There is something very human, and certainly very American, about wanting to start anew. We are known throughout the world as incurable optimists, always believing things can be better. Long life gives plenty of reason and experience to question this belief. Certainly the wealthy and powerful among us always seem to come out better off regardless of their complicity in making things worse for most of us.
My life has been bracketed by the Kennedy brothers. John Kennedy inspired me and many of my generation into public service. He called it a noble profession. I was a junior attorney at the Department of Justice when Robert Kennedy was Attorney General and then worked in his 1968 presidential campaign. I served with Ted Kennedy in the Senate and spent most of those 12 years sitting next to him on the back row of the Democratic side. Now he is gone. And, after almost a complete half-century (stunning to imagine), that era is now over.
We hope, often against all hope, that Barack Obama will keep the torch of idealism alive, that he will find a way to overcome the resurgence forces of bitterness, of division, and of anger. To do so he will have to rise above conventional politics, even though all the insiders in Washington say otherwise. He will have to be bold and, against the lateral pull of traditional ideologies, propose imaginative new approaches in economics, foreign policy, and defense. Those new approaches are available, mostly outside of the Beltway, and he needs to reach out to find them, to break out of the prison of conventional politics.
Despite the tragic deaths of John and Robert Kennedy and Ted's sad but triumphant passing, hope still lives, idealism will not be crushed, the dream of a better America will not die. Those who share this sense continue our search for justice. We bear a flickering torch to dispel the darkness of cynicism. We know America can do better and we hope, against all hope, that the coming decade will light a new and better era.
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As Americans, we have lost our way. We need to look to our roots and refresh our memories.
If we don't radically change the notion of "person.hood" for co-rporate entities, we will be falling off the cliff any day now. If it can't happen at the Su-pre-me Cou-rt level, it has to happen at the lo-cal level, one municipality, one township, one region, one state at a time. It's the only way so many wr-ong ways in this country can be right-ed.
WE have ignored our problems. It seems like Hilary is running the country, and she doesn't recognize the existence of the US as an independent nation. We need a strong national leader to give our country focus, to reassert its identity, and framework. Our nations is these ideals, and without them, we are just a third world country. WE must stop the corrosive corruption in our national labs, institutions and businesses - and the over-coloring of everything, which is an attempt to bring us down.
The tool voters have at there disposal is the primary elections, no matter how big there war chest is if they are beat in the primary its hard to run from the back door, because you are not the main candidate, you don't carry nearly the clout from from the back of the room, most don't make it.
We are in as a country in a deteriorating down slide as a country being sold out by our government reps to the highest bidders, wall street. If i was a lobbyist employee and running for reelection, I would hate to come home and tell the people just what a great job wall street is doing putting money into my pocket so I can represent you People? We cannot stand much more of the erosion of our country by the politicians
what is going to become of our children, grand kids, and the country many of us fought for before many of you were born.
Congress must man up; end the submission, drop the petty passions that foster contempt for government and treason; Discover priorities in the order and defense of the nation.
Statecraft demands the termination of the monetary system: Put the Fed into bankruptcy protection, recover the bailout trillions, banks that qualify will join the U.S. National Bank under Glass-Steagall standards. Credits and currency will be issued into the populations economy with the executive of creating, improving, expanding the necessary facilities that enhance our standard of living.
Shame on you MT. Smarten up.
The silence on the issue of publically funding elections speaks for itself and to think that progressive issues will be pursued seriously without TRUE election reform(not the farce known as McCain/Feingold) is wishful thinking and the wrong hand is already full.
I think a significant portion of the commentary recently has been by new commenters, and while I can't prove it yet, I suspect much of it is generated by astroturfed "troll" operations.
I'd like to see Huffpost publish some statistics on commentors' IP origin distributions; my bet is that the distribution will be significantly skewed towards specific origin domains and geographic regions.
When progress *does* occur, it nearly always falls short of the ideal. For example, the Emancipation Proclamation only freed slaves in the Confederacy; it took a later amendment to the Constitution to actually end slavery, and dozens of laws and nearly a hundred years of incremental progress (interspersed with setbacks) to achieve what the descendents of slaves enjoy today --- and the work is still far from over.
Similarly, many of those pushing for women's rights were probably disappointed that all they achieved with the Nineteenth Amendment was the right to vote; an equal pay for equal work law was enacted only this year, ninety years after women's suffrage was passed.
In neither case would the same gains have been made if those seeking change had not compromised on lesser, incremental legislation that did not accomplish all of their goals.
Bottom line, any program for progressive change should be informed not only by idealism, but also by pragmatism; to meet with success, we must be careful to take any progress that gets us nearer our goals, no matter how incremental that progress might
The message isn't "compromise at any cost", as you put it. The message is that when people are dying, *some* progress is better than *no* progress. Unless you can magically get the Blue Dogs and non-Democrats to vote for your program, the most progress we can get *right now* is a compromise.
A compromise may not get us single payor or a public option, but there are levels of PROGRESS that are achievable within the current parameters. Lives depend on it; those lives may just be a hypothetical abstraction to you, but to me and those like me, they are *real* people.
If ideological purity means more to you than human lives, continue with your snark.
It seems narrow of perspective to lay any progress of OUR nation at the feet of so few, when so MANY take money regularly to speed it's decline. I'm sure you're aware the practice also includes those you've accused here of having altruistic integrity in their service to OUR country. Also tipping a hat then to the voters that backed and pushed these leaders in 'progressive' directions - is perhaps in order
How much was patriotic altruism vs. how much was just being half the 'have your cake and eat it too' philosophy in OUR schizophrenic national politics - is important. The SAME schizophrenia that allows destruction of other countries by some, while others here can then openly condemn their actions as geopolitical and made more heinous by blatant War Crimes.
Investigations of ANY such crimes though are historically delayed, immunized and obstructed into ineffectiveness by the Legislative (again) to intentionally ensure everyone involved - 'goes home'.
NO President could ever deliver real 'change' to OUR country - while one of the MOST corrupt lawmaking bodies on OUR planet continues selling OUR country ...to the highest bidder.
So what has Obama pinned down into his solidly status quo conservative habits?
My contention is that what has Obama welded to the status quo conservatism is that 90% of democratic voters who refuse to pay attention to the differences between Obama's rhetoric and his actions. As long as they stay politically asleep, Obama will continue pandering to the right side of the electoral middle. He has nothing to lose.
In fact, he has much to gain. Look how solidly he has the reactionaries outside the Democratic party richly enthralled with their own internal squabbling. They don't have a clue how to respond to his status quo conservative policies and practices, so they swing wildly and frantically, hoping against hope to find some responsive chord somewhere out there in the political darkness where they flounder. They have completely surrendered their last faint hope of having any political or even electoral center of gravity. As long as Obama rules to the right of center, Obama succeeds at Liebermanism. Obama succeeds at representing Obama.
It stinks to high heaven.