this is getting silly (0.00 / 0)

maybe you need to look at the word "just" in the quote if you are going down this path.


New Jersey politics at Blue Jersey.

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by: Hopeful in NJ @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 07:24:58 AM UTC

That doesn't change anything (0.00 / 0)

Because the examples he give later on, including the abolitionists, are still posited as different than turning up the heat. You wouldn't say "we don't just need more applesauce, we need more applesauce!" However, that is exactly what Obama is saying. In this case, Not A equals A. Or something.

Ooooo yeah. This is far out stuff. Blogging before bed is the best.

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by: Chris Bowers @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 07:50:21 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

lol (0.00 / 0)

You should see when I tried blog high once.

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by: taylormattd @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 11:11:16 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

hopeful has a point (0.00 / 0)

reading it on a purely logical level, Obama is saying: OK thanks, we have enough anger, heat, bluster, and bitter partisanship. Now lets ADD some light.

And what he meant by light is, specifically, hope. Not bipartisanship. He's alluding to how it was often just hope that kept the Abolitionist movement alive for many decades before the Civil War, long before any thought of Reconstruction. When it was necessary to protect the newly ratified 14th Amedment, yeah they fought like hell, and impeached Johnson. Hope probably had a seat at the table there too.

Obama doesn't exclude partisanship, but it's easy to see why people think he does. He needs to be much more specific about that.

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by: along @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 08:00:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The allusion (0.00 / 0)

Specifically referred to the war, not just keeping abolitionism alive for decades before the war. And Reconstruction is very much party of the war, as we are leaning in Iraq.

But I already account for your conclusion: maybe by hope he actually means things like impeaching Presidents who refuse to enact the policy of a Congress controlled by a different political party. Maybe that is what he has meant all along, and we weren't just picking up on it before.

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by: Chris Bowers @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 08:07:56 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

well he made several references (0.00 / 0)

and I didn't mean to exclude the war. but again, there I think he was referring very specifically to the hope and faith that Lincoln had in the Union, and that he tried to instill in the public with addresses like:
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail."

That's the kind of light he was talking about, not bipartisanship.

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by: along @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 08:28:57 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Chris you nailed it. (0.00 / 0)

Too late to discuss now, tired from reading the internets.
Keep these coming. Thanks!

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by: gaiilonfong @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 07:36:35 AM UTC

light of the 60s riots maybe? (0.00 / 0)

that lead to affirmative action and significant development of new housing, programs to spur low income home ownership, job training that led to 750,000 jobs, etc?

Is Obama doing some kind of Jujitsu on newspeak? Obama's Kaepswen?

Michael Bloomberg, prince of corporate welfare

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by: Will @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 07:49:09 AM UTC

Seems to me you are equivocating some, Chris. (0.00 / 0)

Obama is talking about abolition.  When he says "what allowed a President to chart a treacherous course," he's talking about Lincoln. Then you start talking about Reconstruction, which didn't start until abolition had already been accomplished via the Emancipation Proclamation. Also, Lincoln was dead before  the Reconstruction got very far. To be sure, the Radical Republicans had earlier been abolitionists, and I suppose they still were, in a sense, even though abolition had been accomplished, but the impeachment wasn't over abolition.

It had escaped my notice that Andrew Johnson was a War Democrat.  That basic fact makes the impeachment a lot more intelligible. As a Democrat from the South, Johnson was trying to make nice with the South, in the spirit of Lincoln's policy of reconciliation.  That's what got him impeached.  We suspect that Obama may want to make nice with the NeoCons. So if Obama really is identifying with the Radical Republicans, then I guess that would mean he wants the losers to suffer draconian punishment, the losers in this case being the NeoCons.  So Obama would equal the Radical Congress, and the NeoCon Congress would equal Johnson. Then the impeachment of the NeoCons could be expected to fail.  Well, we already knew that much. Again it kind of looks like A = Not(A).  It all depends on what the meaning of = equals.

I doubt that Obama is trying to send us a message in code.  I wish he were though.  By the way, Paul is not dead.  Goo goo ga choob.

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by: Querent @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 08:51:39 AM UTC

Lincoln and Bipartisanship (0.00 / 0)

Chris was talking about an entire era, which clearly encompasses Lincon and Johnson, at least.

