Mary Soderstrom kindly remarked today on my post: Where is the Start of Half a Circle?
So perhaps I should make my thoughts a tad less murky, to wit:
My reaction to our election of an African American to the Presidency: About bloody time. But why isn't he succeeding a female?
My reaction to the election of a Democrat, any Democrat: Thanks for the breathing room to try to clean up the mess, that includes moving the Supreme Court away from the extreme right wing and restoring the force of law bound in the Constitution and the various treaties that were broken in the last eight years.
My reaction to electing Obama specifically is that he is an excellent choice for ordinary times. That is times when the business cycle is not too exaggerated; when the rule of law is firmly established; when politicians, will he nil she, accept responsibility for their actions.
This is not one of those times.
This is a time that calls for radical (that is: to the root) change. We need to make our democracy serve all its people, not just the wealthy few. We need economic democracy as well as political democracy.
To get there we need to examine the events of the past forty years. There are ideas we were taught to accept about politics and the economy which do not work to most people's benefit. Rather they take from most to give too much to a very few who do little to earn it. This need not be a search for justice or retribution. It needs to be a sorting of good ideas from bad, with the bad thoroughly noted as such so that no snake oil salesman can peddle them to us in future.
To get there we need to consider ideas from all points of view. That we ignore every idea from the political left hobbles our creativity.
My fear is that Obama will give less attention to these ideas then they merit because the right of center is more congenial to him. To succeed in this country in the past two generations required this of every Democrat from Ted Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich to Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman.
I hope to be proved wrong. I hope that Obama, and his administration, will rise to the times even more effectively than Franklin Roosevelt did.
--ml
Right on, Martin!
Still and all, I think Obama will at least appoint better Supreme Court judges than McCain would. And I must say that it is good to see that there hav been some changes for the beter in race relations--40 years ago the idea of an African American as president would have been unthinkable.
Cheers
Mary
So perhaps I should make my thoughts a tad less murky, to wit:
My reaction to our election of an African American to the Presidency: About bloody time. But why isn't he succeeding a female?
My reaction to the election of a Democrat, any Democrat: Thanks for the breathing room to try to clean up the mess, that includes moving the Supreme Court away from the extreme right wing and restoring the force of law bound in the Constitution and the various treaties that were broken in the last eight years.
My reaction to electing Obama specifically is that he is an excellent choice for ordinary times. That is times when the business cycle is not too exaggerated; when the rule of law is firmly established; when politicians, will he nil she, accept responsibility for their actions.
This is not one of those times.
This is a time that calls for radical (that is: to the root) change. We need to make our democracy serve all its people, not just the wealthy few. We need economic democracy as well as political democracy.
To get there we need to examine the events of the past forty years. There are ideas we were taught to accept about politics and the economy which do not work to most people's benefit. Rather they take from most to give too much to a very few who do little to earn it. This need not be a search for justice or retribution. It needs to be a sorting of good ideas from bad, with the bad thoroughly noted as such so that no snake oil salesman can peddle them to us in future.
To get there we need to consider ideas from all points of view. That we ignore every idea from the political left hobbles our creativity.
My fear is that Obama will give less attention to these ideas then they merit because the right of center is more congenial to him. To succeed in this country in the past two generations required this of every Democrat from Ted Kennedy and Dennis Kucinich to Zell Miller and Joe Lieberman.
I hope to be proved wrong. I hope that Obama, and his administration, will rise to the times even more effectively than Franklin Roosevelt did.
--ml
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