Tag Archives: Barack Obama

American Exceptionalism’s Leftward Turn

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President Obama offered a compelling narrative at tonight’s State of the Union. He did not mince words when discussing the challenges that we face today: joblessness, division, and crumbling infrastructure. America can no longer take for granted our economic stature. If we fail to out-innovate and out-perform, globally mobile workforce and labor-demand will continue to deemphasize the United States. Add in radical environmental change, crushing debts, and unmentionable shifts in American demographics.

He called this our Sputnik moment. An apt allusion. America could have crumbled at the challenge presented by the terrifying object launched on 4 October ’57. Instead, the Federal Government created DARPA, the agency that brought us the Internet and GPS.

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The Day After: Moving Forward Part I

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Americans are frustrated. We thought that January 20, 2009 would be an inflection point for the country. But the job market hasn’t recovered, the economy hasn’t rebounded, and most importantly, it feels as though opportunity continues to slip away. We expected (unfairly, though perhaps appropriately given the rhetoric) overnight transformation and forgot that the momentum of a massive economy doesn’t turn on a dime. And we failed to perceive much of the progress that Candidate Obama had promised and the Democrats in Washington delivered (especially the House), or to understand the real and positive impact of many of these policies. Americans were frustrated and we voted. What next?

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Bring an Unlikely Voter to the Polls Today

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Today is Election Day. Go vote. Don’t know your polling place? Google “polling place.” Or go here. Encounter a problem voting? Call the DNC Voter Protection Hotline at 800.311.8683 (800.311.VOTE). And please–don’t use a touch screen when you have another option, but if you do: check the receipt on the machine before  you leave to verify that it matches the votes you attempted to cast. If it does not, contact an official poll worker immediately.

And if you really want to make your vote count and make our country better today? Convince someone who did not intend to vote with you to the polls today. How? Continue reading →

Vote.

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The Sanity rally is over. What did the event that-attracted-a-far-greater-number-of-people-than-Glenn-Beck-and-Sarah-Palin’s signify? Why did nearly a quarter of a million people (Argh! broken link. The new Fox News article doesn’t try to do a crowd estimate.) come to a rally-without-a-cause? Most of the crowd couldn’t even see or hear anything on stage, let alone make it to a portopotty.

What brought everyone together? What did the rally mean? Continue reading →

On Supporting President Obama

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And all of us have to have a conversation. . . .  and we’ve got to do so at a time when the economy is in a tough situation.

President Barack Obama, 20 September 2010

Our world is complicated. Even limiting the scope of inquiry to the social and economic factors most profoundly affecting the contemporary American economy: our world is complicated. Our world is so complicated, in fact, that it took more than a year of analysis for economists at the National Bureau of Economic Research to determine that the “Great Recession” ended in June of 2009. Our world is more complicated still: on the very day when such timely news was announced,  President Obama met with a roomful of his fellow citizens to talk about our personal economic lives as well as the greater American economy. He began by downplaying NBER’s announcement, stating “obviously for the millions of people who are still out of work, people who have seen their home values decline, people who are struggling to pay the bills day to day, [the recession is] still very real for them.”

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Differences of opinion

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I went to the Sharpton rally with a few friends and after it fell behind schedule (as all liberal events tend to do), we headed down to the Mall to support DC Vote folks and engage in discourse with people who hold differing views.

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Exciting Weekend Ahead: The Tea Partiers are Coming

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The Tea Partiers are coming, the Tea Partiers are coming!

I am very excited about this opportunity to engage people from outside my narrow-minded neighborhood in intelligent discourse about the role of immigration in contemporary society. I might even get to meet one of those 19-percenters who hope to remove our foreign-born President* from office. (In the interest of full disclosure, I am pretty sure that I was born in Colorado, but I don’t have any newspaper clippings with my birth announcement, so I hope that they can see past my Canadian relatives and that we can talk like real Americans.)

As of right now, I am planning on meeting misguided people at the metro station and politely requesting that they not take advantage of my tax dollars on their way home–they should instead take a pedi-cab or a foreign-oil-fueled vehicle back to their hotels. Because this will only help inform their decisions on the way back, I have submitted a suggestion to Metro to add a special surcharge for all farecard-based travel this Saturday (after all, if someone has a SmartTrip Metro card, they are probably already subsidizing the system with their tax dollars) to offset any tax-payer subsidized taint of the transit system; I don’t want some innocent tea-partier to unknowingly encourage taxation during their visit!

Unfortunately, I have made a grave error in my plans for this weekend. I invited an immigrant. He is a nice guy, but, as an immigrant, he has taken an American job from the lovely people who will be gathering at the Lincoln memorial. Perhaps if I ask him to wear a pin that says “I am a Canadian and I am sorry for taking an American job. If you have a master’s degree in foreign relations, we can discuss how to return what is rightfully yours,” we might be able to get another American employed. It would be unfortunate for my friend to be deported, but one ought to be consistent!

*Normally, I would not footnote what I consider obvious sarcasm respectful disagreement over facts, but in light of the intense debate over this issue, please let me state unequivocally that the Earth is an irregular sphere, Newton’s description of gravity is pretty good for my daily life, and President Obama was born in the United States.

Prophets, both great and low. . .

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So, I was hit up by a cute young volunteer to give money to the Obama campaign. Well, not directly to the campaign, but to the DNC, so it would go further and also help out the Democrats he will need elected in order to govern effectively. I pointed out that we already had a majority in both the House & the Senate and that I am particularly frustrated that Sen. Obama had voted for telecom immunity.

“Yes but, look at the alternative. . .” she responded.

Yeah, I know, this isn’t a perfect world. . . still, I would have preferred to force the current administration to pardon those involved with illegal wiretaps, rather than retroactively granting immunity for breaking the law.

On a related note, I just read some very amusing commentary on the messianic aspects of the Obama campaign in The Times:

And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.

Wow, if that doesn’t describe the faith of some of my compatriots. I mean, I clearly support the campaign. I am a firm believer that Obama is the best option that we have been presented with for president. Indeed, I think that he will make a GOOD president. This article is definitely good for a laugh. Highly recommended.