Letters to the Editor
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memo to Jonathan Versen
Don't know about anyone else commenting in these threads, but I (for one) am not basing my thoughts or conclusions about Obama on presumptions, wild guesses, or tea leaves. I'm not assuming his experiences are like mine, yours, or anyone else's. In fact, I'm not assuming anything at all -- I'm sizing him up based on his own words and deeds, both past and present, and I strongly urge other Americans to do likewise. No one need guess or "presume" about his thoughts on racial identity; they need only read his own memoir and other writings.
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forgiveness, not bitterness
I have regularly attended two black churches in which a common theme in many of the congregational prayers was asking the Lord to help the people avoid bitterness engendered by racism. That, and the entry of the choir singing We Shall Overcome, never fails to move me to tears.
This attitude seems to carry over in Obama's view of political conflict, and is just one more reason to support this remarkable man.
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Obama is too Green!
It too occurred to me that the democrats in Iowa voted for Obama to assuage their guilt about their own racial views.
To call Obama a classic liberal is incorrect, he is a conservative moderate. Hillary and Edwards will do much better on civil rights and gay rights. I want a president who has experience and know-how, not just somebody who talks about change. Hillary represents change --- she is a woman.
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Don't forget the Jesus party was out of power for 300 years after the crucifixtion
@Green Job
So...you would have preferred Ford?
-- AJCalhoun
Comparing Obama to Carter (and Bush to Nixon) isn't the same as supporting Ford. It's just observing that we've heard this song before and that in reviewing Carter's accomplishments -- the Camp David Peace accords, beating Ford, Billy Beer & the boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics -- Political Transcendence isn't among them. But then beating Reagan and the Iranian hostage crisis weren't among them either.
So I'm little skeptical about the second coming of a Jesus who preaches change while endorsing Joe Lieberman.
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Buzz words
"Transcendence" ought to be just as ridiculed as other crap like "paradigm shifts" and "synergy".
From a philosophical point of view, I can sure get on board with "transcending" racial wounds or politics or whatever the One is up to lately, but could someone kindly clue me in as to how you take a nation bitterly divided by partisan hackery and "transcend" it all?
Personally, when I hear "transcend" and "bipartisan" I think "capitulation" and "compromise" and "triangulation". Sometimes compromise is good, often it is inappropriate. If we are deadlocked in disagreement over whether the sky is blue or red, it is on its face ridiculous to "compromise" and agree that it's purple after all.
If I were interested in a candidate who will always work to include and sooth the other side, I'd vote for Clinton. Thanks.
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Most Holistic Salon Article ever on Politics
The Subject line says it all. Talking about how both the political extremes in America can learn fundamental things & achieve great ones is something we've long assumed is impossible. Now we learn it's a realistic goal - now. A politician that can actually get us to own our stuff & act on it positively - wow. If I now have to reevaluate whether I believe in Santa Claus or the good tooth fairy, its a small price to pay.
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What did he mean by Manichean?
like a chain letter?
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creepy...
Is anyone else vaguely creeped out by the starry eyed "he's so redemptive" tone taken by some of the Obama supporters? "I really don't know why I support him - I guess he's just so 'now'" Jesus. Please. Do we really need a replay of Camelot? Why. WHY will the man make a good president?
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@ howveryodd
Your 'Animal Farm' quote seems exquisitely apt. Obama's campaign rhetoric champions an idea philosophically akin to "all animals are equal," while his actions make clear he's very aware that here in America, some animals continue to be a little more equal than others - and, like other candidates, he's not above exploiting that fact to his own best advantage.
Look, all politicians are a little crazy and power hungry. Every one of them wants to be all things to all men, because without some of that you can never get elected.
People often talk about this "inside the beltway" thing and "Washington outsiders". This is a tacit agreement with the old saw "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." After people have spent a decade as governors or senators and got used to being driven around in a chauffeur-driven limousine, being cooked for, and not doing yard work, then they inevitably start to get ideas above their station.
What I look for in a candidate is some evidence that they are still in touch with real life.
When Obama was making his speech about Iraq in 2002, I was having the same discussion at the same time with a woman into whose pants I was trying to get. She was a typical country-girl conservative Florida voter who had inherited a part-share in an orange grove. She felt that Saddam was a bad guy and that we should "go get him and take him out". I explained to her in words almost identical to Obama's that Saddam Hussein was indeed a horrid person, but that occupying Iraq (where my grandfather was murdered in 1939--so I knew a bit about its politics) would make Vietnam look like a Caribbean vacation.
Well, Bush got mired in the occupation of Iraq war and I didn't get laid (probably a lucky let-off given that the simplicity of her thinking was matched only by that of GWB whose reasoning was pretty similar to hers), but Obama and I were both thinking along the same lines, so that is why I want him in the White House.
We are all that way. If we cannot have a personal hotline to the President, at least we want someone whom we think would see it our way--or might see it our way.
I don't really listen to campaign speeches, but if Obama is preaching "all animals are equal", then that seems like a departure from the kind of third way philosophy of his book The Audacity of Hope which is more what I am going by.
In it he says that he is guided by Lincoln's simple maxim: that we will do collectively, through our government, only those things that we cannot do as well or at all individually and privately, which seems like a reasonable point to start from.
I also like the fact that he seems to be extremely well-read and that he likes the books of John LeCarre, whose The Constant Gardner and numerous spy novels indicate a level of sophisication a million miles from that of the Bush White House.