Fellow Democrats, we need to demand more from those whom we elect to represent us, those whom we contribute to, those whom we more or less “employ.” Why is it that the republicans march in lock step? I understand they are on the wrong side of most logical issues. We Democrats are certainly on the side of good, respect, honesty, and moral correctness. Don’t you think this? Should we not march with strength and pride? Should we expect, demand, insist, and plea our case for nothing less than excellent performance? I am sounding firm because I feel we need to. I will not accept “one bill a year” performance. We need to CHANGE our nations direction today. We need to pass legislation each and every month. Big Bills, Big Changes, Big Time!
It bothers me deep down inside when:
The opposition is behaving in ways that they would never stand still for if they were in control. But they aren't, are they, and that bothers them to no end. We're the Majority We did win the election, right? By a sizeable margin. This wasn't a close call or anything. We are the majority. We're not a play majority, and we're not a temporary majority. We aren't a placeholder until the real majority recaptures power. We're the real, honest-to-goodness majority, and it's time we started acting like it. We need to make our voices heard, and to speak out against these unfair tricks when we see them. Let's face it, the other side has been in cotrol for a while now. They are used to being in control, and know how to act like being in control. I think they've developed the mindset that they are the ones who really should be in control, regardless of who wins any election, because they are the only wise ones, and because they see themselves as the sole heirs to control of the American system. These two beliefs enable them to do things like try to sweep us and our opinions under the rug, in effect saying, "Shut up, kids, we will decide what is appropriate or not." We don't have to let them do this, since we are in fact the Majority. We only need to start living the part.
Originally posted on http://www.respectyourpresident.net/
When we decided to live in San Martin 9 years ago, we had great dreams to realize here. It was the country life we wanted so much, yet it was very close to all the amenities of a big city life. We were in a booming economy with hundreds of jobs available, we had lots of friends who were happy, successful and active. Then, the "Silicon Valley Bubble" bursted.
With Barack Obama's election we started having a hope for the change to be happy and successful again, to be in peace again... That is why I joined this group to get involved in creating a strong community feeling, helping and supporting each other in every way possible.
Our friends are our support group in hard times. To make friends we need to get to know people, to get to know people we need to become friends with them. We must bring back the trust, tolerance, understanding and the gift of sharing. We must open our doors and build strong, safe, peaceful communities. I hope to find it with this network.
I'm hopeful again.
This president, our President Barack Obama, is using reason and encouraging discourse. I do not agree with everything he is doing, but I see by his actions he is going about his decisions wisely.
Thank you, Mr. President.
You've been a long time coming.
I’ve also posted this blog entry on my blog: http://www.theparadigmshiftshere.com
...we all need to dig much deeper - in unity, compassion, tolerance, forbearance, understanding, generosity, and respect - to first understand one another and then to realize and accept that we are essentially from the same 'mold' - if we are divided today, it isn't because of anything other than our own ignorance and choosing...
...it's very easy to point fingers and lay blame, but extremely difficult to take ownership...
...I am very tempted to rant on this in my trademark 'tongue-in-cheek' style, but in re-reading Barack Obama's 'Audacity of Hope', I'm beginning to resonate with his wise choice of speaking the language of inclusion, of conversation rather than confrontation...so, here's my humble attempt...
...as The Aga Khan eloquently pointed out in an interview: "...Rather than shouting at each other, we should be learning to listen to each other..."
These are legitimate questions. Is the cocky, dominant, top-gun attitude the best for making ethical decisions? In war should we be "removed" from our targets? What numbers are acceptable "collateral" casualties? Where is the leadership? Where is the humanity in war? Where's empathy? When is a response too much?
