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The quiet force of progress

20 January 2009 in ideas, politics | No comments

Obama personal responsibility

President–elect Obama:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

...

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have traveled. In the year of America’s birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

“Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it].”

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.

Read the whole dang thing. It’s just as impressive in text as it was in voice.

My heart wanted to stab things but didn’t have arms

6 January 2009 in lit, politics | No comments

(The title is from a poet named Tao Lin in a collection called this emotion was a little e-book).

The Internet is like a small town, especially when there’s something to disagree about. Recently, some of my favorite Internet citizens got into it over Obama’s decision to have poetry at his inauguration.

I’ve always liked George Packer, the New Yorker’s man on the ground in the early days of Iraq. I devoured his book about the first year of the occupation, The Assassins’ Gate. It tells the stories of a few Iraqis who put their necks on the line to support us when we arrived in 2003, and it comes to mind whenever a conversation turns to the need to find a way out of Iraq. I also read his blog, Interesting Times. He’s the kind of journalist who always does his homework, which made it all the more puzzling when he somewhat flippantly criticized Barack Obama’s decision to ask Elizabeth Alexander to read a poem at his inauguration:

For many decades American poetry has been a private activity, written by few people and read by few people, lacking the language, rhythm, emotion, and thought that could move large numbers of people in large public settings ... [Ed.: Ouch.] ... Obama’s Inauguration needs no heightening. It’ll be its own history, its own poetry.

Ouch. A blanket dismissal? The activity of “a few people?” I started writing a response to this, but Ta-Nehisi Coates of The Atlantic beat me to it. His blog rules. He called out Packer for being prematurely judgmental, and suggested that perhaps hip-hop lyrics were suitably rhythmic and emotive for the occasion. Yes.

Lo and behold, Packer just posted what amounts to an apology, and he does so in the best way, comparing the current poetry scene to the NBA in the 1970s:

Contemporary American poetry has too many mansions to be summed up under a throwaway phrase like “private activity.” Its multitude of schools and forms is like the N.B.A. in the nineteen-seventies, when there was no dominant team but a confused contest of warring tribes. And I should have read more of Alexander’s work than appears on her Web site, and more carefully, before expressing skepticism that she’ll be equal to the occasion on January 20th.

So, the real question is: Who will be the David Stern of 21st century American poetry? Chris Fischbach, I’m looking at you.

Name-calling / Will the real socialists please stand up?

3 November 2008 in politics | No comments

Like most Democrats in the United States, I am actually a socialist. I vote for Democratic candidates in the hope that, after sweet-talking their ways around the real issues, they’ll get down to the real work of redistributing wealth and nationalizing businesses. So when John McCain announced that Barack Obama is a socialist, it came as no surprise to those of us who already know the secret handshake.

The problem is, an essential plank in the secret socialist platform is the promise that those who have never worked a day in their lives will receive an equal share of society’s spoils. Republicans quibble over semantics, saying that wage-earners “work harder,” or “have more skills.” Fine. These people can succeed anywhere. But what about the people who would rather not work? How are they going to pay for digital cable? They have a lot of time on their hands, and they need to be able to entertain themselves and be comfortable. This is one problem that I have with Senator Obama’s plan; he seems to think that those in need of the boost are in the middle class, i.e. skillful people who are likely already working hard. I am left to wonder how, in Obama’s plan, those who have never worked a day will be able to watch Bridezillas and Rock of Love.

Another problem that I have with the so-called socialism of Senator Obama’s agenda is that his health-care plan falls well short of being a monolithic, government-run, universal-care plan. The only thing any Democrat cares about, when it comes to health care: We want to be assured that everyone will wait in the same line for treatment. In fact, John McCain’s approach actually feels almost more socialist; he plans to redistribute $5000 per person in the US, and then to tax this amount. Redistribute AND tax; that’s double-happiness for us Democrats.

But the problem with McCain is that he simply will not guarantee that he’ll teach sex ed to kindergartners. If there’s one issue that unites socialists-in-Democrat-clothing, it’s the belief that, when children turn five, they need to be forced to listen to near-strangers (i.e., their teachers) talk about sex. This seems so obvious. I don’t know why McCain doesn’t support it.

In any case, it looks like all of us Democrats have a tough decision in front of us. One ticket features actual wealth redistribution in the form of a health-care stipend, and the chief executive of a state that actually redistributes wealth to its citizens every year. And the other ticket features the kind of people who usually propose this kind of stuff. I’m not surprised that so many people are still undecided.