I‘ve been seeing this image quite a bit over the past couple of days, and, agree, that there isn’t a more poignant way of illustrating the point. It’s about time that “don’t ask, don’t tell” became part of a once shameful past.
For quite a while I’ve been hoping to see a time when an American president would come along to echo FDR’s struggle against the forces of greed and “selfishness,” that brought our nation to its knees in the 1930s, and which have done so again.
Unexpectedly, at least to me, though I enthusiastically voted for him, it seems that the American president that I’ve been waiting for has, alas, come along, in the form of Barak Obama. I will put aside president Obama’s budget, which has been described as finally treating us as adults, and focus on his recent FDResque style.
On his recent Saturday address, president Obama sounded a populist message that, I believe, will give him some leverage when taking on the “selfish” interests that are so entrenched in Washington, DC. Of course, just like FDR, president Obama recognizes and reminds us that any move against these entrenched forces will be met with deeply rooted resistance, and that the fight will be arduous.
Here’s the passage from the president’s Saturday morning address, on his proposed budget, that has given me such hope:
I realize that passing this budget won’t be easy. Because it represents real and dramatic change, it also represents a threat to the status quo in Washington. I know that the insurance industry won’t like the idea that they’ll have to bid competitively to continue offering Medicare coverage, but that’s how we’ll help preserve and protect Medicare and lower health care costs for American families. I know that banks and big student lenders won’t like the idea that we’re ending their huge taxpayer subsidies, but that’s how we’ll save taxpayers nearly $50 billion and make college more affordable. I know that oil and gas companies won’t like us ending nearly $30 billion in tax breaks, but that’s how we’ll help fund a renewable energy economy that will create new jobs and new industries. In other words, I know these steps won’t sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business, and I know they’re gearing up for a fight as we speak. My message to them is this:
So am I.
The system we have now might work for the powerful and well-connected interests that have run Washington for far too long, but I don’t. I work for the American people.
What I love about this passage is the strength that it reflects, and, also, president Obama’s acknowledgement that he works for US, the American people.
Moreover, I also hear echoes of one of my favorite FDR quotes in president Obama’s statement, which is something I’ve been wanting to hear from a Democratic president for a long time now.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace–business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me–and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
Franklin Roosevelt’s Address Announcing the Second New Deal
October 31, 1936
In my lifetime, president Obama is the closest I’ve come to hearing echoes of FDR, and his commitment to economic security for all.
Here’s president Obama’s address, it’s well worth watching:
If, like me, you’ve been consumed by news of the economy, with all of its dark and somber predictions, you probably have been searching for a metaphor or narrative to capture how it all feels.
As an example of the type of dire predictions that we’re hearing, in his latest column Paul Krugman referred to a passage from a Federal Reserve meeting where it was commented that, “[P]articipants anticipated that unemployment would remain substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of inflation.”
The bottom line is that we’re in for a prolonged period of economic pain; and, while the recovery package that president Obama will help, it simply will not be enough to, as Krugman put it, stop the pain.
David Sirota, writing on the same theme, puts it far more poetically and, having driven the route, my mind’s eye immediately recognizes the imagery and landscape:
Why did President Obama choose to come all the way to Denver, Colo., to sign the economic recovery package this week? Did he throw a dart at a map?
[...]
This is the presidential candidate who launched his campaign at the site of Abraham Lincoln’s historic “house divided” speech and who delivered his own famous address on race at Philadelphia’s Constitution Center. So it’s a safe wager that the president had a metaphor in mind when he celebrated the bill’s passage along the Front Range. And what a perfect metaphor it was: The setting told America – if subtly – that the toughest terrain is yet to come.
Denver, after all, is more than a heartland locale that screams “outside the Beltway” – it is an outpost that warns visitors. From 19th century pioneers to 20th century beatniks to 21st century roadtrippers, most cross-country travelers on romantic odysseys west believe they’ve almost completed their voyage when they first hit the Denver city line. They look at the tumbleweed and ranchland on the outskirts of town and tell themselves they can smell the Pacific Ocean’s salty mist. Then they see that wall of snow-capped peaks and realize the most grueling trek is still ahead.
That’s where we are right now – in the euphoric, sky’s-the-limit journey that began on election night, America is standing here in Denver contemplating a menacing horizon.
The stimulus bill, while essential, was merely our gentle rise up through the Great Plains. In unleashing a flood of deficit spending and avoiding tax increases, the legislation didn’t threaten moneyed interests, didn’t alter the existing economic topography, and therefore didn’t attract the withering hostility from business groups that typically prevents hope from becoming change. While Republican potholes slowed the trip, the bill’s refusal to ask anyone for any sacrifice guaranteed its ratification.
From here, though, the highway starts looking like Interstate 70 at Idaho Springs – steeper and more treacherous. The avalanches of corporate money, and the gale-force gusts of lobbyist opposition that the stimulus evaded will now be ever-present as bills to tighten financial regulation, strengthen union rights, limit carbon emissions and transform our health care system begin marching forward.