I taught high school students at the American International School in Israel for one year in the late '80s. [I had previously spent my junior year in Jerusalem at Hebrew University.] We had kids from around the globe. In one senior English class, I had an Israeli (born Canadian) student who had just been chosen to join a pilots program in the Israeli Air Force. He was a blonde, blue-eyed Tom Cruise type. He was also the son of a Jew for Jesus, a Christian convert. His mother objected when I assigned "Native Son" to the class. She didn't want her son to have to read about such a bleak situation. I explained that it was an important work of literature. She didn't want him becoming depressed by it, she countered. I asked how reading a book and discussing issues was more dangerous than choosing to be a pilot and making life and death situations for those people living on the ground. I never got an answer. You might say it's easy for me to prattle on; after all, I'm not living through bombardment as are the Israelis and, more so, the Palestinians in Gaza. Sitting in a safe place in the states leaves me in a different emotional situation than if I were over there. So, I can only imagine how people's judgments are affected by the stress on all sides. As Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshusa wrote in a recent articles, Hamas can be blamed for launching the attacks, but there needs to be a cease fire.The way forward has to be one of eventually coming together--or at least balancing the seesaw. Like the yin and yang or the two halves of the kabbalistic star...the one on top is not superior, it is merely the one above. The half on the bottom--this is very important--is not inferior. It is the root. The two halves make one. Like in the creation story where the first human was made in the Creator's image with both male AND female parts (Adam/Adamah), they complete each other. (It wasn't until much later that the superiority/inferiority tale emerged.)
People don't have to love or even like one another, but they can respectfully work for a more just future for all the people living in Israel and the Palestinian territories. The way forward is not more bombs and rockets.
I love much about Israel--I have friends who live there; I'm hopeful about a Palestinian state.
Meeting your "enemy" and walking through their world for a day is one way to start. Let's refuse to be enemies and make a better future. Taking risks for what is right is strength, too. Peace.
PROPOSED APPROACH
EISP - Essential Industry Stewardship Project: Eliminate the "bailout" and "bankruptcy" onus by initiating what is genuinely needed, possible and respectful: Government Stewardship of essential industries through these treacherous passages. In order to encumber government funds, entities such as auto makers, banks and insurance companies must engage in stewardship.
1. Stewards will have the responsibility and authority to engage, support and modify productive industry functions, especially those that impact what we have come to call "main street": jobs, effective & honest products (e.g. good loans, efficient cars, sound financial instruments).
2. Stewards will identify and be empowered to alter or eliminate waste be it in service of greed and excess or short sighted application of quarterly numbers vs. long term productive strength and vision, or simply benign neglect/ deferred maintenance. 3. Industrial Stewardship will include both management and labor so that union excesses are altered along with those of management.
4. EISP will be empowered to negotiate with creditors both domestic and foreign taking into account the impact on the health of downstream institutions. However the impact and health considered will again focus on "main street" rather than upper management or maintenance of top heavy management or labor relations.
Please share you comments, improvements and promotion to those who enact.
Being from the United Kingdom I am not able to vote obviously, but I do hope that through this site, concerned citizens like myself from around the world can have a voice in the country that affects us all! I for one have been greatly concerned about world developments. I wonder what sort of a world, my 6 year old daughter of dual inheritance will grow up in.I have dire concerns about Afghanistan, Iraq and now a news item today that Russia is escalating towards a second Cold War!
Let alone the looming recession, the ecological world wide disaster that is happening around us.
I have been dismayed at the lack of regard Mr Bush seems to have for the rest of us. I have been angered by the International damage that self interest from the incumbent administration has wrought.I am inspired and moved to write, firstly by the skill, style, confidence and sincerity that Mr Obama delivers. Secondly, I am moved by the passion he appears to portray for all human beings! I am moved because at last I feel the USA has a worthy leader and I feel compelled to say that if there is anything I can do to assist and support in my small way from the UK I would gladly do so. You Mr Obama, are a great Orator. You have commanded our attention and you do have us listening! Make use of this! Show us the way! Tell us what you need! Most of all make good on your word as I believe you will! Today is the most historic of days!I suppose I was too young to truly appreciate Mr Kennedy & Mr King, although I do remember the distress of thier passing. They are true legends that I feel are reflected today, in Mr Obama. I feel privileged to have experienced this day. I have hope for my family - and our Country across the water. Thank you for today and all the hard and exhausting work you and your family have done over the last 18 months. Thank you for your inspiration and God Bless you and yours!
The illness that we have struggled with since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1981 has been eliminated. We are like a people who have collectively been afflicted with a slow growing cancer that almost killed us during the Bush presidency. Last night we got the CT scan and lab work back and our doctor told us we are cancer free. The chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery, was successful and we are ready to begin our recovery. The disease we have suffered is the notion that we stand separate, that each of us is only an individual, not a part of a whole, but alone, afraid, fighting against each other for a larger part of a meal that has no flavor, or nutritional value, no heart, no soul.
