be loved, to be held, to be known
   a force, a rhythm, a blink, a wink
   a word
   the kind of word that takes forever to say
   because possibility is just that long

   I know he gets out of bed
   and wonders
   and sometimes
   (no often, he’s just like us, I remember)
   thunders at god
   and washes his face
   and can’t find the sock that matches
   and damn his watch just stopped
   because it’s time for an idea that arrests the heart
   it’s time for polar bear white
   and French fry mobiles with Flinstone ingenuity
   and it’s time to remember it was a creed
   written into the founding documents
   and before that when the vast infinite’s heart lit on fire
   it was whispered, yes
   and then it was whispered by slaves, yes we
   and then it was whispered by all, yes we
   we can heal this nation and repair this world

   Put your lips together and kiss
   Put your lips together and sing

   🙂

   Reply
10. 

    Lou Josephs

    November 5, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Watched BBC World, gawd did they not get it. Slower than anyone on one on making the calls. CBC did a really good job of telling the story of the election but didn’t really get into the why of it.
    The behind the scenes stuff we didn’t know always amazes me.
    Newsweek has posted three parts of seven.http://www.newsweek.com/id/167581
    Al Franken goes to a recount, and your friends and neighbors in California voted against gay marriage. Oops.

    Reply
11. 

    Colette Searls

    November 5, 2008 at 3:36 pm

    This is a critical moment for us to re-think the way we treat our leaders. That is really the “change we need.” What matters most about Obama is that he inspires us to HELP him — and those of us who have helped him can’t stop now that he’s elected. Now we need to turn our efforts from helping Obama get elected to helping him lead. Our nation has made a sport out of blaming Dubya for eight years — and though it was richly deserved, we have grown an attitude of expectation that our leaders are people we hired to fix our problems rather than lead US to better solutions. We’ve disempowered ourselves in this expectation that it’s ultimately the leaders’ fault — that we simply hired the wrong guy — when things go wrong. It’s time to look within at how we as individuals and communities can follow Obama’s call and look inward for the sources of problems and new solutions.

    Reply
12. e pluribus unum | Jonathan MacDonald.com

    November 6, 2008 at 7:30 am

    […] Doc writes over on his blog here – the feeling is one of being united. United in hope, united in vision, united as a people in a […]

    Reply
13. 

    jMac

    November 6, 2008 at 7:46 am

    A great and moving post Doc…

    Linked here to you: http://www.jonathanmacdonald.com/?p=1884

    I spent the results night in a small town called Jena in Germany with hundreds of smiling, laughing, ecstatic Germans watching CNN.

    I would have wished to be in Chicago but standing in a place where change has happened in such an extreme way, all made sense somehow…

    Reply