Also, even if it was relevant, and Obama was talking about Lincoln, can anyone here really make the case that Lincoln was a bipartisan fellow bringing "more light" to Washinton?  His Cooper Union Address alone should be enough to end that debate.

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by: Kundalini @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 10:23:40 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

True (4.00 / 5)

Whenever I question an Obama supporter on his inherent contradictions, especially in rhetoric and policy, they inevitably come back with projection ("No, what he truly means is..."), carefully leaving out contradictory evidence, or delusion that he's some closet liberal champion ("Just wait 'till he's elected!").  Amazing how a group that professes to "believe" won't believe him--in terms of his rhetoric, voting record, policy (especially foreign policy), campaign donors (ties to lobbyists), etc.

Hell, I've met supporters who rail against "partisanship" (i.e. anything that requires fighting against the right) and believe that "progressivism" means whatever Obama believes in.  Basically, they're not part of a progressive movement, but an Obama movement.

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by: Patrickson @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 09:03:05 AM UTC

Open govt = sunshine = light = change (0.00 / 0)

I suspect that part of what Obama means by "more light" is what Matt referred to in the prior post: 

What I do like about Obama's message is that he's talking about including the American public in the process of self-government.  That's new.

Obama's tech policy--especially the "open government" elements--proposes to use technology to open up government to citizen oversight and input in ways we've never seen before. I believed him tonight when he said he trusts the American people and that a key element of his "change strategy" is to invite, inspire and enable their involvement in governing and building new progressive coalitions. I've started to refer to this as his "sunshine strategy," since its essence is expanded and tech-enabled application of the principle behind Sunshine Laws.

If we view his "expanded coalition" statements as meaning he aims to mobilize citizens--not only in elections, but also in  governing--they begin to make more sense to me, and it becomes easier to see them as something other than "we need to kiss the asses of right wing political sociopaths," which seems to be what some here believe or fear he's saying.  In tonight's debate I was listening for more on this from him, and what I heard was encouraging.

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by: mitchipd @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 09:47:16 AM UTC

Well of course (0.00 / 0)

and they transcended the abilities of mere bitter partisanship by impeaching a President who refused to enact their policy, and nearly convicted him in the Senate.

They weren't impeaching the president because he was from the opposing party (IE for partisan reasons) they were impeaching him because they felt it best served their ideology.

The difference is that they would also have impeached someone from their own party if it had become necessary.  Thus what they were doing had nothing to do with partisanship.

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by: Astera @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 11:03:30 AM UTC

Nope (0.00 / 0)

The opposition in Congress was not Democrats but non-Radical Republicans because most of the Democrats seceded.Johnson was a War Democrat who ran on a de facto Republican ticket against a peace Democrat (McClellan).  He really wasn't impeached because he was a Democrat (granted) but because he was the opposition, such as it was.

This was partisanship, bitter and clear, but the political landscape was so altered by the war and secession that it all occurred within one umbrella party.  Yes, they would have impeached a non-Radical Republican but Johnson and the non-Radicals (a few Democrats and a few Republicans) were the de facto opposition party.

One party, whether Washington's or the Madison-Monroe era Democratic Republicans or Lincoln's Union Party or the FDR juggernaut does not work for long.  We consistently start partisanship even if it is sometimes masked (see John Quincy Adams or Andrew Johnson).

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by: David Kowalski @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 11:46:45 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

Not So Sure About John Q (4.00 / 1)

John Quincy Adams is a very singular case.  He was a unique figure in history, son of a President from one party, he served in the other party for a long time before becoming President.

Adams truly was not a closet Federalist.  He deeply believed that the Federalists had become the opposite of what they professed--a provincial party, rather than a national one.  He was an elitist, to be sure.  But he was both a competent one (arguably the best Secretary of State we ever had) and a visionary one (the Smithsonian Institute is the only concrete fruit of his vision of scientific/technology progress as a driving force of America's future greatness).

The problem was, the country was growing westward, and Adams inherited the mantle of party leadership (Secretaries of State became President in those days) just as the Federalist Party finally gave up the ghost, which is what allowed for the internal tensions among the Democratic Republicans--largely along georgraphic lines--to spin out of control into full-fledged war.

