God bless...

I took my first road trip round the USA some 35 years ago - in 1973 with a Greyhound bus pass - and I've been a regular visitor ever since: so I'll be staying up late on Tuesday nght to find out who is to be the 44th President of the United States.

[Incidentally, I love the faux-grandeur of the way Americans give everything the added significance of a numerical sequence - the Superbowl, the latest WWE Smackdown, the Presidency... I mean what number Prime Minister is Gordon Brown? What number FA Cup has its First Round Proper this coming weekend? Numerics would make it all so much more impressive - and then we'd know for certain that Spurs have had more Managers since Bill Nicholson than the USA has had Presidents since Abe Lincoln...]

I'm ambivalent about America. I'm attracted to it (when I had time to spare, all those years ago, I chose to head west rather than joining my friends on the road to Marrakesh...), but I'm also repelled by it.

I love the music - swing,blues,country,soul;/ and of course the rock 'n roll (that makes a pretty good chant: try it tomorrow night for a bit of amusement if the star spangled banner coverage gets a bit dull...). And I love the idea of America: home of the brave, land of the free; freedom, justice, equality, tolerance, independence - with the intelligence and the challenge and the courage to aspire to these ideals. A Big Country (cue suitable "big sky" Western theme tune...) with big ideals. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - what's not to like?

But ideals can get lost in the translation to reality - and there's a lot of stuff about America I don't like. Mainly, the arrogance of a global bully who thinks that he (US global policy is, after all, an essentially macho construct) has the right to make "pre-emptive strikes" wherever there's thought to be a threat to truth, justice and the American way (not to mention American political or military or commercial interests). The US needs to learn that imperialism is so [first half of the] last century - as we Brits know only too well. And also, there's the toxic parochialism and racism which blights redneck America - cue Green Day thrashing out American Idiot...

Fairly or unfairly, the protagonists in the latest Great US Election Drama are, for me, caught up in this polarity between the two Americas: the Land of the Free, and the toxic Global [and Homeland] Bully. Obama - lifted up by the spirit of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and the civil rights aspirations of the Woodstock generation. McCain - bowed down under the weight of two dubious military interventions (Vietnam and Iraq) and some quite scary redneck undertones to his campaign. And for me (although I don't have a vote - but I know people who do...) that's the clincher. Would you vote for the opportunity to return to the unsullied idea of America; or for a continuation of the grubby current reality of misused military power and unregulated sub-prime lending - both essentially self-serving, uncaring, irresponsible, and exploitative?

Libraries are linked to this. Would you vote for a return to our core values of freedom of access to information and freedom of expression;  or for a continuation of the infringement of personal human rights in the spurious intersts of national security?

All of this is why I'll be staying up late on Tuesday: to witness (I have the audacity to hope) a return to the core values embodied in the idea of America. I want to see McCain have his chips and Palin into insignificance. Nothing personal, of course. It's just that they're the past; and Obama gives us the possibility of a different, better future.

Of course, I appreciate that most of you won't be bothered to stay up late - you'll wait to find out who's the XXXXIV President when you wake up on Wednesday morning. That's fine: sleep well - and God bless....