Writings & Things I Want to Share

[dgarr]

I don't write very often nor do I do it well , but I love to read

From the Book of Counted Sorrows


To see what we have never seen,
to be what we have never been,
to shed the chrysalis and fly,
depart the earth, kiss the sky,
to be reborn, be someone new:
is this a dream or is it true?
Can our future be cleanly shorn
from a life to which we’re born?
Is each of us a creature free -
or trapped at birth by destiny?
Pity those who believe the latter,
Without freedom, nothing matters.

[dgarr]

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be critical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.

© Max Ehrmann 1927[/size]

[dgarr]

Still I rise - Dr. Maya Angelou





youtu.be/r_muacudzsI

[dgarr]

Saturday, March 23, 2013



The audacity of trust
When I was in graduate school, there was a theology professor that I credit with my "re-birth" as a human being after years of growing up haunted by the dogmatism of fundamentalist christianity that seemed aimed at crushing my spirit. His name wasRay Anderson and he passed away about 4 years ago.

Anyone who knows me in real life has heard stories about the interactions I had with this man and how he woke up the cowed little girl inside of me. I've often summarized it all by saying that the healing came because he trusted me fearlessly.

I wasn't the only one he touched. A friend of mine spent time with him too. When she first started to interact with him, she told him that she feared she was about to jump off a cliff. His response..."can I go with you?"

Since those days I've often thought about the healing power of trust. It is a powerful elixir that most of us are too fearful to extend to others - much less ourselves. We are so broken inside from our disappointments that we spend enormous amounts of energy protecting our vulnerability.

I have also come to believe that much of the fearless soul-searching work that Barack Obama did in his young adulthood (as was written about in Dreams From My Father) must have involved a reckoning with this brokenness and vulnerability because he reminds me of Professor Anderson in his willingness to trust people so fearlessly.

I was reminded of all that in President Obama's speech to the people of Israel.
Four years ago, I stood in Cairo in front of an audience of young people -- politically, religiously, they must seem a world away. But the things they want, they’re not so different from what the young people here want. They want the ability to make their own decisions and to get an education, get a good job; to worship God in their own way; to get married; to raise a family. The same is true of those young Palestinians that I met with this morning. The same is true for young Palestinians who yearn for a better life in Gaza.

That's where peace begins -- not just in the plans of leaders, but in the hearts of people. Not just in some carefully designed process, but in the daily connections -- that sense of empathy that takes place among those who live together in this land and in this sacred city of Jerusalem.

And let me say this as a politician -- I can promise you this, political leaders will never take risks if the people do not push them to take some risks. You must create the change that you want to see. Ordinary people can accomplish extraordinary things.

I know this is possible. Look to the bridges being built in business and civil society by some of you here today. Look at the young people who’ve not yet learned a reason to mistrust, or those young people who’ve learned to overcome a legacy of mistrust that they inherited from their parents, because they simply recognize that we hold more hopes in common than fears that drive us apart. Your voices must be louder than those who would drown out hope. Your hopes must light the way forward.

Look to a future in which Jews and Muslims and Christians can all live in peace and greater prosperity in this Holy Land. Believe in that. And most of all, look to the future that you want for your own children -- a future in which a Jewish, democratic, vibrant state is protected and accepted for this time and for all time...

Ben Gurion once said, “In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.” Sometimes, the greatest miracle is recognizing that the world can change.
Imagine that...going into the most conflict-ridden part of the world today and talking about the fact that Jews and Muslims and Palestinians "hold more hopes in common than fears that drive us apart." Now THAT's audacious! He championed hope in a place that is plagued by fear because he trusts the audience he was speaking to.

I believe that's why they responded so powerfully to what he had to say - because that was my own personal response to a trust so fearlessly extended. That kind of gift from another person wakes up your soul.

And so I was reminded once again that we are privileged to be living in an era with this man as our leader. People like him don't come around very often...I've run into 2 during my 50+ years on this earth. Both of them were human with all of the limitations that ensures. But having wrestled with their own inadequacies, they also had the strength and courage to extend the audacity of trust.

Posted by Smartypants at 10:28 AM immasmartypants.blogspot.com/



"Princess Smartypants wanted to live in a castle with her pets and do exactly as she pleased."

[dgarr]

By Liberal Librarian "A Few Words On Hope"




How’s that hopey-changey thing goin’ for ya?
—Sarah Palin, half-term governor of Alaska, speaking about Barack Obama
____________
Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops… at all.
—Emily Dickinson


____________
My life would be impossible without hope.

For as long as I remember, I’ve stuttered. Most of my life has been spent in compensation for this malady, trying to pass it off as no big deal, as no impediment to achieving my goals in life. But the fact is that, despite supportive friends and family, the world does view you differently when you’re different. But, even greater, you view yourself as Other, as not quite the same as those around you, magnifying your flaws to the point where they become huge boulders standing in your path.

With an affliction such as mine, one can go one of two ways: towards desperation, or towards hope. I count myself lucky; again, because of supportive friends and family, I always kept hope foremost in my mind, that something would break my way.