As a kid, I was a tormented Jackson fan.  Tormented because of his racism toward native Americans.  But admiring of his populist spirit.  And Adams seemed like a cold and snooty elitist.  But I've come to believe that Adams was actually the more noble of the two, even though I retain my populist orientation.  After all, Adams is sort of the anti-Bush.  He, too, rebelled against his father, but in a truly principled way, and he obviously anguished over it.  Also, it was Adams Sr. whose administration was hyper-partisan and trampled on the Bill of Rights (see that Alien and Sedition Acts), even going so far as to put a sitting Congressman in jail (where his constituents soundly re-elected him).

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 12:06:52 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Foreign Policy (0.00 / 0)

I know comparatively little about JQA as concerns internal affairs, but I'd argue that there is a major slur on his international reputation - the Monroe Doctrine. It's often been interpreted as a statement against colonialism, but in context that doesn't make much sense - colonialism hadn't yet kicked into a higher gear, South America was actually in revolt against a colonial power and the only power which could have meaningfully infringed the doctrine, Great Britain, was in no state to fight a war over the issue.

Moreover, JQA's policy towards Bolivar and co. was shabby in the extreme. In addition to obstructing the flow of European volunteers to them, he refused to recognise them until they agreed to punitive trade deals.

I won't claim that he was a terrible SoS, but there wasn't much nobility in his actions there and he certainly wasn't a visionary - the Monroe Doctrine holds the seeds of the idea of American Empire.

Forgotten Countries - a foreign policy-focused blog

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by: Englishlefty @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 15:59:08 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Reconstruction and Joe Gibbs Football (4.00 / 2)

An essential piece in the Civil War puzzle is that the traditional political opposition in Washington to Republican policy just essentially disappeared (a little thing called secession).  This allowed a whole generation of programs and policies that were blocked by southern Democrats to sail through Congress.  Things like the transcontinental railroad, the homestead act and the Morrill Act that established and funded the land grant colleges in this country.  The whole was curiously linked because the railroads functioned as land compamies promoting immigration and selling off their grant of government land.  Other government land was opened up to settlement by small (at least at the time) landholders.  Money from government land financed a state technical colleges in every state.  In many, it was the "State" college: the Michigan States, Iowa States, I guess NC State or a specifically technical state school like Purdue or Auburn.  Around here it was Rutgers (NJ)and Cornell.  The agricultural extension branches helped the farmers and the loop was completed as farm goods flowed out through the railroads.

The point of all of this, in today's terms is that using the Obama example, the progressives of today would be equivalent to the radical Republicans and the NDN/Blue Dogs/Bush Dogs would be pretty much the entire "opposition" as the current Republicans seceded.  Lincoln/Johnson was Unity 64 (in fact, called the "Union" Party). Partisanship did not disappear, it focused inward.  The Tenure of Office Act was a big gotcha baited to trap Johnson.  Stanton was an obnoxious railroad tycoon with strong administrative skills who never got over the fact that while Lincoln the free lance lawyer had worked for him, he worked for Lincoln the President.  Aside from running by far the largest of the cabinet departments (at the time), Stanton also controlled information (the only telegraph line from the front) and tried to monoplize it.  The only people who at times were able to overcome him were Lincoln (political shrewdness) and Sherman (whose army was in NC at the time and who threatened to march on Washington to essentially complete Lincoln's "easy" peace settlement.  Sherman would have done it, too. 

I'm short handing a lot of the political and military items I'd love to talk about (c'mon ... get me started about the real story behind 40 acres and a mule or the use of black troops as the only dependable assault weapon/shock troops on the VA front).  What the Civil War era showed was that without an opposition a heck of a lot could be accomplished.  Throw that in with the early FDR period and LBJ's first two or three years and the story does one fine job of selling victorious partisanship.  Bush II managed, in his own ways, to get a lot of the same results from almost thin air thanks to a compliant media, a complicit Supreme Court, and a Congress organized around the most hard core 120 or so Republicans rather than the other 315 members.

Obama is a smart guy, but this is bad political history.  The Civil War and abolition did not succeed because of Lincoln's bully pulpit changing public opinion.  It succeeded because the political opposition left, the North had far superior manufacturing capacity, and the ultimate trio of Lincoln/Grant/Sherman combined smash mouth football and spectacular end runs (the Vicksburg campaign by Grant, the Atlanta campaign and its aftermaths by Sherman).