Weakened, but grateful for a new chance at life, we have a new day. Our task will be to rebuild our strength while moving with a new purpose.
I see a new kind of revolution, a respect revolution and it strikes at the heart of the illness of separation, greed, and fear. Comparing the vision and purpose expressed in Barack Obama's commencement speech at Weslean College to the vision and purpose expressed by Adam Smith, a visionary in his day and a philosophical hero of contemporary corporate capitalists illuminates a significant dispositional difference between the Obama movement in the Democratic party and the corporate wing, whole bird really, of the Republican party. Looking at Obama first, talking about service as a central theme in the life of an individual is a good starting point for comparison.
"It's because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you'll play in writing the next great chapter in America's story"
Here the view of self is individual, but inclusive of others. In fact the inclusion of others is represented as an integral aspect of self, not something remote from self that can be argued for or against.
Here is the ancient hero of the Republican party and the corporate elite who have poisoned the land and the spirit of our human heart.
Once upon a time, 1776, Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations, creating many of the principals of modern economics, and giving birth to a famous son, The Invisible Hand. Mr. Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher who accomplished his life’s work during the industrial revolution before the invention of, the cotton gin, car, and even the cell phone. The birth of Mr. Smith’s famous son occurred when he wrote,
"By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. ... By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it."
Here self and the impact of taking action based on a view of self that includes others is reduced and finally discarded by ridicule, a device still widely used in Republican propaganda. The most powerful medicine to prevent this disease from reoccurring is respect for each other as full individuals who are valid and all a part of a whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts.
We are all part of a great human soul, heart, consciousness, species and we are all individually and collectively part of the world in which we live. Steinbeck dramatized it beautifully in the words of Tom Jode talking to his Ma.
Tom: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled... Ma: Oh, Tommy, they'd drag you out and cut you down... Tom: They'd drag me anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me for one thing if not for another. Until then... It's just, well as long as I'm an outlaw anyways... maybe I can do somethin'... maybe I can just find out somethin', just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if they ain't somethin' that can be done about it. I ain't thought it out all clear, Ma. I can't. I don't know enough. Ma: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I'd never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know? Tom Joad: Well, maybe it's like (Preacher) Casy says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then... Ma Joad: Then what, Tom? Tom: Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.
Tom: I been thinking about us, too, about our people living like pigs and good rich land layin' fallow. Or maybe one guy with a million acres and a hundred thousand farmers starvin'. And I been wonderin' if all our folks got together and yelled...
Ma: Oh, Tommy, they'd drag you out and cut you down...
Tom: They'd drag me anyways. Sooner or later they'd get me for one thing if not for another. Until then... It's just, well as long as I'm an outlaw anyways... maybe I can do somethin'... maybe I can just find out somethin', just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if they ain't somethin' that can be done about it. I ain't thought it out all clear, Ma. I can't. I don't know enough.
Ma: How am I gonna know about ya, Tommy? Why they could kill ya and I'd never know. They could hurt ya. How am I gonna know?
Tom Joad: Well, maybe it's like (Preacher) Casy says. A fellow ain't got a soul of his own, just little piece of a big soul, the one big soul that belongs to everybody, then...
Ma Joad: Then what, Tom?
Tom: Then it don't matter. I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.
Today Tom Jode can step out of the shadows of anonymity in our big soul. In the form of this movement we share we have been working on Tom's task.
maybe I can do somethin'... maybe I can just find out somethin', just scrounge around and maybe find out what it is that's wrong and see if they ain't somethin' that can be done about it.
Yes we can!
I see an emergence of a new green Keynesian economic model that will respect all of us as and nature as valid and part of a whole, but that will be for a diary of another day. I am going to bask in the delight of knowing our cancer has been overcome and a new day is possible.
Back in the early 1960's when I was a young boy, I saw images of freedom riders; young men and women, riding buses to Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and yes, Florida. These heros, men and women, black and white, came to the South to stand up for justice and sometimes to sit in. Their heroic efforts changed our country and society forever. When you look at those old photos from back in the day, you'll notice that many of those young men and women came to the protest actions dressed formally.