To make a long story short, I eventually found a doctor whose therapy worked. Thanks to keeping faith in things getting better, I’m now a librarian, talking my head off, reading and singing to children in a way that I wouldn’t have been able to do before my therapy.

I don’t tell this personal story to elicit commendation. I tell it to illustrate the centrality of hope in any decent human life.

Hope gives you a chance at a decent life. Hopelessness only leads to death.

When people deride us for placing hope in “That One”, what they’re really exposing is their own hopelessness.

Consider Sarah Palin’s quip; it’s easy to, as it was repeated in different versions across the right wing media wurlitzer. Their bromides exposed nothing about Barack Obama or the veracity of his world view; it merely exposed, in bright neon, the paucity of their own withered hearts. “Without vision (hope), the people perish.” The Right, and some elements of the Left, inhabit that country, where hope is a foreign concept, relegated long ago to the realm of fairy stories. Hope doesn’t obtain for them, because hope requires something anathema to them: belief, and work in that belief.

Oh, they have “belief”; they have enough “beliefs” to write mountains of books. But their beliefs bring nothing but despair; the Right’s world is crumbling before it, and it can’t understand why, after so many years of seeming dominance. And the extreme Left’s world was never born, and it too can’t understand why their beliefs were rejected.

On the Right and the extreme Left, their beliefs were rejected because they offered no real hope of things being better; their prescriptions merely served to enhance their own influence, without explaining how the Nirvanas they promised would come to fruition. They have belief without hope.

Hope isn’t blind faith, which those on the Right and Left offer. Hope is work, often hard, often unrecognized. I have more than one friend who is disappointed that Eden hasn’t broken out since November 2008. I ask, “Well, what have you done to make that vision reality?” They never have an answer. Obama offers hope, not a free ride. Anything worth achieving requires an effort which too many in our society eschew, clamoring instead for the easy promise, the get-rich-quick scheme. The work of achieving a decent life for all is beyond too many of our fellow citizens.

But without that hope that with work and perseverance things will get better, we may as well roll out the red carpet for the Koch Brothers. It’s that hope that maintains civilization. It’s that hope that makes us different from all the other creatures of the Earth. Without hope, the world dies.

My answer to Sarah Palin’s mocking question? “It’s working out quite fine, because I don’t live in despair.”

[dgarr]

Cheezy posted this on the site so he gets full credit. I just love it so much I had to add it to thing I like to share:


youtu.be/lJ7AfSO2fKs

[dgarr]

time to turn the world rightside up

By Liberal Librarian

This has been a hard week.

It began with the terrorist attack in Boston.

The middle of the week brings us the continued terrorist attacks which occur on our streets every day due to gun violence and the easy availability of Time to turn the world rightside upguns. The Senate took up a measure to expand background checks for gun purchases. Although it had majority support, it didn’t have the magic number of 60 yeas, and thus died. (Also killed outright were bans on assault weapons and large magazines. More on that later.)

Let’s not kid ourselves: the background check legislation was, at best, a small step. As Brad Plummer writes in the Washington Post:

The Manchin-Toomey compromise bill was a scaled-back version of earlier proposals to extend background checks to unregulated private gun sales. Many gun experts argued that the slimmed-down proposal would have only marginal effects on gun violence. But even that small step couldn’t get through the Senate.

"But even that small step couldn’t get through the Senate.”

Let that sentence sink in. Our political culture is in such straits that a minor, flawed reform to gun laws could not get through the Senate. Never mind the stricter legislation on magazine size and a ban on assault weapons—legislation which went down to decisive defeats before the background check bill came up. And, of course, the GOP-controlled House has consigned Newtown to the memory hole. It has played no meaningful role in trying to ameliorate the gun violence epidemic infecting the nation; it’s quite happy allowing the carnage to continue. It is, a priori, the price of "freedom”.

It would be quite easy to throw in the towel. A significant chunk of politicians are bought and paid for by deep-pocketed special interests—and at a very cheap price. The worst among them sail to re-election time and again, thanks to that flow of money, and to an electorate which, let’s face it, is too stupid to realize that the men and women for whom they vote couldn’t give a damn about their real needs. Or, maybe they do realize it, but they hold those needs beneath the need to maintain a fiction of a country that never existed and is threatened by the hordes of "Others” about to swamp them.

To that, I offer this video:


This is not a man who has been cowed. This is not a man who is giving up. This is a man who believes in the perfection of the Union, and who will fight until his last day in office and bey0nd to see it come to fruition.

And consider the tweet which opened this essay. Not only did 17 out of the 18 senators from the states forming the backbone of the Democratic coalition vote for expanded background checks, but red state Democrats such as Mary Landrieu, Clair McCaskill, Tim Johnson, and Joe Donnelly—always at risk from right wing challenges—took a political risk to do the right thing. That, in the midst of the tragedy, is movement.

The four Democrats who voted to maintain the filibuster—Begich, Baucus, Heitkamp, and Pryor—should be subjected to all the opprobrium they have merited. As I’ve made clear before, I’m a big believer in the big tent; but how a Democrat could vote against the most minor step forward to stanch the plague of gun violence, while the families of the Newtown martyrs sat in the galleries, is beyond my understanding. Baucus is retiring; the other three should be held to account for their cowardly actions.