With a Joe Gibbs Redskins team in the playoffs yesterday, I was reminiscing about  how he won three Super Bowls with three different starting quarterbacks and revolving star runners based on one devilishly successful offensive play and two variations that suckered the defense.  The core play, of course, was the Tray.  Everybody talks about the Hogs but the right side of the Redskins line was the key.  Gibbs was an old offensive line coach and we all know the basic play.  The center would snap the ball and pull out of the line and form a blocking group with the right guard and right tackle (the three person tray).  Meanwhile a 260 pound tight end would block the outside linebacker and a bowling ball type blocker would escort a bruising running back.  If the defense did not shift, the tackle would have to be made by cornerbacks and safeties four or five yards back.  Of course, the defenses mostly did cheat.  The most common adaptation was to heavily rush the defensive linemen and linebackers from the opposite side (the left of Gibbs offense) coming in behind the blockers unblocked and at or near the line of scrimmage.  That got Gibbs famous signature play into action: the counter tray.  The quarterback would fake a handoff to the right, pivot and hand off to the left while the left side offensive line screened off a little and the runner quickly scooted off into 10, 15, or even 50 yards of empty space.  This was no sweeep.  It crossed over inside and a big back like Riggins could shake off a tired safety like a rag doll in the fourth quarter.  The other alternative came when the opposition moved up their corners to play run defense.  The receivers would run past them on a fly pattern and the bombs would start falling (think of that Super Bowl vs. the Broncos).

We have issues that the Republicans can not handle with straight football.  An economy that doesn't work for most people.  Iraq.  The failure of this government to get value from its privatized work force )FEMA, the contractors in Iraq) or watch the hen house.  Just cut the bipartisan crap and run over them.  And if they "cheat" (and they will) because they can't play straight up (and so use gay bashing, immigrant bashing, voodoo economics, or whatever) the real need is to design our own counter trays or bombs that will exploit the hell out of any large openings.

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by: David Kowalski @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 11:36:09 AM UTC

Oh, David You're Killing Me! (0.00 / 0)

What be the counter trays? What be the bombs?

Investigating every last crime of the Bush/Cheney regime?  And throwing them all in the hoosegow?  Would that count?

Maybe not.  But let's try it anyway, and see what happens, shall we?

The rule of law.  What a concept!

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

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by: Paul Rosenberg @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 11:48:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

The counter tray? (4.00 / 1)

The next time somebody goes on one of those anti-immigrant screeds somebody needs to take them to the Wall or the list of Iraq war fatalities.  Go down to Gettysburg and look at those monuments.  The names are so white bread.  This is a different America with the same lasting values.  You don't see Kowalskis or Rosenbergs or Rodriguezes in large number then but you do now. (P.S. The first POW in Hanoi was an Air Force officer named Alvarez.)

We are a nation of immigrants.  Even the native Americans are (more or less) lately arrived.  We are a nation where each generation of immigrants has worked and risked and ultimately prospered.  The American dream is a rainbow dream, not a racist dream.  And when we weaken our commitment to opportunity and justice we weaken our abilities as a nation.  The battle of Gettysburg was set up by the Confederate victory at Chancellorsville, a victory caused in large measure by stupid leadership and ethnic prejudice (a huge gap in the Union lines was reported but dismissed because the unit that was guarding it was of German ancestry and thus considered scared and unreliable).

I think the bomb is a similar narrative about how people split us along different racial, gender, or cultural lines so we can be exploited, used and tossed away.  That is a bit harder to convey without sounding strident but the possible gains are phenomenal.

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by: David Kowalski @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 12:49:00 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Waw! What a thread! (4.00 / 1)

Me, I have a very simple explanation for Senator 'Change's seeming contradiction. Dave already pointed it out when he said:

Obama is a smart guy, but this is bad political history.

Well, almost. It's just plain bad history. Like a lot of folks his age, Haahvahd or nay, when it comes to history he just don't know jack. After the 60s the first thing the 'conservatives' set out to do was make sure no American got the sort of education I got. And that meant history had to go.

And so it did. So now we have the edifying spectacle of a candidate for President making arguments about SS and 'partisanship' and 'change' based on his faulty conception of what actually happened back there before all the really important things like pro-football.