Tomorrow, it's looking increasingly hopeful that we will elect a new president and he will be a sure enough multicultural/multiracial man with a African father and a Midwestern mother. It's the most significant public event of my 58 years on Planet Earth.
To mark this occasion and to honor the brave heros of the early 60's, I'm wearing my best (OK, my only) suit and tie when I go to vote tomorrow. I hope some of you will join me in marking this life changing event.
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This has been on my mind for a long while, and I would like to express it here.
I am not in the military, although my father served six years in the Navy during Korea, including four years on the U.S.S. Missouri.
Our men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan serve heroically, and yet when a soldier is fatally wounded in action, at the behest of our current administration, their ceremonial return is never shown on television.
Perhaps there is something I don't know or understand about why this is, but personally I think that's about as disrespectful as it gets, not only to the families of these brave men and women, but to all Americans, who have a right to know, understand, and pay their respects to our fallen soldiers when they come home.
I would like to ask Senator Obama, here and now, should he win the Presidency, not only to follow through in bringing our troops home, but to let all Americans fully know and understand the great sacrifices that are being made by our soldiers.
I've heard so many people ask and wonder over the past eight years why no one protests the war, why no one marches, why no one does anything to STOP the war. It seems to me that the present administration does everything possible to sanitize the war from the American people, in order to protect themselves and how they got us into it in the first place.
I hope most sincerely that I have not offended anyone with this posting --- especially families in service --- as my intent is only that we need to give MORE respect to our military for the work they do, not less. The hiding of information from average Americans by our current administration is the reason I write this. The only place I ever see names of fallen soldiers is on ABC's Sunday program This Week With George Stephanopoulis, when the names are flashed on screen near the end of the program. It makes me feel terrible that we don't do more to honor these brave people.
May everyone come home safe and well.
We all seek respect daily, but how does it come about? Is it automatic or does it have to be earned?
We tend to respect people for what they do, their birthright and the role they play. If we did not acknowledge and validate them as the source of that status, action or expertise, we would not show them respect. Respect is automatic during the initial first impressions, but it is never static and has to be earned afterwards to be maintained. It is difficult to respect someone even when they are being negative and hostile, so we tend to wait for people to 'earn' that respect, though it is awarded without question at the beginning. In effect, a kind of respect with probation.
Respect does not come easily either. The very act of respecting someone means putting them either on par, or above, ourselves, in estimation. We tend to respect people only when we personally recognise them as the source of something wholesome, unique, beneficial or empowering: for example, a particular knowledge, action, expertise or leadership, not just through their work or social status. We have to feel we can trust them. That is why some people who are simply 'in charge', and have failed professional expectations, are not really respected.
A few years ago, I was absent-mindedly watching the regional news on television when I was suddenly rooted to the spot, overcome by feelings of surprise, elation and excitement. I had to share the moment with someone else and, in my rush to get my husband to see what was rapidly reducing me to a babbling state of incoherence, I knocked over the cup of tea, caught my jumper sleeve on the door handle and grazed my knee on the coffee table.
I had never seen anyone I actually knew on television before, and there, being interviewed large as life in front of me, was the owner of the local furniture shop who had sold us our dining room chairs only the week before. I was so thrilled, anyone would have thought that I was on the box. Television suddenly gave her superhuman status and, having actually spoken to her, that somehow made us part of the unfolding scene. For days I could talk of nothing else.
This event returned to mind when I received a Christmas card some months later from a girlfriend I hadn't seen in seven years. Her brief note said simply,"Saw you on television again recently and told everybody I knew you." Having seen me as a panel guest on a programme, she had reacted in exactly the same way, wanting to share vicariously in the brief moment of glory.
Seeing Barack Obama making his magnificent speech, surrounded by so many enthusiastic people who liked him, believed in him and was anxious for him to win, brought these experiences back vividly to mind. I felt I was there in the midst of those people, sharing that wonderful moment. It also reinforced the key part RECOGNITION plays in success in modern times because of our media age. If it is not confirmed by the public or the media in some way, success is not really defined in social terms. Having that recognition in all aspects of our lives is essential and it is clear that Barack now has his in abundance.
It was a great weekend of canvassing. There must have been 50 or more canvassing volunteers in the office Saturday morning, and a large number Sunday as well. For many of them, it was their first volunteering of the campaign. Others were old veterans.