But let’s not forget: these four were icing on the cake. The GOP obstructionists had enough votes to scupper the bill without them. The failure is not on the Democrats, but on the Republicans. They sided with a fringe organization in opposition to 90% of the American public. They’re protecting the kind of gun rights which shouldn’t exist in any non-suicidal society. They’re protecting a vision of gun rights more in tune with the streets of Somalia, not with the needs of a 21st century industrial state. They are the ones who must be held accountable. They are the ones who must suffer the full wrath of the electorate—an electorate which they have betrayed time and again on every issue of national importance.

How are we to do this? This is a start.

Legendary tech investor and political mover Ron Conway has a stern warning for the 46 senators whorejected an amendment to expand background checks on firearms sales on Wednesday, a vote that flew in the face of public opinion.

"We will employ the most sophisticated social media campaign ever built to remove these people from office,” he said in an interview with The Chronicle.

"Mark my words,” he said. "It is shameful and the United States of America should be embarrassed by its Senate.”

Fire has to be fought with fire. The Right has the resources of the Kochs and their ilk funding them. The Left has potential resources to equal or surpass those of the Right; it’s time that they get off the sidelines.

Obama for America turning into Organizing for America is also a major component of how we drum out the GOP. It is a political organization that the astroturfers of the Right can only dream of competing against. It won Barack Obama two terms in the White House against steep odds, and is now determined to stay in the fight.

But in the end, it’s up to us. We have to channel the anger we feel into constructive action. Fund the organizations which work for real progress; volunteer to spread the word and fight the right wing lies; not be intimidated by the fearmongers of both the Right and Left. The Common Sense Caucus in this country dwarfs the rabid stalwarts of the fringes. Only when we make our voices heard, in one great swell, will things change.

This is not a sprint. The country didn’t reach this state in a few short years, or by happenstance. The state in which we find ourselves was planned for decades. It will take time to undo all the grievous damage. But it can be done, with work, determination, and that most powerful of forces: love. Love of country, love of our fellow human beings, love of those to whom we leave this world, hopefully in a better condition than in which we received it. No force of intolerance, oppression, or prevarication can stand against it.

Who’s in?[/size]

[dgarr]

;D


the man in the arena
By Liberal Librarian


It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, in a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, on April 23, 1910

If one were to read the usual—and not so usual—quarters, one would be led to the conclusion that President Barack Obama orchestrated the entire deal which vacated the sequester on the FAA, while leaving intact the sequester on every other segment of our government. One would be forgiven for thinking that Obama signed legislation which had been passed in the teeth of stern Democratic opposition, siding with Republicans and perhaps a rump of conservative Democrats.

One would not learn from reading in these quarters that the FAA "fix” passed by unanimous consent in the Senate.

Now, this is more Senate Newspeak, so what does it mean? Simply put, the measure was put before the Senate, andnot one single Senator voiced an objection to it. Not Bernie Sanders. Not Elizabeth Warren. All the paragons of the Left signed off on the bill.

The quote which begins this essay is from a speech Teddy Roosevelt gave in France. Its title is "Citizenship in a Republic”. It’s worth a read if you have the time; Roosevelt was one of the greatest orators of our Republic.

But I will focus on the most famous quote from it, because it is most germane to the time in which we find ourselves.

This flaccid, whining, infantile culture in which we find ourselves did not come about by happenstance. It was quite deliberately thought out. Get voters disgusted with DC politics. Break the government and then cry "See, government is useless!” Depress voter turnout. Take over on the state level with small electorates and hamstring any progressive initiatives to come out of the Capitol. Accrue more privileges to those with wealth and power, deny them to the majority, but still—through a thoroughly corrupt and corporate media—sell it as "freedom”.

The FAA fix is but the latest assinine expression of this culture of complaint. It won’t be the last. And if Obama had "stood firm” against the Senate, all he would’ve gotten for his trouble is a veto override. And, oh yes, being accused of risking traveler safety for the sake of "politics”.

Am I upset that every single damned Senator couldn’t run fast enough to spare the FAA from sequester, while programs which aid the poorest among us get decimated? Of course I am. But, let’s not forget, fixing the FAA also spared thousands of workers from being furloughed. Millionaires in their private jets aren’t the only ones benefiting from this action. And, heaven forbid that somehow Obama was able to block the bill, and then a mid-air tragedy occurred. That would be the end of his Presidency.

The problem lies squarely in TR’s quote. We have a culture where it’s far easier—and more remunerative—to complain loudly about any subject than to get into the meat of the matter and effect change. Barack Obama was mocked by Sarah Palin in 2008 for being a community organizer. Mocked for doing real work at a grassroots level by a woman who would, soon after her defeat in that year’s election, resign her post as Alaska governor for the more rewarding territory of a Fox News pundit, reality show star, and political action committee grifter.

