Bismillah [IslamCity] The New Politics: Barack Obama, Party of One
The New Politics: Barack Obama, Party of One Without entirely realizing it, America elected its first Independent president. The implications for how the country will be governed are profound, exhilarating, and loaded with risk. By John Heilemann http://nymag.com/nymag/10912 * Published Jan 11, 2009 The 55 inaugural addresses before the one Barack Obama will deliver next week have run the gamut from poetic (rarely) to prosaic and platitudinous (often), but all have shared a common premise: the promise of newness. Though claims of fresh starts and clean breaks are de rigueur for incoming presidents of both parties, the Democrats have tended to be more explicitand extravagantabout it. Franklin Roosevelt spoke of writing a new chapter in our book of self-government, John Kennedy of creating a new endeavor, not a new balance of power, but a new world of law. Jimmy Carter said his election augured a new beginning, a new dedication within our government, and a new spirit among us all. Bill Clinton proclaimed (redundantly) in his first inaugural that a new season of American renewal has begun, and in his second he uncorked a veritable neoteric orgy: heralding the coming of a new century in a new millennium on the edge of a bright new prospect in human affairs; calling for a new vision of government, a new sense of responsibility, a new spirit of community; intoning that the promise we sought in a new land we will find again in a land of new promiseinvoking that final phrase five times for good measure. Obama, of course, will not need to strain so hard to cloak himself in the aura of novelty (though his people apparently aren't taking any chancesthe event's official theme, borrowed from the Gettysburg Address, is A New Birth of Freedom). As much as the country has grown accustomed to seeing Obama's mug on their TV screens, the sight of a black man taking the oath of office still promises to shock. But the signifiers of Obama's newness extend far beyond his race: They are generational, temperamental, intellectual, experiential. He has no real precedent as an occupant of the Oval Office. Not that this has forestalled the punditocracy from the nonstop analogizing of Obama to his predecessors. He's the new JFK, the new FDR, the new Lincoln, the new (albeit inverted) Reagan. And the attempts to pinpoint Obama along the ideological spectrum have been similarly unrelenting. The right looks at his economic-stimulus plans and spies an old-school, big-government liberal. The left looks at the tax cuts in that same plan, his hawkish foreign-policy appointments and decidedly nonprogressive economic ones, and his invocation invitation to Rick Warren, and wonders, Hey, was this guy really serious about all that centrist talk during the campaign? We thought he was only kidding, that he was one of us all along! Obama is difficult to pigeonhole not simply because he's new but because of the newness of the moment that heand weinhabit. It's a moment dominated by an economic crisis that's shaken bedrock beliefs about the infallibility of free markets. A moment when a revised architecture of power is arising globally, challenging America's status as an unrivaled superpower. When the networked age has finally arrived, inciting the implosion of the broadcast paradigm that governed politics in the Industrial Age. When the country is being transfigured demographically, hurtling toward becoming a majority-minority nation. This crescendo of forces produced Obama, made his ascension possible. Now he has a chance to shape the new era, to leave his stamp on it. This really is the first presidency of the 21st century, says Simon Rosenberg, head of the Democratic advocacy group NDN. Those who try to hold on to twentieth-century descriptions of politics are going to be disappointed and frustrated by what's about to emerge in the new administration, because American politics no longer fits into the old boxesand neither does Obama. For better or worse, what he is doing is building a new box. By every indication, Obama's efforts to build that box are being guided not by any hoary orthodoxies or deep partisan convictions but by a strict adherence to the doctrine of pragmatism. He brings to the task not just a new team and a new agenda but the makings of a new kind of political machine. The questions now are whether he can turn his rhetoric about transcending polarities into an effective governing strategy; whether he can forge a cohesive legislative coalition to advance his aims; and, if he can and does, whether the Democratic Party will still look remotely like itselfor more like, well, him. Every president aspires to transform his party into a graven image of himselfbut few are actually able to pull this le parti, c'est moi maneuver. Obama, however, is in a stronger position than most in this regard, in no small part because of his mastery of the media and technology that dominate the new era. Next: Would