My own canvassing was great. I went out Saturday morning with Hill Kemp. We've worked out a good routine, and get our areas canvassed efficiently. I had a second outing on my own, and went to an area about five miles out of town, where large (1 acre+) parcels had been carved out of a large farm. Even though the residents were fairly well off, there was a good supply of Obama supporters. It was often the case that one little cul-de-sac would be almost all McCain, and the next one predominantly Obama.
I ran into a few households where the husband was a McCain supporter, and the wife claimed to be 'undecided'. All politics is very local here. I hope many of them will vote for Obama when they get into that voting booth.
Sunday, I split 3 packets, and worked more in the same area as Saturday. One area was probably majority McCain, but we tried to have good conversations with the McCain supporters. One house in particular was covered with flags and had a sign in the window announcing that their son was in the Army. I feared that my inquiring in this house would likely turn up no new Obama voters, but I went up anyway, and had a nice, respectful, conversation of a mother of a 20 year old soldier in the middle of his first deployment. As I suspected, she was backing McCain, but I asked her about her son, and told her that we all were praying for her son's safe return.
I wonder if the McCain canvassers have respectful conversations with the Obama supporters that they meet? I feel that being respectful now is the prelude to being able to have some of these conversations after the election, when we all need to be able to work together. We have some enormous problems to solve.
My final outing of the weekend was with Hill Kemp again. Sadly, for me, he is heading home Monday morning, but I suspect that his wife will be glad to have him home. We had an amazing outing, and spoke to a huge number of supporters.
When did the word “Liberal” become a dirty word? I read articles in Letters to the Editor, and some people seem to think that merely labeling Obama as a “Liberal” ( insert shudder and gasps) is enough to make people not vote for him.
Well, I am a Liberal, I lean further toward things Liberals stand for: the common man, the American worker, labor unions’ right to exist, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, voting rights, and civil rights. The right of every person to be shown respect as a human being regardless of race, sexual orientation or religion. I believe in the individual’s right to decide how to live their life and what to do with their own body in their own privacy, and the right to access to medical and health care benefits, as do Liberals. I, as a Liberal, believe after working for 30 or 40 years and paying into a pension or 401K you have the right to collect a retirement. Liberals believe in fair taxes and expect fair taxes on the wealthy as well as the poor. We believe people don’t mind tax increases as long as they benefit all citizens and not just the top 10% of the wealthiest individuals and corporations. We believe tax cuts should be used judiciously and not just to win an election, but consider the current state of the country’s economy.
Liberals, myself included, believe in the right to voice an opinion, without fear of reprisal. We anticipate the hope to live in peace and not fear. We support policies that do not weigh our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren with our irresponsible fiscal policies and lack of oversight, putting them deeper and deeper into debt. We value the opportunity to make a living wage, and being able to walk down the street without the fear of being shot.
Liberals espouse recognition of the value of education in our country and backing up that recognition by funding education for every child in America, as well as recognition of the value of our elderly and our obligations to our elders. Liberals talk about being willing to stop the discarding of the elderly into homes unfit for any human being, or relegate them to poverty and illness at the end of productive lives based on the mighty dollar. Liberals believe in the right to health care that does not force a choice between bankruptcy and medical care. The examples are legion, but if you want to know, talk to your neighbor.
The values Liberals hold I hold: love your neighbor as yourself, choose peace over war whenever possible, hold life (every life) in the highest esteem, empathy, understanding, trust, individual rights, and the respect for the opinions of others. None of us are less, for we are all intertwined and rooted in the same tree. That tree is the Tree of America, and it stands on the Planet Earth. Therefore, we Liberals think globally, trying to work with, rather than against our neighbors. Last of all, Liberals think for themselves and do not believe everything said to them from the pulpit or the soapbox. Instead they look for truth. As individuals we are not perfect, but we are not ashamed of our label either. I am proud to call myself a Liberal.
For Barack Obama's beliefs and stands on the issues see http://www.barackobama.com/issues/.
VOTE FOR CHANGE!! VOTE FOR A NEW AMERICA!! VOTE FOR AMERICAN VALUES! VOTE FOR OBAMA!!!
OK I can't keep my mouth shut any longer... I will start with the most recent thoughts first.
