Ok, so, just a two days ago, the United States of America elected their very firstest ever non-white prezie, and the rest of us in the world are cheering this shit on. I work in a cafe, and the entire day went a little like: "We love Obama!" "So glad Obama won the election!" and "What a momentous day that the first black man is elected president!"

Hells, you could almost believe that this cafe was, you know, like a full border south-wards.

But, as Pierre Trudeau said, living next to the US of A is like sleeping with an elephant, and since the US of A has extended its enormous tentacles worldwide, the rest of the world, we're all sleeping with the American elephant... and we all feel every single tiny twitch. So, although the entire world is disenfranchised and without a US Ballot, every single person on the planet had a lot riding on this election too.

So, as a Canadian, my hopes and fears about Obama's presidency.

Hopes
So, yeah, let's start this off positively, shall we?
1. I hope that Obama begins to bring some much needed education and sanity to much of the American populace. That much ridiculousness starts to rub off after a while.
2. I hope that Obama's only sort of less right wing policies help to keep the majority of Americans out of third-world style poverty. As much as the US likes to call itself a land of the free... I ain't never seen slums like America in Canada or Europe. It's an absolute disgrace that such a wealthy nation decides to treat its own citizens so poorly.
3. I hope that Obama is the start of meaningful, long-lasting change in American policy.
4. I hope that Obama does decide to roll Free Trade back, but also that he waits until we don't have a treacherous Conservative slug for a PM. (Yeah, Harper, I mean you... I see you licking your greasy lips waiting for the sell Canada to the US moments).
5. I hope that Obama is helluva a lot more radical than he actually sounds like he is.

Fears
And now the gross stuff...
1. I fear that Obama will get blamed for the shit-storm that will be heaped on him when he takes up the presidency. By this I mean: Bush may only be president for a gruelingly long 8 years, but his peoples' policies aren't exactly going to go away when they do. Obama's going to have a tough shit fight.
2. I fear that the United States SuperRight Psychos will assassinate Obama.
3. I fear that Obama is still an American president. And, as we all know, American presidents don't really give much shit about the rest of the world... we love the fact that he's not McCain, but I'm not putting money on Obama's social conscience.
4. I fear that this is the first time I've really been more ok with the American President than the Canadian Prime Minister. Oh, I know that Stephen Harper is a fluffy kitty compared to John McCain, and that Obama's policies still lie pretty close to Harper's... but it's just the US pulled up and made the better choice, why didn't we.
5. I fear that the scary shit that McCain ran on is not going to be buried just because McCain didn't win.
6. I fear that I may hear Sarah Palin's name again.