Very few in the media or in Congress have had to do much real work in their lives. Very few have looked in the face of poverty and thought about how to ameliorate it. Politics, like much else in our society, has become mere entertainment. Solutions to real problems facing real people don’t sell advertising. Ginning up outrage and controversy keeps the eyeballs of the few people who still watch news or write to their representatives focused on the next ad, or the next fundraising letter.

And I’m not letting us, the citizens, off the hook. Yes, life is tough—made so by people whom we keep re-electing. But the duty of a free citizen in a republic is to be engaged in everything which affects the community. There shouldn’t be a separate "political class”; if you’re upset about an issue, and do nothing save gripe on message boards, then you’re part of the problem. If you can’t be bothered with the simple act of writing a letter to your representative, or—heaven forbid!—voting, then you enable those who are making this country ungovernable.

Of course, it’s obvious that I’m going to say that at present the only "man in the arena” is Barack Obama. Thank goodness we have him. But it’s also a damning indictment of our times that only one person stands between a civilized life and the abyss. And he does it with almost no help.

We have only three more years of Obama’s leadership. After that, what? Unless we change the trajectory of our politics, a post-Obama America promises to slide into even greater dysfunction.

We must all enter the arena if we’re to save this Republic.

[dgarr]

a few precepts
by Liberal Librarian


Love may not always win

but hate is always sure to lose.

A peace of equals

lasts longer than a war of destruction.

Life, for all its problems

is more wondrous than a cult of death.

I'm with those who sing their souls

rather than scream their fears.

I'm with those who offer the open hand

rather than the clenched fist.

I'm with those who do as they wish to be done

rather than those who do before they get done.

The secret of the good life is not difficult:

love, kindness, openness.

Their opposites are merely the signposts

to lonely and dusty death.

When someone says to you: "I'm for life",

Ask them: "What life?"

Life after birth?

Life in fullness rather than penury?

Life with meaning?

Life with possibilities abounding?

Any other kind of life is not life.

Any other kind of life is death.

Life, peace, love:

All else is fool's gold.

[dgarr]

the last play in the playbook
By Liberal Librarian


You will have to have been under a rock for the past two weeks to have missed the feeding frenzy being engaged in by what passes as the other major political party and its enablers in the press. Between BENGHAZI!!! and IRS-gate, it seems that nothing at all of importance has been happening in the world.

The GOP and the press finally feel they have what they’ve been looking for: a political “mistake” by Barack Obama which they can use to cut him down to size. One has to admit, that the nation’s first black President has been quite scandal-free since his first Inauguration, in spite of the usual suspects’ best efforts. Obamacare was supposed to be his “Waterloo”; it now promises to cement a generation of Democratic dominance as citizens benefit from a new social program, one which will guarantee that they don’t have to choose between the rent and their health. Obama brought Osama Bin Laden to justice, something which the previous administration had no interest in doing. And of course, before he was even elected, he had the Reverend Wright “scandal”—a moment he used to give the nation a sorely needed lesson on race. The scandal-mongers have, quite frankly, lacked decent material with which to work.

So one could easily detect the almost orgiastic glee with which Republican politicians, their mouth-breather base, and the supine press greeted the advent of Benghazi and the IRS investigating Tea Party groups’ tax-exempt status. One could easily create a thought bubble over Darrel Issa’s and Jake Tapper’s heads: “Finally, we’re going to get that black bastard.”

Although the President’s race contributes almost exponentially to the mania surrounding the “scandals”—and yes, I will continue to put that word in quotes—race isn’t the source of the animus.

Quite simply, ever since the Gingrich Revolution of 1994, the modus operandi of the Republican Party has been to make sure that no Democrat can get anything done. That strategy lay behind Bill Clinton’s impeachment—an impeachment which came about in spite of Clinton’s non-stop schmoozing of Republicans, for all the good it did him. The economy was booming, people were souring on the Republican takeover of the Congress, and seeing Democrats, again, as being more aligned with the needs of the country.

This modern Republican Party cares nothing for the nation’s needs. And it certainly wants nothing done which will show government working for the greater good, as in its world that’s an impossibility, unless it’s working for the benefit of the billionaires who fund the party. The fact that a black man, who started his professional career as a community organizer, and who taught the Constitution which the GOP is busy destroying, is bringing transformational change to the country makes their frenzy all the greater.

But the core project remains: stymie Democrats, play as dirty as needed, stir up agitation, and get the public so sick of “scandal” that it decides to vote for a Republican in the next election.

The problem is this: it’s the only play the GOP has left in its playbook. It has mortgaged more and more of itself to the fringe elements of the base, to the extent where it has no room for maneuver. And the coalition which propelled Obama twice to the White House is only growing, and solidly Democratic.

It was almost guaranteed, when the country took leave of its senses in 2010, that the GOP House would find something—anything—with which to hound the Administration. That the best it can do is Benghazi and the IRS—two “scandals” of which the majority of the population isn’t even aware—shows that the playbook’s one play isn’t working as it once did. Add the GOP’s hamstringing of effective governance to its open racism, and a country which grows more tolerant by the day will see off the dying beast.

We all knew that it was going to get ugly. A Democrat re-elected to office seems to madden the GOP. That the Democrat is black adds fuel to the fire. But Barack Obama isn’t one to take the bait. He is, quite simply, just better than they are. And thank goodness for that.

