hi clo,
yes. but it wasn't only uplifting.
she reframed the american dream as not really about the result but about the performance.
ending up with bags of money is not what it's about. this doesn't make you a success. it is about who you are and what you do for those around you - a beautiful and convincing rebuttal of the republican model, which assigns virtue only to the winners.
the flaw of the right wing dream is that it bottles an awful lot of luck amongst the winners and a great deal of help from others and pretends the resulting mixture was based entirely on one's own diligence - "I. Built. It."; with the corollary that it implies the rest of society is just replete with lazy losers whose poor effort has not resulted in wealth for themselves. it's an ugly, condescending, self-centred, divisive thing when you think about it.
while drawing her picture of hard work and dignity and thrift and decency and fair dealing and not an iota about fortune, mrs o REVEALED romney as a hollow man. merely rich. and showed her husband to be her dream's epitome. now there is a man. romney chose money and has no soul. obama chose to be a community organiser and forsook wealth, even though it came to him in the end. stark. and yet she never mentioned romney once. a tale of selfishness versus altruism without bothering to define the contours of selfish behaviour. her american dream is available to everyone and its achievement is not defined by the depth of a person's bank account.
the whole thing was made to demonstrate a single point. her father, mr o, mr o's grandparents. us society is built on the hard work and generosity of all of its people. everyone contributes to the wealth of the nation. and in participating, in giving life their best shot, even in shaving and buttoning a uniform with pride every morning to go to work in a pump station, each person can make themselves a success.
it was just a thing of unity and beauty throughout, delivered fabulously well.
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