As a career serviceman, I'm a bit bemused by all the importance that gets placed on a candidate's military record. What really stuns me is that the nation puts the greatest importance on factors that do the least in measuring executive ability. Further, we forget to put experience in the context of time. If I'm applying for a management position in the business world, what I did 3 years ago is only marginally relevant, and what I did 3 decades ago is the hallmark of a pathetic resume. If the experience offered won't fly in business, why should it fly in picking the president?
During my 21 years in the military we were always taught to be proactive instead of reactive, and yes at the time I was a diehard Republican (what a #@$%ing idiot I was). You know, go out there and solve or PREVENT the problems before they become an issue. ALWAYS look for ways to make things better and not worse. DEMOCRATS are PROACTIVE, we (yes, I'm a Dem now) want to stop global warming, we want to have GOOD relations with ALL countries before things get to the war stage (which CONS love), and on and on. This current Russia/Georgia conflict is a prime example of how each party addresses USA and world issues.
Ken Brociner's article: The American Left: Does a Nationwide ‘Progressive Movement’ Actually Exist? in In These Times asks the question I have raised here in the past. It is worth asking again. The dynamics of the last months of campaign rhetoric and the reactions to diaries here makes it a more open question than ever. Having written scores of diaries, many of high impact, I may even be free of "but you are new here" types of put downs, but anything can happen here as I have learned. It is clear there is an "in group" and the rules are bent often for them. So what does that have to do with the question about the movement's existence? look below the break and you will see.
As a human being, as a citizen, and as a progressive liberal, I know the importance of the outcome of the upcoming presidential election. I truly believe that we are at a historic crossroads, and that another win by the Republicans could mean the final unraveling of the United States as a free and democratic country. I think nothing less than that is at stake.
That is why I am deeply troubled by the lack of strong leadership in the Democratic party. I also think that many liberals are almost celebrating the Democratic win of the presidential election, before it happens, which could breed complacency; a very dangerous state of affairs at this junction.
John McCain has been asking if Barack Obama is ready to lead, or if he is just a celebrity. Maybe it's a question he's been asking himself. Is he really a leader, or an under achiever who has been unable to cash in on everything that's been handed to him?
Among folk musicians who jam together, "taking the lead" and
"following" are very important concepts that effect each musical
outcome. Most relevant in Obama's case, however, is the folksinger's
concept of "leading" the audience...
The latest GOP attack line against Obama is that he is "arrogant, presumptuous and overconfident"-maybe even uppity. The GOP has gotten the media to run with this for a while so it might seem as if it is a successful smear. I think it is a very poor choice of attacks. There are several reasons for this. Whenever one candidate attacks the character of another candidate the attacker needs to be conscious of the way that attack will be perceived by those who hear it. In the case of the presumptuous attack, you have a 72-year-old white man telling a younger black man to stay in his place and mind his manners. The attack oozes racism. Second, the age of McCain makes the attack sound jealous or bitter, "I waited my turn! It is my chance now!" Jealousy is not a particularly inspiring attribute. Third, McCain has taken many actions that could be considered just as presumptuous.
Imagine a world in which SCHOOLS have all the resources they need and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber.
I remember seeing this as a poster and bumper stickers when I was growing up.
My Mom often baked for these bake sales, as all moms seem to do. We'd raise a couple hundred, maybe, but never enough to rehab the playground or buy books for an entire grade, not in my rural Ohio school district. However, today, I'm encouraged that if anyone can make sure that schools can get the resources they need, we're looking at the leadership that can get this done.
UPDATE
This diary is NOT about NCLB, it is about a major change in leadership and the promise that change holds for the future.
We now have a new write-in candidate for Arizona Supervisory District 4 in Maricopa County. We need everyone with "SUP: 4" on their voter ids to write in the name Leigh Strickman for Supervisor. We need at least 600 signatures. Without those signatures, Republican Max Wilson will run unopposed.
I haven't seen or heard Obama's Berlin speech yet. For reasons I won't bore you with, I won't be able to see it until Sunday or Monday. But I did see clips of his interview with Brian Williams on Countdown and Hardball today.
From the diaries I've read here this evening, I gather that watching the video of the speech will probably make me feel pride in being an American -- both because of the quality of our next leader, and because of the way the folks in Berlin were showering the US with love.
But I doubt the emotions generated by the video will exceed the ones generated by hearing Obama speak the sentence I quoted in the title of this diary.
A co-worker of mine, after reading several stories passed off as news on various sites on the internet, in a raised voice of exasperation said, "Man who's running this country."
I don't know which story set him off, the foreclosure epedemic, young actors Heidi and Spencer going to Iraq, (and I added, us having to know about it), all of the people losing their jobs at Wachovia, probably that video with our current president being a comedian on a drunken tirade. I don't know which story set him off.
Then he added as a possibility, "Is it speculation or manipulaton?" Like these are the two 'people' who were running our nation.
In the end, it's a question of leadership. Will you lead or be led. Do you have real accountability, or do you shift it to others.
The test of leadership, viewed through these questions, leaves doubt about Pres. Bush and Sen. McCain's fitness to lead. Specifically, their insistance that Gen. Petraeus' judgment be followed without question or debate, does not strike me as leadership. A true leader asks the right questions of his subordinates, and as the leader, makes a decision for which he or she is held accountable. Just the opposite is happening in Iraq.
He had a chance. He had one last, fleeting chance, a brief window of opportunity smashed open by the hurricane winds of his own failed economic theology. He had this one chance to step up, truly to unite rather than to divide, to speak the truth, to lead.
Faced with one of those grim opportunities that present themselves to Presidents and other world leaders on occasions when Things Go Very Wrong, he had a chance to grab the reins and try to soothe the stampeding horses of the markets.
He had a chance to utter words that might indicate that, while he truly understood the desperate seriousness of the situation, he was confident that he and the Congress, working closely together in the best interests of the American people, and without regard for partisan advantage, could address the widening gyre of this economic crisis.
And how thuddingly, sickeningly familiar the hawking, self-righteous sound of this, what we can only hope is his final complete failure.
The title is ironic -- I haven't turned Republican and I still think Bush is the worst President ever. But we can learn very valuable lessons from him, lessons about leadership and how to accomplish our (quite different) political objectives. Think about it -- here is a President with the lowest approval ratings ever, with over 80% of the country believing his administration has put America on the wrong track, with the opposition party controlling both houses of Congress, and with the majority of the country opposing his policies on virtually every issue -- who continues to get everything he wants on every important issue, from FISA to war funding to tax policy. Obviously he knows something about winning political fights that Democrats have forgotten. I had hoped Obama was a change of pace, a candidate who knew how to punch and counterpunch, but his recent actions make me fear otherwise. You don't prove how tough you are by apologizing and retreating, and I'm afraid that Obama is doing too much of both in his attempt to "run to the center" -- not necessarily a bad political strategy if skilfully executed, but disastrous in its current form.
