The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

I love my President!

Here’s a great quote from yesterday’s fiscal summit:

“I’m not in Congress, so I don’t want to interject myself too much into congressional politics,” the former Illinois senator said. Then, not passing up a moment to make his pitch, he said: “But I do want to make this point, and I think it’s important _ on the one hand, the majority has to be inclusive. On the other hand, the minority has to be constructive.”

Seriously! Lots of people miss the point that Obama, the constitutional scholar, is going to let Congress do its job… while he does his. While I think the stimulus would have looked better if he’d have dictated it, I love that he didn’t. And while the imperfect solutions yielded by our political process may be disappointing, the re-assertion of an effective 3-branch government over the unitary executive government we’ve been living with, is well worth the flaws we get along the way.

QT
http://obamaproject.windonwater.net
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for him to say exactly this…. my favorite parts highlighted. You can read the entirety of the letter here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/04/AR2009020403174.html?nav=rss_opinion%2Fcolumns

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Every day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.

Now is the time to protect health insurance for the more than 8 million Americans at risk of losing their coverage and to computerize the health-care records of every American within five years, saving billions of dollars and countless lives in the process.

Now is the time to save billions by making 2 million homes and 75 percent of federal buildings more energy-efficient, and to double our capacity to generate alternative sources of energy within three years.

Now is the time to give our children every advantage they need to compete by upgrading 10,000 schools with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries and labs; by training our teachers in math and science; and by bringing the dream of a college education within reach for millions of Americans.

And now is the time to create the jobs that remake America for the 21st century by rebuilding aging roads, bridges and levees; designing a smart electrical grid; and connecting every corner of the country to the information superhighway.

These are the actions Americans expect us to take without delay. They’re patient enough to know that our economic recovery will be measured in years, not months. But they have no patience for the same old partisan gridlock that stands in the way of action while our economy continues to slide.

Seriously – it’s going to be a long, unpleasant 4 years if our discourse can’t elevate past “oh look! Obama did something that Bush did and liberals whined about! Let’s go kick some liberals in the teeth” versus “Oh look! obama did something better than Bush did! Let’s go rub it into the faces of the conservatives that Bush lost!”

There are plenty of things worthwhile talking about – and we are all going to have our differing points of view. For instance – I’m not convinced that there’s any way at all for Obama supporters and liberals (not all the same thing) to see eye to eye on the recovery package (conservatives want more tax cuts, liberals want more spending, and depending if they are Obama supporters specifically, or liberals generally, there may be differences on kinds of spending desired). But that’s an ideological difference worth having, without claiming a priori, that anyone doing it differently than how your ideology dictates, is “screwing everything up.” Etc.

As someone who hasn’t been on the liberal side of the fence until Obama became my favorite candidate, this back and forth is wearying, depressing, and really uninviting. Personally – as an Obama supporter, I am genuinely appreciative of the President’s effort to change the tone of dialogue.

Is this what we’ve been reduced to? Years of Clinton/Bush fighting has reduced us to being fundamentally incapable of civil discourse – only able to receive news that suits our own ideas, incapable of even giving real respect to one another? Seems to me the bible spoke about this tendency in people to seek only what they want to hear. I’m sure the Apostle Paul was speaking on more spiritual matters when he said in 2nd Timothy

4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4:4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

… but I’m also sure that spiritual conditions affect every other condition. This way we have of dealing with one another is unhealthy, a sickness, no less so than the unhealthy greed and lack of discipline/self-restraint that landed us into this economic mess. If we (liberals/Obama supporters) are angry with Bush for not listening to opposing points of view, how much more should we be doing better? And if we (conservatives) are angry for hypocritical posturing just to pile on to a beleaguered presidency, how much more should we avoid continuing in the same vein? In other words – must we continue this dance? No one seems to be having fun with it – I certainly am not.

Apologies for the judgmental tone of this post, but I mean every word of it, just the same.

QT

This is really nice:
http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/the-inauguration-at-last/?em

http://kalman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/the-inauguration-at-last/?em

While we’re watching the stimulus process, this seemed appropos…

Here is his speech:

REMARKS OF PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
Inaugural Address
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Washington, D.C.

My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

Continue Reading »

The opening words of Rev. Lowry’s prayer were the closing stanza of the Black (Negro) National Anthem. Here’s a rendition of the song:

And the lyrics, by James Weldon Johnson: http://www.black-network.com/anthem.htm

QT

The Bahá’í calendar is more appropriately called the “Badi” or “wonderful” calendar. It is wonderful, because one of the Prophets of the Bahá’í faith designated, for each day, each month, and even each year, an Attribute of God – providing a personal reflection for every day. In the Bahá’í understanding attributes of God are also known as “Names of God” and so have the effect of invoking the Creator of all the Worlds. Hence, besides being a personal reflection, each birthday is a personal invocation.

The Badi calendar began in 1844, and consists of 19 months of 19 days each. It adds four or five intercalary days to complete the year. The largest unit of the Badi calendar is the Kull-i-Shay – a period of 361 years – which themselves are divided into 19 year divisions, each called a Váhid (unity).

Here is Barack Obama’s birthday translated into the Baha’i Calendar: http://www.geocities.com/queentiye74/BarackObamaBahaiBirthday.pdf

QT

Blogger Lee Stranahan, over at Bob Cesca’s blog, once posited the emergence of a new kind of political classification – “Obamacrats” he called them, and loosely defined them as people who had more in common with Obama’s outlook than with any particular wing of the Democratic party.

As a rule, this blog doesn’t deal specifically with politics, but this phenomenon is interesting enough that I’m willing to track it. John Heilemann, in an article in New York magazine, echoes Lee’s thoughts:

http://nymag.com/news/features/all-new/53380/index1.html

The political implications of this network are impossible to overstate. “They have basically invented their own party that is compatible with the Democratic Party but is bigger than the Democratic Party,” the Republican media savant Stuart Stevens, who helped to elect George W. Bush twice, argues. “Their e-mail list is more powerful than the DNC or RNC. In essence, Obama [was] elected as an independent with Democratic backing—like Bernie Sanders on steroids.”

(emphasis mine)

He”s making a larger point than that, of course. It’s a 4 page article, of which I’ve quoted less than one paragraph. But this core idea is one I think is worth watching.

QT