The heart wrenching pathos of Alice Walker

Reading this description by Alice Walker on Comment is Free (where else?):

"Fidel, tall, haggard, his clothes hanging more loosely than usual from his gaunt frame, walked soberly along, surrounded by thousands of likewise downhearted, fearful people: he, like them, waving a tiny red, white and blue Cuban flag. This photograph made me weep; not only because I love Fidel and the Cuban people, but also because I was envious".

I asked, why, Alice? Why were you envious?

"However poor the Cubans might be [she answered] , I realised, they cared about each other and they had a leader who loved them. A leader who loved them. Imagine.... I want a leader who can love us..."

Unlike "The present administration and too many others before [ which] have shown the most clear and unapologetic hatred for the American people." continues Walker,

"... in my lifetime, it was only the Kennedys, in national leadership, who seemed even to know what compassion meant; certainly John, and then Bobby, were unafraid to grow an informed and open heart. (After he left the White House, President Carter blossomed into a sheltering tree of peace, quite admirably.) "

She goes on to describe, with great Dickensian pathos, the destitution of the American people, the neglect of their health, the groaning weight of taxes from which they suffer. France under Louis XVI seems little better by comparison...

Predictably there follows vicious portraits of McCain and Palin, who are incapable of offering the suffering American multitudes the sheltering love for which she so longs.

Absent is the name of the chosen one. Probably we are supposed to fill that gap by our own intellectual efforts. I'm assuming that even Alice Walker's mythological narratives could not stretch to offering her preferred alternative of a leader with a straight face. It's kind of hard to promote someone who spent his last twenty years under the mental tutelage of a pastor who preached "God damn America" and whose wife openly declared that she had never before (her husband became a presidential hopeful) been proud of America, as exactly a leader who loves Americans.

But I might be attributing to her more ironical awareness than her article seems to warrant.

Just in case you, the dim reader, might miss her point, by the omission of the specific name of the chosen one, she helps us by inserting a telling phrase:

"Maybe with the realisation that we, the people, are truly the leaders, and that we are the ones we have been waiting for."

As usual, I note that it is the most feverish supporters of Obama who do him the greatest harm.

BTW, here is a very personal account by Rebecca Walker, Alice's daughter, which may shed light over her visceral dislike for Palin:

There was always food in the fridge and she did all the things my mother didn't, such as attending their school events, taking endless photos and telling her children at every opportunity how wonderful they were.

My mother was the polar opposite. She never came to a single school event, she didn't buy me any clothes, she didn't even help me buy my first bra - a friend was paid to go shopping with me. If I needed help with homework I asked my boyfriend's mother.

(H/T: Mick)

If you are a supporter of Obama but feel nauseated by Walker's heart breaking plea to follow him (he might even emulate il presidente), because he will love you best, here is an antidote, a splash of ice water, by Larry David's endorsement of same:

Larry David:

He [Obama], with the ice in his veins, who doesn't panic when he's losing or get too giddy when he's winning, who's as comfortable in his own skin as she's uncomfortable in hers.