As we enter the stretch of the 2008 presidential race, my breath catches. Often. I feel just as I did as a 15-year-old boy in a darkened bedroom, transistor radio to my ear, early Christmas Eve morning, 1968. That’s when I lost contact with the three Apollo 8 astronauts as they disappeared into radio blackout during their 32-minute crossing of the far side of the Moon [video at the article’s end].
Back in ‘68 it was the sudden silencing of my heroes’ voices that caused a kind of spiritual embolism of the heart. This election season it’s the campaign racket of hate that takes my breath away. Forty years ago, it was heart-stopping radio quiet. This year it’s punishing white noise. As we enter the final period, the big, visible tactical moves have been launched. The near-invisible work of the ground game will kick in as the national noise grows louder. It’s nerve-wracking.
While America is awash in John McCain and Sarah Palin’s hysterical charges that Barack Obama is a terrorist of suspect color and dangerous “associations,” the nation of India launches a mission to the Moon today—a telling juxtaposition of national circumstance.
It seems long, long ago that Walter Cronkite, lifted by awe and humility, looked at the astronauts’ television pictures of Earth as seen from the moon and stammered, “There she is, floating in space.” In stark contrast, today’s talking heads achieve neither awe nor humility. There are exceptions, but most are captured and made insecure by a cruel and irresponsible corporate media bazaar that demands fealty to its barons and their political allies. They are carnival barkers who won’t shut up.
For those too young to remember that first manned mission to the Moon, those 30-plus seconds of silence seemed like a message from God that reinforced the hopes of those years, hopes that seemed under constant assault. Suspended, however briefly, was news of assassination and riot, of the gruesome spectacle of wars, hot and cold. But we also knew that during that silence the fate of astronauts James Lovell Jr., William Anders and Frank Borman would be decided. Hidden from us by the Moon, the astronauts would undertake the maneuver that placed them in lunar orbit. If something went wrong precisely at the time we couldn’t watch or hear, they would be lost to space forever.
Our first indication that all was well was the Quindar radio beep sent home from the spacecraft as it emerged from the shadow of the Moon. The beep came right on time; the astronauts’ dark-side transit had been a success. I could breathe again.
A little less than two months earlier, Richard Nixon had defeated Hubert Humphrey for president. Nixon pioneered the media-age campaign of fear. He perfected Joe-the-Plumber politics of racial division, class bitterness, and the valorization of ignorance.
It was as if the ruling class decided that the public was too inspired. A hopeful and energized populace was unruly and hard to control. We had, I guess, been a little rebellious, though never so dangerously out-of-control as a Nixon Flu-infected media still likes to pretend. Not long after our first trips to the Moon, American soldiers shot down American students at Kent State. There was the secret bombing of Cambodia. The Watergate break-in. The first international oil embargo and the disappearance of cheap gas. The US embassy rooftop retreat in Saigon. Disco. Nixon’s resignation took out a symbol of corruption, but the demoralizing corruption lived on.
It is not surprising, then, that the nation's anxiety was marked by a turn to religion, even if that turn was unexpected. Some protestant mainline churches that had been engaged in the civil rights movement, well, moved on. Evangelical churches swelled with membership. The political right began to organize in those churches during this very time. There was comfort there, a sense of community. As Americans' hope diminished, the growing right-wing churches provided answers.
It seems to me that America faces a moment of truth not unlike the Apollo 8 astronauts faced on their first trip around the Moon. If we get it right, we might emerge from a 30-plus year shadowland of selfishness, corruption and authoritarian rule. Good evidence of the possibility might be found in the liberalizing spirit among some right-leaning churches whose leaders and membership have turned outward, addressing global warming and poverty, for instance.
Unlike the night Apollo 8 orbited the moon, there’s no heartening silence to mark the moment, only the shrill braying of campaign hacks, special interests, and the ubiquitous sideshow clowns of network and cable news. Like I said, it’s white noise causing the gasps.
Many Americans have invested their hopes and dreams in the person of Obama. I admire him and his campaign, but I’m realistic enough to know that he is an inspiring though limited human who will, no doubt, be forced to compromise now and again with the political forces of darkness that have ruled our nation these many years. It’s what’s going on in the hearts of my hopeful countrymen that resuscitates. And it’s the blind prejudices of Obama’s detractors, stirred to what are, so far, minor acts of violence by McCain’s campaign of hate, that gives me pause.
Tags: mccain, negative campaigning, obama, space travel
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Glenn W. Smith is the author of The Politics of Deceit: Saving Freedom and Democracy from Extinction. He helped organize progressive religious leaders against the Right's so-called "Justice Sundays." Smith was a senior fellow at George Lakoff's Rockridge Institute.
Your column gives me both - in the midst of an emotional election. I can only hope that we found our way back to each other. That will take Americans on both sides in millions of acts of unity around the country, though. Beautifully written. Thank you!
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