tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post8846342585434184579..comments2023-11-22T01:14:54.298-08:00Comments on amor mundi: Be ReasonableDale Carricohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-46659946400365633162009-04-21T14:21:00.000-07:002009-04-21T14:21:00.000-07:00It's just that some of the very figures to whom I ...<I>It's just that some of the very figures to whom I turned most frequently for sanity in the depths of Bush's killer clown epoch, now seem to me to be among the few who are applying comparably uncompromising standards to the Obama Administration, exercising a kind of misplaced consistency that in denying differences that make a different in the changed circumstances of our historical moment and the actual chance it represents, amount when all is said and done to the assumption of a level of abstraction away from the lived details of political reality that render their judgments the furthest thing from sanity.</I>Since your blog doesn't attract much attention, have you actually written to these people to tell them just that?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-48886503178973986732009-04-19T13:34:00.000-07:002009-04-19T13:34:00.000-07:00John Edwards. ;)Early on I was a big booster for J...<I>John Edwards. ;)</I>Early on I was a big booster for John Edwards, as you may know. What a disaster that would have been! I still think his "Two Americas" discourse on poverty is enormously compelling (with the noble ghost of Michael Harrington cheering him on behind his shoulder), but I am not at all convinced Edwards would have been pragmatically better on poverty or facilitating union organizing than Obama is being now. The fact is, early on I underestimated Obama and I was wrong and I was convinced by Obama himself that I was wrong over the course of his comsummately competent and inspiring campaign. Also, I had a lot of marvelous students whose energetic and informed disagreements with me on Edwards versus Obama tipped the balance into enthusiastic support for Obama rather quickly once Edwards dropped out.Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-57623045898550961102009-04-19T12:39:00.000-07:002009-04-19T12:39:00.000-07:00I'm eager to know who you think could have been el...<I>I'm eager to know who you think could have been elected who would be better, more progressive, more talented, more pragmatic, more popular President than Obama, or, frankly, even remotely as good, progressive, talented, pragmatic, and popular, and what she or he would have done exactly that would have been better over these last one hundred days in this actual country in this actual historical moment confronting these actually existing circumstances than Obama has done.</I>John Edwards. ;)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-25981471845990156522009-04-18T17:42:00.000-07:002009-04-18T17:42:00.000-07:00My response?
Exactly as before.
Obama is simply ...My response?<br /><br />Exactly as before.<br /><br />Obama is simply the best, most progressive, most talented, most pragmatic, most popular President in my lifetime, probably in generations, and, it is to be hoped, the greatest President since FDR.<br /><br />Perhaps I should have added, here on planet Earth.<br /><br />I'm eager to know who you think could have been elected who would be better, more progressive, more talented, more pragmatic, more popular President than Obama, or, frankly, even remotely as good, progressive, talented, pragmatic, and popular, and what she or he would have done exactly that would have been better over these last one hundred days in this actual country in this actual historical moment confronting these actually existing circumstances than Obama has done.<br /><br />It remains to be seen if the policy prescriptions on which I presently disagree with Obama will pan out better than I worry they will (and I for one can celebrate a President with whom I disagree on quite a lot, I'm used to it after a lifetime of disagreement with pretty much every President on pretty much every issue), on financial bailouts that seem to leave too many foxes to guard the henhouse, for example, and on his apparent reticent to prosecute criminal wrongdoing in the previous Adminstration. <br /><br />It actually is an open question whether Obama is proceeding stepwise to facilitate outcomes with which I will better sympathize in the longer term in the face of actually powerful forces of opposition that are quite easy to dismiss when one is simply flinging abstractions around. <br /><br />There are re-regulation of financial institutions battles to come, there are union supportive battles to come, there are progressive taxation battles to come, there are public health care reform battles to come. These puzzle-pieces are all in play, you don't just throw pixie dust at them and get what you want just because nearly everybody has finally come around to agree with those of us who said George W. Bush was a feudal throwback from the beginning of his killer clownshow. <br /><br />Actually, I am making a stronger claim than that Obama is better and is doing better than anybody else on offer, I am making the stronger claim that Obama is showing signs of actual greatness in the service of progressive change in America, against terrible odds and in the nick of time.<br /><br />That I believe that without being the least bit ignorant about his shortcomings or in some sort of romantic haze about his qualities is simply a complexity you're going to have to cope with. Obama could have done far worse than he has done and still be a good sight better than Clinton was. <br /><br />However unhappy I have been with many of his decisions so far, overall I remain thrilled about the direction Obama has taken the country, the transformation of the terrain of the possible he has facilitated, the unbelievable forces and monies he is releasing to do great progressive work that cannot be easily be undone, the reversals of illegal, immoral, hateful, unscientific policies.<br /><br />So, yes, really. The greatest president since FDR, or so we may reasonably hope as we have not been able to do in half a century. I doubt you would have been particularly thrilled with FDR either as he made his deals in the meat grinder of stakeholder politics. <br /><br />To pronounce him a failure is the most flabbergasting idiocy imaginable in my view, apart, I suppose, from imagining him some stainless saint enacting the Green Party program in a nation that doesn't seem much to want that at all at present, even if I might personally find it congenial.<br /><br />Do, please, though, send me links to the hundreds of articles available pointing to the Obama Administration's legion disappointments and failures of policy. Contemplating such endless failures one no doubt pines for the searing successes of the Bush right-wing and the brilliant triangulators of the pre-Obama DLC. Now, that was some change we can believe in.<br /><br />*barf*Dale Carricohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02811055279887722298noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5956838.post-60734438387821193622009-04-18T16:16:00.000-07:002009-04-18T16:16:00.000-07:00Obama is simply the best, most progressive, most t...<I>Obama is simply the best, most progressive, most talented, most pragmatic, most popular President in my lifetime, probably in generations, and, it is to be hoped, the greatest President since FDR.</I>Really? How would you respond to this article? <br /><br />http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=13362078Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com