"…words do inspire, words do help people get involved, words do help members of Congress get into power so that they can be part of a coalition to deliver health-care reform, to deliver a bold energy policy.
...Don't discount that power." Senator Barack Obama, 1/5/08
Remember 1980? ...Well I sort of wasn't there, but I'm pretty positive that's the last time we had a President who inspired the American people. That was when Ronald Reagan changed the political agenda. Changed the way people really thought about politics. Before that it was JFK in the sixties. But the greatest example to date of that kind of power was manifested by FDR. Remember that famous line?
"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Bill Clinton might have been able to use the power of words, but he never did, he did not change the conversation, the political agenda; he left the way right conservative "consensus" (the one established by Reagan) exactly the way it was, and didn't really attempt to change it. That might have been one of his failures, although there weren't many to even mention.
The argument on Saturday, January 5th, between Obama and Edwards on one side and Hillary on the other was really about the moral power and the values that a President can wield. It might be true that Hillary knows a little more about the particulars of "getting things done," but her approach and her arguments bring us back to the days of the Clinton administration, which actually in a way failed because it did not change the agenda, although there were obviously great things done...the minds of the American people were mostly made up, and there wasn't much being done to change that. Technical knowledge of the legislative process will not change minds. Hopefully.
If the US is ever going to emerge from the downward spiral Reagan set in motion, maybe such as..oh i don't know, the fall of the Roman Empire? it is not going to be with incremental improvements on a bad situation. The US needs a moral leader, one who can exhort, with a calm, reasonable voice, and who can bring people together. A uniter. Not a polarizing figure.
Those are the qualities Obama displayed during the January 5th debate and in his victory speech after winning Iowa. I honestly don't believe his whole mantra is just a blanket statement, or just..empty promises.
Barack Obama in 2008.
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3 comments:
i just learned so much about politics. i already liked obama mama, but you just kinda added to my reasoning (even though it's yours)
;)
how do you feel now? your leader takes us deeper. down the rabbit hole were swallowing ether. it seems the dawn awaits, shadowed by the occasional sunset. followed by murder and i can't rest. every part of me wants to be a prophet. but i feel to lazy to save the world, and my past leads me to profits. but your leader, your unprecedented president, he lied. to you, to me, to all of us. and now were sinking down that hole, but tricks are for kids, and i am not fooled. what are you gonna do about it? do you still have "hope"?
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