Centroids : Interesting take on Radical Centrism from a mainstream newspaper writer. I think he more-or-less gets the idea, and obviously he is familiar with at least some of the terminology. One can, indeed, seek a new way, an alternative to Democratic and Republican political orthodoxy, to try and be genuinely fair-minded yet, in the end, make strong criticisms of one party vs the other because, at one time in our political history, that party needs it more than the other. Personally, I have my worries about the new GOP majority in the House. Will it result in pressures to dismantle the Dept of Energy and the Dept of Education ? While, yes, I would like to see both agencies reformed, maybe greatly reformed, no way do I want to see them abolished. So, just maybe, a year from now, it will be the Republicans who merit uncompromising criticism. I reserve that option and will guess that, about more than one policy decision in the House in 2011, it will be excercized. But now it is Obama's turn, and the turn of the Democrats. Nice article. Not quite the focus any of us here might prefer, but thoughtful, nonetheless. Billy ------------------------------------------------------------------- Community Voices Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The Radical Middle _The Fierce Prophecy of Now_ (http://communityvoices.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/opinion/the-radical-middle/26053-the-fierce-prophecy-of-now)
Tuesday, November 09, 2010 01:40 PM Written by Chad Hermann (in which the first lady saw the midterm elections coming) In February of 2008, hitting her stride and kicking toward the finish line of a fiery speech on the UCLA campus, Michelle Obama uncorked one of those giddily, gloriously over-the-top, really-kind-of-silly-if-you-think-about-it passages for which the Obama campaign became famous. (_Rise of the oceans_ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/03/obamas-nomination-victory_n_105028.html) , anyone?) The kind that swooned the hopers, rankled the haters, and left everyone in the middle wondering, to steal a great phrase from _Dennis Roddy’s Early Returns column_ (http://earlyreturns.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1934:blood-hatred-to-bone-ig norance-post-election-2010-&catid=53:post-gazette-staff&Itemid=34) today, how long it would be before everyone on both sides drank a large, steaming mug of calm-the-hell-down. Almost three years later, we’re still waiting and wondering. And after what happened last Tuesday, it’s pretty clear those actions won’t be ending anytime soon. But it’s also clear that, for better and for worse, in midterm sickness and in electoral health, viewed through the 20-20 hindsight of November 2010, Mrs. Obama’s remarks were positively prescient: Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed. Yes, it’s soaring and eloquent rhetoric. And, yes, it’s pompous, Messianic poppycock. But it’s also a kind of eerie, awfully accurate pre-vision of the effect her husband would have on the folks now steeping themselves in the Tea Party. Thanks to his Presidency — or, more accurately, an often irrational fear of it — a lot of people went to work (opposing him), shed their cynicism (for some new and aimless idealism), put down their divisions (to unite against him), came out of their political isolation, moved out of their homegrown comfort zones, pushed themselves and their country to be better (whether you agree with them or not), and got engaged. Hoo boy, did they. As long as he’s in office, it’s a safe bet that these folks — far from the liberals and progressives, the hopers and changers to whom Mrs. Obama that day called — will not go back to their lives as usual, or as uninvolved. The jury is still out on uninformed. All in all, not a bad bit of divination from thirty-two months out. Good enough, I’d say, that if Mrs. Obama makes any sort of soaring, silly pronouncements next February, betting men and women, especially those with a finger to the wind and a stake in the outcome of November 2012, would do well to pay attention, to pore over her words and see if they perhaps can read her rhetorical tea leaves, read her mind, or at least her rhetorical tea leaves, if only to see what wickedness could be brewing next. -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