[...]
The road called “reform” that cuts through this craggy political landscape is littered with legislative corpses, as these interests have done – and will do – everything possible to protect their bottom line. Obama seems to know this reality, saying the stimulus bill is only “the beginning of the end” of the economic emergency. He is carefully plotting his next tactical decisions – when to stage particular climbs, which passes to traverse, what cliffs to avoid. But with the stakes so high – with unemployment rising, the health care crisis worsening and the planet on the brink of incineration – one decision must be a foregone conclusion: the decision about whether to proceed.
Turning back now, or staying here in Denver for fear the ascent is too tough, is no longer an option. We’re past the point of no return.
I wonder what things will be like when I and my fellow travelers arrive at the Pacific.
The fight over the stimulus bill has presented observers and participants many lessons, I just hope that president Obama and his advisors take note and adjust — which I’m confident that they will.
Lesson Nº 1: So-called bipartisanship, while useful as a tool to contrast oneself against the opposition, poses limits on the offensive tactical options available to use against the opposition. Therefore, bipartisanship, in and of it self, cannot be the metric that the Obama administration offers as the yard-stick to measure the success of their initiatives. Because, as we saw during the early coverage of the stimulus fight, the mainstream establishment media will mindlessly focus on the so-called bipartisanship narrative, and ignore the substance behind any policy proposals.
Lesson Nº 2: President Obama must be the face of the Democratic party, and of his administration’s proposals. It’s clear that the GOP (Grand Obstructionist Party) strategy is to paint the faceless “Democratic led Congress” as the enemy; because, the calculus must go, they believe that they cannot win head-to-head fight against the photogenic, media-savvy, and very popular president Obama. Therefore, as we saw in the latter half of the stimulus fight, president Obama must use the bully pulpit to present himself as the voice and face of the Democratic agenda.
Lesson Nº 3: Use president Obama’s popularity to contrast himself against the opposition. The best example of this, again, came in the latter half of the fight over the stimulus bill, when president Obama embarked on a campaign-style town hall meeting tour, that reminded the DC establishment media why Obama won the presidency; and, too, that GOP obstruction is out-of-step with the public, which overwhelming backs our president’s policies.
Lesson Nº 4: Finally, president Obama must remember that he and the Democratic party won with overwhelming public support, and that he has a mandate to change the course that the country has been in over the past eight years. Therefore, in spite of the timidity that’s always urged by establishment insiders in the media and in the halls of the capital, president Obama must assert his popular mandate and now shy away from pursuing a bold progressive agenda.
Fresh off his victory as the new chairman of the republican party, Michael Steele proves adept at continuing with his party’s practice of hypocrisy and mendacity. While on ABC News, Steele made the nonsensical argument that government created jobs are not jobs, they are work; and that only private sector jobs count as jobs, since only they are sustainable over the long term.
In the near-term, with national unemployment creeping over 7%, the goal is to put Americans back to work and to thereby boost the economy, period. So, while the government contracts included in the stimulus package may come to an end at some point, the immediate goal of putting Americans back to work will have been fulfilled; and, equally important, the long term benefits of these “government jobs” will accrue as regards to the nation’s infrastructure.
Incredulously, Steele dares to suggest that the goal of the stimulus bill ought to be to create sustainable jobs for the long term; thereby completely undermining the entire rationale of the republican opposition to bill. Remember, this is the very bill that republicans claim contains “wasteful” spending on education, healthcare, teachers, firefighters, police, and public infrastructure. The very things that create the dynamic for sustainable growth over, yes, the long term.
Here’s Steele with George Stephanopoulos this morning:
STEPHANOPOULOS: But outside of Washington, some strong Republican voices have said the stimulus package is needed now. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, he supports the package.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. CHARLIE CRIST, R-FLA.: This program will help us with education, with health care, Medicaid specifically, infrastructure. These are the kinds of things that produce jobs. It could mean $13 billion to the sunshine state. It comes at a time when we need it. People need jobs. It’s about jobs, jobs, jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHANOPOULOS: He suggests that you and Republican Party leaders here in Washington are on the wrong side of the biggest issue, jobs.
STEELE: Well, no — you know, with all due respect to the governor, I understand where he’s coming from. Having been a state official, I know what it means to get those dollars when you’re in tight times.
But you’ve got to look at the entire package. You’ve got to look at what’s going to create sustainable jobs.
What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But that’s a job.
STEELE: No, it’s not a job. A job is something that — that a business owner creates. It’s going to be long term. What he’s creating…
STEPHANOPOULOS: So a job doesn’t count if it’s a government job?
STEELE: Hold on. No, let me — let me — let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we’re talking about have an end point.
As a small-business owner, I’m looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It’s a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work. And I’m — either way, the bottom line is…
STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess I don’t really understand that distinction.
STEELE: Well, the difference — the distinction is this. If a government — if you’ve got a government contract that is a fixed period of time, it goes away. The work may go away. That’s — there’s no guarantee that that — that there’s going to be more work when you’re done in that job.