[dgarr]

Privilege

By Liberal Librarian



I did not grow up in an atmosphere of privilege. My dad owned his own barbershop, and my mom was a seamstress in New York’s garment district. I wanted for nothing, but I knew we were solidly working class. If I and my brothers wanted to go to university—and with our parents, it was expected—we would have to work for it. There were no college funds, and no rich uncle was going to swoop in and save us. All we had were each other, our willingness to work, and our native intelligences.

Not coming from a place of privilege, I know instinctively that most things in this life for most people come at a price, the price usually being hard struggle. The world gives up very little for free. Short cuts, when they do exist, are far and few between. As I said in my post yesterday, at first that made me a practiced cynic. Fortunately I grew out of it, and embraced the rewards that come with struggle; the struggle makes the reward all that much sweeter.

But just as cynicism infects our modern politics, so does a culture of privilege.

As it has made it all over the media, last night at a Democratic fundraiser Michelle Obama was heckled by an activist from Get Equal, a gay-rights group. Ellen Sturtz interrupted Mrs. Obama’s speech, demanding that her husband sign an executive order guaranteeing non-discrimination in employment. Forget the fact that any executive order could be overturned by the next GOP president; and forget the fact that Obama has done more to advance gay rights in this country than all other presidents put together. Also forget the fact that rights which are enshrined by law—such as the lifting of DADT—are the rights which will last, not those done away with by executive fiat. No. To Ellen Sturtz, all of the President’s achievements are nothing, because he has made the strategic and democratic decision to work through courts and Congress to solidify gay rights. When George W. Bush signed executive orders, the likes of Ellen Sturtz would have called him a dictator. Now they want President Obama to be a dictator from the left.

But something strange happened. Mrs. Obama didn’t stand there and take her guff. She very politely offered those gathered a choice: they could listen to her, or they could listen to Sturtz. Suddenly, her bubble of privilege was punctured. She didn’t, in her wildest imaginings, think that Michelle Obama would actually stand up to her. She thought that because she had bought a $500 ticket she had the right to be rude to the First Lady, and to the other attendees who had bought their tickets to hear her speak. She was “taken aback” as she whined later at Mrs. Obama’s polite but forceful confrontation. She was quite ready to talk at Mrs. Obama; she was completely unprepared to be talked back to, as if she were the teacher and Mrs. Obama some unruly child.

Obviously, those on the Right who back the GOP, like the Koch Brothers, come from a place of ultimate privilege as scions of wealth. But a large segment of the Left also operates from that place. Ellen Sturtz is emblematic of that privilege: she thought that, simply because of who she was, she had the right to speak disrespectfully to Mrs. Obama. Forget that she is the First Lady; first and foremost she is a human being, with strengths and failings. The Right feasts on dehumanizing its opponents, painting them as Others; some on the Left fall into the same sin, believing that their worldview is the only correct one, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is “uninformed” and must be taken by the hand and shown the truth. What Ellen Sturtz did last night is not see Michelle Obama as a woman, a mother, a wife, a strong supporter of equal rights for all; to Sturtz, Mrs. Obama was a cypher upon which she could load all her anger and ideology. She wasn’t a person, but a wall upon which she could post her theses. No wonder she was “taken aback” when the wall turned out to be a strong human being who had had enough of the disrespect shown to her, her husband, and her family for six years, much of that disrespect coming from people who were supposed to be allies.

The megaphone Left swims in cynicism and privilege. With every stunt, they prove the stereotype most American have of them, a stereotype shared by the President’s real base. The vast majority of people who voted for Obama have no time for the antics of Get Equal or Code Pink. The concerns of those groups are not the concerns of Obama’s base. But, it gets them on television, gets them a few more meager clicks on their websites, keeps the donations flowing in, and makes them feel as if they’re fighting giants.

They’re not fighting giants. They’re fighting the dwarfs within themselves. In six years of yelling at Obama, they’ve accomplished nothing. And every time Obama achieves another progressive milestone, the common reaction from them is “Yes, but what about this? Why didn’t you fix it already?” The Left has been so used to “confronting power” that it doesn’t know how to take advantage of having the most liberal American president since FDR in power by aligning itself with him. Of course, there will be disagreements; for all the prattle of the Right, Barack Obama is not a socialist. He is a realistic progressive. And it’s that realism which incenses those quarters of the Left most opposed to him. He doesn’t take on every pet cause. He chooses his battles, the ones which he knows if he wins will affect the most people for the better. He believes in the Constitution and the separation of powers; he’s not going to do Congress’ job for it and act like a liberal autocrat, thus fulfilling all of the Right’s worst fears. For this he’s called “spineless” and “weak”; but those are adjectives best reserved for the ankle biters on the Left.

A progressive President needs a progressive Congress. Instead, he has a legislature mired in dysfunction. All of those attacking him from the Left would put their energies to better use if they organized to put forth candidates for Congress who had a chance of winning. They might not be as liberal as desired; but politics is a game of the possible. And that’s where the Left fails. It wants the impossible, wants it now, and brooks no excuses. And it will “educate” anyone who doesn’t toe the line.

