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My year end political post starts with a question I just asked my father. I note here, for those who don't know, that my father is a retired educator, whose field is American History, and frankly he knows as much as anyone I've ever met about American history and has a very clear sighted view of the past, present, and future.
So I asked him (while he was cooking eggs for breakfast for me, my spouse, and three grandchildren--two mine and one my strangely tall nephew):
"What grade you would give Obama for his first year in office?"
He replied,
[the rest of this post are my dad's words, taken from a more expanded conversation at the breakfast table; my interpolated comments to you, my faithful readers, are in brackets]
"I wouldn't give a grade. [My note: by which he meant, I think, that giving 'a grade' is kind of a pointless, artificial exercise.] I think he's done as well in the situation as anyone could have done. Can you imagine if George Bush was just starting his presidency now, as Barack Obama just did? You just can't help but say that men* do influence history. What they don't do, also influences history.
What people sometimes forget is that Barack Obama -- what he believes in is not the ideal world, where there is right and wrong -- but rather a little better world than the one there is now. What he believes, along with more orthodox and institutional churches, is that the world is an imperfect place and that human beings are, to put it mildly, imperfect, and that sometimes people are very very bad.
What he believes in is a society governed by a constitution, like the United States. With checks and balances and limitations on power. He clearly believes that power can corrupt, and knowing that's a possibility, has a pretty healthy attitude toward himself and power.
A good example is the health care plan. The true believers believe there is one right option, a single payer option. What Barack Obama believes, as far as I am concerned, is that there should be some reform in national health care insurance. He would probably like to have single payer option. But being pragmatic, anything that moves in the right direction is something he can approve, and will.
And the other thing that Americans don't understand is that the Constitution is almost as much a limit on democracy as an encouragement of democracy. The indirect election of Senators, now changed, for example. The president's power is limited by requiring that the Senate approve things like treaties. That's why we have two houses, for one (except Nebraska).
And also, that's one reason -- because he knows the Constitution and recognizes that it is a marvelous document to govern by -- he didn't make the mistake the Clintons made, saying that this is the health care plan we want you to pass.
The existing fact on the ground is that corporations have enormous power, and the only way to do it [health care reform] is to take them on within the existing situation. Obama very wisely said, this is up to the Congress, knowing full well it was a gamble.
Given the situation, and especially the terrible handicap of having to govern in a democratic society that is at war -- George Marshall once said that no democracy would sustain a war for more than 7 years, give or take one --
You know he is a pragmatic man when he is open enough to face the human condition and say that there are such things as just wars and such things as unjust wars**. The profound thinkers are existentialists [I note here that my dad has recently been reading, or re-reading, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr]. They deal with the existing situation, not what they would like it to be."
* [The use of the word "men" here was in response to a comment my spouse made during this conversation, about how he (the spouse) is 'not a believer in the Great Man Theory of history' but does see in times such as these how much influence individual men as rulers/governors can have; thus the use of the gender specific word 'men' in this context.]
** [My dad's opinion is that we should not have gone into Iraq in 2003. He never supported the Iraq War, although he did support HW's war to liberate Kuwait and now in retrospect he believes HW did it the right way, although he was critical of HW at the time for not taking out Saddam.
He also says that he thinks the reason Obama was awarded the Peace Prize was for the statement he made some months ago when he said that he would go anywhere and talk to anyone with no preconditions -- I'm not sure of the exact quote.]
So I asked him (while he was cooking eggs for breakfast for me, my spouse, and three grandchildren--two mine and one my strangely tall nephew):
"What grade you would give Obama for his first year in office?"
He replied,
[the rest of this post are my dad's words, taken from a more expanded conversation at the breakfast table; my interpolated comments to you, my faithful readers, are in brackets]
"I wouldn't give a grade. [My note: by which he meant, I think, that giving 'a grade' is kind of a pointless, artificial exercise.] I think he's done as well in the situation as anyone could have done. Can you imagine if George Bush was just starting his presidency now, as Barack Obama just did? You just can't help but say that men* do influence history. What they don't do, also influences history.
What people sometimes forget is that Barack Obama -- what he believes in is not the ideal world, where there is right and wrong -- but rather a little better world than the one there is now. What he believes, along with more orthodox and institutional churches, is that the world is an imperfect place and that human beings are, to put it mildly, imperfect, and that sometimes people are very very bad.
What he believes in is a society governed by a constitution, like the United States. With checks and balances and limitations on power. He clearly believes that power can corrupt, and knowing that's a possibility, has a pretty healthy attitude toward himself and power.
A good example is the health care plan. The true believers believe there is one right option, a single payer option. What Barack Obama believes, as far as I am concerned, is that there should be some reform in national health care insurance. He would probably like to have single payer option. But being pragmatic, anything that moves in the right direction is something he can approve, and will.
And the other thing that Americans don't understand is that the Constitution is almost as much a limit on democracy as an encouragement of democracy. The indirect election of Senators, now changed, for example. The president's power is limited by requiring that the Senate approve things like treaties. That's why we have two houses, for one (except Nebraska).
And also, that's one reason -- because he knows the Constitution and recognizes that it is a marvelous document to govern by -- he didn't make the mistake the Clintons made, saying that this is the health care plan we want you to pass.
The existing fact on the ground is that corporations have enormous power, and the only way to do it [health care reform] is to take them on within the existing situation. Obama very wisely said, this is up to the Congress, knowing full well it was a gamble.
Given the situation, and especially the terrible handicap of having to govern in a democratic society that is at war -- George Marshall once said that no democracy would sustain a war for more than 7 years, give or take one --
You know he is a pragmatic man when he is open enough to face the human condition and say that there are such things as just wars and such things as unjust wars**. The profound thinkers are existentialists [I note here that my dad has recently been reading, or re-reading, Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr]. They deal with the existing situation, not what they would like it to be."
* [The use of the word "men" here was in response to a comment my spouse made during this conversation, about how he (the spouse) is 'not a believer in the Great Man Theory of history' but does see in times such as these how much influence individual men as rulers/governors can have; thus the use of the gender specific word 'men' in this context.]
** [My dad's opinion is that we should not have gone into Iraq in 2003. He never supported the Iraq War, although he did support HW's war to liberate Kuwait and now in retrospect he believes HW did it the right way, although he was critical of HW at the time for not taking out Saddam.
He also says that he thinks the reason Obama was awarded the Peace Prize was for the statement he made some months ago when he said that he would go anywhere and talk to anyone with no preconditions -- I'm not sure of the exact quote.]