This morning Ms. Palin said the following: "Tonight we will see the difference between a politician who puts his faith in government and a leader who puts his faith in you (the people)." People cheered when she said that. If I am not mistaken it is Barack who puts his faith in people. It is Barack who has said, right from the beginning, "I'm asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington...I'm asking to believe in yours." I think that we should all talk about how Ms. Palin is supporting Barack...after all isn't that a natural conclusion from the above?
Many people today commented, on the 'inciting' language of Ms. Palin in her recent appearances. What I would like to understand is why, if she didn't denounce it, the Secret Service didn't step in and remove the person making the threats.
OK, and now let me go back to my reactions to the VP debate last week. Overall what is one of the fundamental differences between the us and them is that we assume the best about people and I do not believe that they do. We operate consistent with the belief that people are intelligent and caring beings. Is there a way for us to share these beliefs openly with their base and those that are undecided in a way that it makes a difference? Do people care that others believe them to be less intelligent? My suspicion and experience is that people perform to your level of expectation. When you raise your expectations - like for a student - and talk to them from that place people respond in the most positive of ways. Perhaps all we need to do is speak to their hearts and the minds and treat them with the respect and dignity and intelligence that the McCain/Palin campaign is not?
John McCain's temperament has been a side-bar issue for some time now, as people wonder if he would take us to war unnecessarily ("bomb bomb Iran"). Speaking of his own temperament, McCain claims he is they guy who works across party lines. He promises to end the gridlock in Washington and get things done.
Well, if he really wants to work with the Democrats in Congress, he might start by showing some respect for the Democrats' nominee for president, Senator Barack Obama. He might start by actually looking at Barack Obama while he is debating him.
I don't know if it's that John McCain's team has told him "Don't get angry" but forgot to say "Remember to treat Senator Obama with respect." or that - as reported in today's NY Times...
Theirs was a generational collision, and at times it looked almost like a dramatic rendition of Freudian family tension: an older patriarch frustrated and even cranky when challenged by a would-be successor to the family business who thinks he can run it better.
Whatever the reason, John McCain's refusal to even look at Barack Obama during the debate calls into question the entire concept of a President John McCain governing a country of new people with new ideas.
John McCain's behavior... his lack of emotional maturity... his unwillingness (inability?) to respect Barack Obama, who - in addition to being the Democratic nominee and full of new ideas - is also an historic figure for being the first African American with a serious chance of being elected president... says to me that John McCain will work with other people only if they already belong to that part of our culture that he feels deserves his respect.
John McCain's lack of emotional maturity says to me that a President McCain will surround himself with people he is comfortable with, not the younger generation with the fresh thinking our country needs. It says to me that the subtext of a McCain presidency will be holding back the future.... the future that is struggling to be born... the future I have written here is the macro cultural issue of our time: the need to leave the era of cultural wars behind... the need to give up our addiction to fighting all the time for a new era of collaboration and cooperation.
Can you really see John McCain welcoming all the young, innovative energy of our country into the White House? Can you see John McCain - who cannot even look Barack Obama in the eye - welcoming Barack as a true, post-election partner in building a truly great 21st Century America?
I'm sad to say that I cannot. Not after last night's performance.
Last night crystallized for me that this election truly is about the future replacing the past. The only change a McCain presidency represents is a name change. The product, I'm sorry to say, will in all likelyhood be the same. The culture wars will continue. The left side of American will continue to be pitted against the right. We will continue to move away from the vision of a truly United States of America that I know Barack Obama has in his heart.
This is the most critical lesson I took away from last night's debate.
As The New York Times says,
Mr. Obama was not particularly warm or amusing; at times he was stiff and almost pedantic. But all he had to do was look presidential, and that was not such a stretch. Mr. McCain had the harder task of persuading leery voters that he can lead the future because he is so much part of the past. He tried to remind viewers of his greater experience and heroic combat career, while also casting himself as a maverick outsider ready to storm the barricades. Mr. McCain wanted to be the true revolutionary in the room, but his is the Reagan revolution, and for a lot of people right now, it doesn't look like morning in America.
He tried to remind viewers of his greater experience and heroic combat career, while also casting himself as a maverick outsider ready to storm the barricades. Mr. McCain wanted to be the true revolutionary in the room, but his is the Reagan revolution, and for a lot of people right now, it doesn't look like morning in America.