People don’t like to be talked down to. The Obamas are no different. Which is why they and their real allies have all but tuned out the screechers on the Left. Obama knows he can’t rely on them; he also knows he doesn’t need to, as they’re probably the people who sat on their hands and didn’t go to the voting booths in 2008, 2010, and 2012. They won’t vote in 2014 either. Expending energy on them is a waste; he will continue to do what he does, building a common-sense coalition which will hopefully propel Democrats to take the House in 2014. And the Left will again be left wailing incoherently, declaring that they’re “the base”, and wondering why they affect nothing. They will wallow in their privilege, watching the world move around them and past them. It’s a fitting end.

[dgarr]

letter from a hong kong hotel suite

By Liberal Librarian
Cross-posted on The People’s View.

America’s history is written in blood and sacrifice. We have two holidays—Memorial Day and Veterans Day—which commemorate the sacrifices made by our military. But, we have only two national martyrs whom we acknowledge with holidays: Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Both of our great martyrs died trying to expiate the sins of slavery and racism. Without their work, the America in which we live would be unrecognizable. In fact, there might very well be no America, as it would have split along the fissures caused by one of its two original sins, that of slavery.

Which is why it’s quite curious that Chris Hayes, on his show last night, brought up the memories of Dr. King and Rosa Parks when speaking of NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The pushback on Twitter was immediate and furious. And Hayes didn’t walk back his comments, but repeated them two hours later on Lawrence O’Donnell’s show.

That Chris Hayes would invoke MLK’s memory in defense of Edward Snowden is beyond blinkered. It’s reprehensible.

The title of this essay is a rueful response to Snowden’s actions—and his reaction to what he did.

Dr. King lived with the threat of death every day of his public ministry. The fact that he finally was assassinated is merely proof of that. But he faced that life with courage, with magnanimity, with forcefulness. He didn’t write his letter in exile from Havana; he wrote it right there in a Birmingham jail, one of many times he was in jail for acts of conscience. He didn’t abandon the people and country he purported to care about; he lived their lives, shared their fears and hopes, tried to bring justice to a country which had lacked it for so long.

Mrs. Parks didn’t hightail it to Rio to rail against how evil the US government was. After her act on the bus, she accepted the mantle of civil rights symbol, which came with its own dangers. Her home was here, her people were here, and she faced any dangers with the same bravery and grace that Dr. King did.

What both Dr. King and Mrs. Parks knew was what Glenn Greenwald and Snowden refuse to acknowledge: the US, for all its many faults, is perfectable. It can change. It can grow. It can evolve. President Lincoln knew the same thing, which is why he fought to save the Union, rather than have the Great Experiment splinter into its constituent parts. When you send yourself into exile, and yet continue to speak about the country as if you have any actual care for it, then you’ve lost all right to criticize.

I’m not sure what it was that Snowden feared. An open trial before a jury of his peers? He and Greenwald want to be seen as heroes, exposing US perfidy—or, more specifically, Obama’s perfidy. But they’re not willing to accept the consequences of their actions. The do it from safe perches, where they think they’ll be beyond the reach of the US.

But assuming the mantle of Dr. King and Mrs. Parks is most illuminating.

It’s no surprise that they’re holding themselves as successors to African American civil rights heroes. By doing so, they’re hoping to deligitimize the country’s first black president. They are the true heirs to the civil rights struggles, not Barack Obama. They know what it’s like to fight for freedom; Obama is merely a stooge of the Establishment, or even worse.

However, mostly white emo-progressives do not have the right to invoke martyrs in scoring political points. They know nothing of the struggles of the 1950s and 1960s—of struggles which are ongoing in New York City with “stop and frisk”, in the border states with xenophobia aimed at Latinos. They are curiously absent from the debate around those issues. But even hint that their Instagram accounts might be monitored, and suddenly they’re civil liberties warriors.

They’re not standing on the shoulders of giants; they’re dancing on their graves, understanding not a single thing that they did. Saying that Snowden is like Rosa Parks insults the thousands who struggled, were beaten, and died to bring freedom. Saying that Snowden is like Dr. King denigrates every true activist who didn’t ponce off to foreign shores when things got tough.

Africans came to these shores with nothing, and even that was taken away from them. Until recent years—yes, as a result of the struggles of the 50s and 60s—all they had were their stories and their humanity. Yes, Dr. King and Mrs. Parks are part of the greater American story; but one has to view their history through the prism of the African American experience. And appropriating their memories for a cheap political stunt is not only an insult to the dead, but an insult to the living, the ones who form one of the legs of the Obama coalition.

I would hope that the likes of Chris Hayes would learn from their mistakes. But it’s not a great hope. The bubble in which they live is too well-insulated, too comfortable. If they ever get into the field and engage in the great political battles of the day, then I might listen to them with one ear. But they won’t. It’s much easier to opine from Rio, Skype from Hong Kong, or host an 8 pm chat show. But we won’t let them appropriate history for their own ends. Let them justify their own heroes; ours are already taken.

