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Don't pigeon-hole me, please...
Feb. 23rd, 2008 09:45 amAs I mentioned in previous posts, I've been reading The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama lately. Surprisingly good. Didn't expect to enjoy reading it, honestly. These types of books usually either put me to sleep or aggravate me. But this one is fairly engaging and manages to put into words many of the things I've been thinking about the US, our current political climate, our past history, and what needs to be done for quite some time.
These two paragraphs taken directly from the prologue - pretty much summarize my own political philosophy:
( political belief )
Later in the book - he makes a point of showing how complex people are. That people can not be put in boxes. That we are more alike than we think. That for all our differences, we really do share the same values and basically want the same things - life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness - the ability to find a good job, have a family, spend time with our family, have a home, food, shelter, health, clean air and clean water.
( Nixon )
( Obama's Take on Presdent Reagan and why America voted for him )
( Clinton and Gringrich, Rove and Norquist - polarization in the government )
( Absolutism, Hillary/Obama debate comparisons, Obama's views on Republicans and Democrats and what needs to change )
I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodocy and the sheer predictablity of our current debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challengs we face as a country. It's what keeps us locked in 'either/or' thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace socialized medicine.
It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off politics. This is not a problem for the right; a polarized electorate - or one that esily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate - works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government.
I saw this in the Obama/Clinto debate as well - particularly in regards to our current President. Clinton went after Bush personally, calling him names, while Obama took a different approach - an approach quite similar to the one he does in this book - where he states in his second Chapter:
( Bush )
Obama says that he is under no illusion "that the task of building a working majority will be easy. But it's what must do, precisely because the task of solving America's problems will be hard. It will require tough choices, and it will require sacrifice. Unless political leaders are open to new ideas and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy policy or tame the deficit. We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism without resorting to isolationism or eroding civil liberties. We won't have a mandate to overhaul America's broken health-care system. and we won't have the broad political support or the effective strategies needed to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of poverty."
In 2005 - he responded to a blog attacking Democrats for voting for Chief Justice John Roberts, who he had voted against. He was supporting and defending them. Stating much the same argument he poses above. And got the predictable range of responses.
And he wonders if maybe the critics are right, that there's no escaping the great political divide and maybe most of us have given up seeing it as little more than a spectator sport.
But - he believes - that this isn't true. That there are people out there like himself. ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way - in their own lives, at least - to make peace with their neighbors and themselves. I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different, who thinks discrimination is wrong but doesn't see why the son of a black doctor should get admitted into law school ahead of his own son. Or the former Black Panther who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just tired of the drug dealers in fron of those buildings as he is of the bakers who won't give him a loan to expand his business. There's the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager's abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse's assistants and Wal-mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they'll have enough money to support the children they did bring into the world.
I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.
( What I think of all of this, and my current take on Clinton, McCain and Obama )
These two paragraphs taken directly from the prologue - pretty much summarize my own political philosophy:
( political belief )
Later in the book - he makes a point of showing how complex people are. That people can not be put in boxes. That we are more alike than we think. That for all our differences, we really do share the same values and basically want the same things - life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness - the ability to find a good job, have a family, spend time with our family, have a home, food, shelter, health, clean air and clean water.
( Nixon )
( Obama's Take on Presdent Reagan and why America voted for him )
( Clinton and Gringrich, Rove and Norquist - polarization in the government )
( Absolutism, Hillary/Obama debate comparisons, Obama's views on Republicans and Democrats and what needs to change )
I believe any attempt by Democrats to pursue a more sharply partisan and ideological strategy misapprehends the moment we're in. I am convinced that whenever we exaggerate or demonize, oversimplify or overstate our case, we lose. Whenever we dumb down the political debate, we lose. For it's precisely the pursuit of ideological purity, the rigid orthodocy and the sheer predictablity of our current debate, that keeps us from finding new ways to meet the challengs we face as a country. It's what keeps us locked in 'either/or' thinking: the notion that we can have only big government or no government; the assumption that we must either tolerate forty-six million without health insurance or embrace socialized medicine.
It is such doctrinaire thinking and stark partisanship that have turned Americans off politics. This is not a problem for the right; a polarized electorate - or one that esily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate - works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government.
I saw this in the Obama/Clinto debate as well - particularly in regards to our current President. Clinton went after Bush personally, calling him names, while Obama took a different approach - an approach quite similar to the one he does in this book - where he states in his second Chapter:
( Bush )
Obama says that he is under no illusion "that the task of building a working majority will be easy. But it's what must do, precisely because the task of solving America's problems will be hard. It will require tough choices, and it will require sacrifice. Unless political leaders are open to new ideas and not just new packaging, we won't change enough hearts and minds to initiate a serious energy policy or tame the deficit. We won't have the popular support to craft a foreign policy that meets the challenges of globalization or terrorism without resorting to isolationism or eroding civil liberties. We won't have a mandate to overhaul America's broken health-care system. and we won't have the broad political support or the effective strategies needed to lift large numbers of our fellow citizens out of poverty."
In 2005 - he responded to a blog attacking Democrats for voting for Chief Justice John Roberts, who he had voted against. He was supporting and defending them. Stating much the same argument he poses above. And got the predictable range of responses.
And he wonders if maybe the critics are right, that there's no escaping the great political divide and maybe most of us have given up seeing it as little more than a spectator sport.
But - he believes - that this isn't true. That there are people out there like himself. ordinary citizens who have grown up in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, but who have found a way - in their own lives, at least - to make peace with their neighbors and themselves. I imagine the white Southerner who growing up heard his dad talk about niggers this and niggers that but who has struck up a friendship with the black guys at the office and is trying to teach his own son different, who thinks discrimination is wrong but doesn't see why the son of a black doctor should get admitted into law school ahead of his own son. Or the former Black Panther who decided to go into real estate, bought a few buildings in the neighborhood, and is just tired of the drug dealers in fron of those buildings as he is of the bakers who won't give him a loan to expand his business. There's the middle-aged feminist who still mourns her abortion, and the Christian woman who paid for her teenager's abortion, and the millions of waitresses and temp secretaries and nurse's assistants and Wal-mart associates who hold their breath every single month in the hope that they'll have enough money to support the children they did bring into the world.
I imagine they are waiting for a politics with the maturity to balance idealism and realism, to distinguish between what can and cannot be compromised, to admit the possibility that the other side might sometimes have a point. They don't always understand the arguments between right and left, conservative and liberal, but they recognize the difference between dogma and common sense, responsibility and irresponsibility, between those things that last and those that are fleeting.
( What I think of all of this, and my current take on Clinton, McCain and Obama )