Bismillah [IslamCity] Open ltr to Obama/ Middle East, Islam, Ends Means
Open ltr to Obama/ Middle East, Islam, Ends Means Dear folks, I have already once posted this Open Letter to Obama on the Progressives for Obama list, but it has not appeared at least not back to me, nor has there been any comment on it. So I am trying that again also sending it to you-all. If you have any advice about how to make sure it gets sent to the whole list, I would appreciate it. Thanks. Shalom, salaam, peace -- Arthur Rabbi Arthur Waskow, director, The Shalom Center http://www.shalomctr.org http://www.shalomctr.org/ ; author of Down-to-Earth Judaism and a dozen other books on Jewish thought and practice, as well as books on US public policy; editor of Torah of the Earth; co-author, The Tent of Abraham. The Shalom Center voices a new prophetic agenda in Jewish, multireligious, and American life. To receive the weekly on-line Shalom Report, click on -- http://www.shalomctr.org/subscribe http://www.shalomctr.org/subscribe ^^ ttp://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/arthur_waskow/2008/07/open_ltr\ _to_obama_middle_east.html Open Letter to Senator Obama: The Middle East, Islam, Ends, Means Dear friends, I am writing this out of personal experience and my own individual ethical concern, not on behalf of any organization or campaign. It comes with Martin Buber's teaching ringing in my brain: that he had no idea what it meant to say that the ends justify the means, but that for sure the means we actually use will become the ends that we actually achieve. Or as ancient Torah teaches, Justice, justice shall you pursue. Why justice twice? To teach that just ends can only be achieved through just means. A lesson for all who work to change society. Shalom, salaam, peace -- Arthur Dear Senator Obama, I met you at your talk with Philadelphia Jewish leaders in April. It was I who as you entered the room handed you a copy of the original Freedom Seder, which I wrote in 1969, and which bound together the freedom struggles of Blacks and Jews. And during Q A, it was I who asked you how as President you would deal with the peace-obstructing settlement policy of this and many previous Israeli governments. I asked that question because one of the advance speakers for your meeting, Congressman Roth of New Jersey, had just asserted that you believe the failure of the peace process has been solely the result of the absence of a Palestinian partner for peace. Solely the fault of the Palestinians? I thought. Surely he doesn't believe that! So I rose to say that hundreds of rabbis and hundreds of thousands of American Jews see Israeli settlement policy as obstacles to peace, and asked what as President you would do about it. Your answer cited the vigorous debate on these questions in Israel -- more vigorous than here; the recognition by most Israelis that for peace to unfold, there will have to be a shift in settlement policy; and your sense that most Israeli know that internal debate would be so wrenching that they want to know there is a partner for that decision before going through the debate. Though you avoided saying what you would do, I was satisfied with your answer -- then. I was especially ready to be satisfied because I knew that earlier, when you met with Jewish leaders in Cleveland, you had gone even further, saying: I sat down with the head of Israeli security forces and his view of the Palestinians was incredibly nuanced because he's dealing with these people every day. He was willing to say sometimes we make mistakes and if we are just pressing down on these folks constantly without giving them some prospects for hope, that's not good for our security situation. It would be profoundly important to have a President who understands that! Yet more recently, in your speech to AIPAC, there was no such language. And you slid so far into simply repeating official shibboleths like Jerusalem undivided that you had to correct yourself the next day. No one knows better than I that many of the official Jewish organizations would go ballistic to hear a presidential candidate bring such ideas to the fore in, say, a major speech about making peace across the whole region that Abraham, Hagar, and Sarah walked. And no one knows better than I that millions of American Jews , Christians, and Muslims want exactly that kind of honest talk and vigorous diplomacy. They would support any President who insisted on exactly the kind of broad pursuit of peace you have sometimes affirmed, and the changes in not only Palestinian, Syrian, and Iranian but also Israeli and American behavior it requires. I know some people who carry a strange mixture of cynicism and wish-fulfillment in their heads -- who think you can, will, and should say anything to calm folks like the AIPAC membership and thereby get elected, and later will work hard for a real peace. I know people who think that you can, will, and should pretend you never met Palestinians and heard their