[dgarr]

nospin
July 14, 2013 at 11:16 pm
” solution – stop black people voting, stop black people getting educated”

The opposite will be true.

Today I sat my four children down and they are not yet 13. I explained what happened yesterday and had the talk. I let them know someone else’s insecurity because of the pigment of their skin is not their problem. I explained that life is transient and to remember with everything there is a season. A time to live ..a time to die. I let them know they are to always be confident in their own abilities and in their self worth. To be respectful and to demand respect. In response to yesterdays travesty, they are to become more educated, be civic minded. If they for someone reason they are not hired for a job that is fine. Create their own net worth.

They have a mind…use it. They have talent…harness it. They have a will…leverage it to succeed. In the face of injustice to let their voice be heard and stand for what they believe in regardless of the circumstances. You can’t control the actions of another person but you can control your own destiny.

Everything else is what it is.

Reply
29Bobfr (@our4thestate)
July 15, 2013 at 1:49 am
“They have a mind…use it. They have talent…harness it. They have a will…leverage it to succeed. In the face of injustice to let their voice be heard and stand for what they believe in regardless of the circumstances. You can’t control the actions of another person but you can control your own destiny.”

Absolutely BRILLIANT, nospin!!


Yes We Can

[dgarr]

No Fear of a Black Planet
By Liberal Librarian


I don’t remember how old I was; maybe 10 or 11. And I don’t remember what occasioned the discussion; possibly because my social circle was a rainbow coalition of different races, ethnicities, genders. But I remember what my mother told me one day: Yes, you have to fear all black people, because when we had just moved to this country, your father was mugged by a black man. And maybe I’m just imagining my response to her, all these years later, but to my recollection I didn’t let her say that without push-back. I questioned why I should fear an entire group because of the actions of one person. Although now I’m of the opinion that I am my brother’s keeper, I’m also of the opinion that at some point my brother must answer for his own actions. I don’t own them, only what I do and say. Likewise, the African Americans who come into my library shouldn’t have to answer for the bad decisions of another African American. At some point, we all have to stand alone before the world and justify our actions. The hundred are not responsible for the criminality of the one.

My mother has mellowed as she’s grown older. I’d like to think that my brothers and me have helped her see the ludicrousness of her fears. It also helped that her mother, my grandmother, shuffled off her mortal coil two decades ago; her skin was translucent, her eyes blue, and she made it clear that she was superior to anyone whose skin was even a shade darker than hers. She was the motive force of the racism in my family. But something happened at my library which brought that childhood incident back fresh into my mind.

A young black man—probably not much older than Trayvon Martin—came into my library earlier this week. He had requested some books, and wanted to know if they had come in. I took his library card, looked up his account, and told him that they were in transit, and should arrive either this week or early next. He thanked me and, very politely, asked me if he could go read at a table. I smiled and said “Of course, that’s why we’re here.” He returned some time later, asking if we had any books on the topic of the ones he had requested. I did a quick search, and took him back to the section where we had some relevant material. He looked at me, smiled, thanked me, and then touched my shoulder in further thanks. I looked at him, smiled, but my thought was “No, young man, I don’t think you’re a thug. No one should think you’re a thug just because of the color of your skin.”

Seeing people as people, not demonizing entire groups, is not a “liberal” value. And “conservatives” don’t have to be against it. Doing so is the only thing which will ensure our survival as a species. After 9/11, whether we like to admit it or not, we demonized all Muslims, which made it all too easy to sell the Iraq War to a shell-shocked populace. Every new group which has arrived on our shores has experienced demonization. It used to be the Irish and Italians. Now it’s dysfunctional African-Americans (although, hasn’t it always been so?) and Latinos who, in the words of Steve King, are mostly “drug mules”. Such narratives are not worthy of a civilized society. Part of our Old Testament heritage is to welcome the stranger, for once we were strangers as well. But that’s part of the Bible which many of our so-called Christians seem fit to ignore.

We have to accept cultural peculiarities, as long as they don’t serve oppression, because culture is what makes us human. But we also have to go beyond the tribal, the parochial. We have to stop erecting differences and instead erect commonalities. As President Obama said, we have to expand our circle of compassion. It’s easy to feel sympathy for those who look like you, or sound like you. It is precisely when you embrace the stranger, the foreigner, that you go beyond your tribe, and reach what is truly human. Much like supporting the right of people to speak that which is distasteful to the majority is the mark of a free country, so is eradicating the idea of the Other as an organizing principle.

Sadly, the fear many whites feel is deeply held. It’s not justified, but ignoring it won’t make it go away. The only way to assuage it is to reiterate, at every moment, that we are all children of the same Earth, all dependent on it, and unless we erect walls and minefields it will always be so. Some will never be reached; some will fester in their own fears and hatreds and bemoan the passing of a world which never existed. But most people, despite their fears, merely want to live a secure life. It’s the idea that their security is being shredded which frightens them. Showing them, bit by bit, that in fact their security is being enhanced when our country becomes more fair and more just is the only thing which will make it so. It’s not easy work. It’s not quick work. But it’s the only way forward.

Any world worthy of being left to posterity has to be one in which e pluribus unum becomes a universal value. As the Koran says, God made people into nations so that they may know each other, and learn from their differences. We are a world of strangers, seeking to know each other. I have no fear of that planet. I welcome it.

Black Does Not Equal Fear

youtu.be/iCQcQaLgnQ0

[dgarr]

;D

War and Peace in a Democracy

By Liberal Librarian
Cross-posted at The People’s View

Even if you were stuffing yourself full of the first weekend of college football, by now you know that President Barack Obama conducted one of the most important Rose Garden addresses in the history of the modern Presidency.

Taking the baton from his Secretary of State John Kerry, he again laid out, in forceful, passionate language, the situation as it was in Syria. He explained that the intelligence community had concluded with great certainty that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was responsible for the chemical attacks in contested areas of Damascus the week before. He passionately argued that American values and national interest dictated that Assad’s regime be punished militarily for the use of those chemical weapons against civilians. He stated that the military had assets in place and was ready to go at any time.

And then he did something no modern president had done. Even though he believed he had the authority to act, he knew that this was a divisive issue, and that the people’s representatives had to join in the decision. He called for Congress to debate and vote on a resolution granting him specific authority to militarily strike Assad for violating international treaties banning the use of chemical weaponry, some of the oldest weapons conventions in international law. He had heard the rumblings from Congress saying that he had to seek approval before any strike, and agreed.

But why did he agree? This is where he pivots beyond what all the pundits and talking heads expected. Just before declaring that he would seek Congressional approval, he reiterated that he believed that he had the authority to conduct the attacks with or without Congressional approval. But such an action, in a region of the world where such action could quickly spiral out of control, needed more than just Barack Obama’s say-so as Commander in Chief. Syria is not Libya. In the Libyan crisis, the President had a UN resolution with which to work. As a signatory to the UN charter, all member nations had a duty to enforce Security Council resolutions. That was all the authorization he needed.

In Syria, the UN is not functioning. Russia is Assad’s patron, and will certainly block any resolution demanding consequences for his actions. And in the US President Obama is facing a nation weary of war, and leery of getting involved in another Middle East quagmire. These particular facets to the Syrian maelstrom invite a different strategy.

Any unilateral action by Obama would, as always when it comes to him, invite backbiting from Congress. An action against a state with a powerful patron means that action has to have broad-based support. Thus, he’s demanding that Congress not merely sit on the sidelines, in opposition or support. He is demanding that Congress not hide behind the wake of the Imperial Presidency, mouthing off and hampering any action against Assad. Congress wanted to be consulted on any attack on Syria; Obama called its bluff. It will have to go on record for or against an attack. If it votes for military action, then the President will have the broad support to maintain pressure against Assad. If it votes against, it will have to explain why enforcing chemical weapons conventions is not in the national interest. It will have to explain, member by member, why murdered children will have no voice. It will have to explain why it’s allowing a dictator to escape consequence scot free. He is, finally, reminding Congress that it is a co-equal branch of government, and to take that responsibility seriously.

And I agree with him. I am, reluctantly, of the opinion that Assad has to suffer military consequences, not just for the chemical attacks, but for the slaughter he’s inflicted on his population. But there is no military solution; a military action can be only one facet of a broad-based strategy against the Syrian regime. But, we are talking about issues of war and peace, life and death. Such issues should have never been left to the purview of one man, even one man whom I trust as implicitly as Barack Obama. Ever since the US emerged as one of two superpowers after the Second World War, the presidency has accrued to itself a power never envisioned by the Founders. Congress has abandoned all responsibilities it has under the Constitution in matters of war and peace. And while I trust Obama to exercise his powers judiciously, he won’t be President past 2017. In the 21st century, no one man or woman should arrogate to himself all decision making in these matters of war and peace, life and death. The world is too interconnected, a fact which makes it paradoxically both stronger and more fragile. A general war could set the world back decades, if not a century or more, such is the fragile structure upon which modernity rests.

War and peace in a democracy should be decided not only by an all-powerful President, but by the people elected to be the commonwealth’s representatives. If such power remains in the hands of one man on a continual basis, then eventually we may be a democracy only in name. The Founders knew that a state of perpetual war is inimical to a healthy state. It creates disruptions in the social and political fabric which are difficult to put right.

In one Rose Garden statement, Barack Obama brought these issues into sharp focus. He’s not just Commander in Chief; he’s President of the world’s oldest constitutional democracy. That democracy deserves to have its voice heard. Life and death cannot be decided by his fiat; the overpaid and reticent members of Congress have to be forced to accept responsibilities they have long shirked. There is no escape for them; they will choose either action or inaction, and own their decision. And that’s as it should be in a democracy. Just as Congress voted for the AUMF after 9/11, under which the drone program operates, so must Congress have a voice in an action which promises so much peril. Syria is not Libya; a hornet’s nest awaits, and the people’s representatives should own the consequences, as the Constitution stipulates.

What the President did was call the nation to a serious discussion of what constitutes the national interest. I only hope that this so-far feckless Congress is up to the gravity of the situation.