That's one of the reason's Edwards is looking like he might break through. His positions on the issues resonate because they are based too a greater degree on generally accepted history. You know....

The labor movement and such.

Peace, Health and Prosperity for Everyone.

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by: ACitizen @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 15:08:24 PM UTC

Understanding History is Hard Work (4.00 / 1)

I beg to differ. The problem with history is that it's one damn tree after another -- understanding historical trends is recognizing the shape and character of the forest, the landscape, the territory beyond the forest, and how they interrelate and interact over time.

As a history major undergraduate (68-69) I had several great professors. The best of them specialized in the Evolution of English Constitutional Government, with subset emphasis on the Tudor and Stuart eras. At the start of every semester, Dr Simon told the class that anyone who accurately described the trends in the exams would get an A; recite the facts, you get a B; recite facts poorly, a C. I got one A- in his lectures -- it was for the period from Glorious Revolution to WW1. It was a long enough overview that I was able to grasp the turning points.

Are you aware the American Revolution was Britain's Vietnam, and George III was attempting a Bush/Cheney/Nixon power grab? Lord North was the King's agent in Parliament, but Lord Howe and Cornwallis were both members of the loyal opposition. If the King prevailed, Parliament would have been neutered, if not destroyed. It was no accident that Lord Howe was never quite able to finish off Washington and the Continentals, or that Cornwallis parked his army at Yorktown.

Just because the historic facts are not a perfect match for Obama's political rhetoric, does not mean he doesn't know what he's doing.

For the record, I'm supporting John Edwards -- but I also recognize the flaw in his rhetorical approach. His Two Americas People vs the Powerful echoes the New Deal -- but it is conflict based, and grounded in the existing system. Obama's goal is to sweep the old system aside, and sing Kumbaya after the landslide.

Edwards has a small ball, inside the park strategy -- Obama is aiming for a whole new game. Who is best equipped to succeed is an open question -- but Obama's success with Millennial mobilization may be the Holy Grail of permanent realignment. For that alone, I give him benefit of the doubt.

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by: -ck- @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 16:44:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Understanding History (0.00 / 0)

For my money, I bet that Obama is familiar with the real history.  I actually take comfort in my belief that he is probably lying about all this stuff to get elected.

What is certainly true, is that most Americans have an extremely utopian view of American history.  And I believe that Obama is shrewd enough to be exploiting this.

My favorite example of your average American's utopian view of American history is the whitewashing of the life of Martin Luther King Jr.  Most Americans know very little of MLK other than the four words: "I have a dream."  How many know that he was a radical anti-war leftist and promoter of civil disobediance?  How many know that he was considered so subversive that the FBI was running a surveillance operation against him and those in his movement?

And yet what do most Americans think of MLK?  That he was a swell guy, who apparently changed history with a mere 4 words.  The same dynamic is at work for all those Americans who believe that Reagan ended the Cold War with a mere 6 words: "Mr Gorbechev, tear down this wall."

All in all, I suppose the underlying flaw is that Americans believe too much in the power of oratory alone.

And I think Obama understands all of this.  He understands that know one is going to call him on his utopian version of American history.  Obama has already proven that you can convince a whole lot of people that through lofty oratory, that you can get everyone to come together to change America.

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by: Kundalini @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 23:40:04 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Amen (0.00 / 0)

Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition!!!

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by: -ck- @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 23:51:11 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

post-structuralism is for the birds (0.00 / 0)

The problem that post-structuralism constantly reinvents is the unresolvable struggle to free ourselves from contradiction.  Nobody ever asks why we need to do that. 

Contradiction is productive.  It always has been. 

I don't think it's hard to understand what Obama is saying, but it is a direct challenge to a certain kind of political discourse. 

I just wish he would say something other than 'tax cuts' when asked about his economic policies. That phrase reminds me of something some other guy used to say quite a bit, but that guy ain't Paul de Man...

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by: Jeffrey Feldman @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 15:31:54 PM UTC

My oh my (0.00 / 0)

that's some creative readin'.

But his allusion to Lincoln is (probably unintentionally) apt - for Lincoln was nothing if not a master at nimble rhetorical jiu-jitsu before the war on the issue of slavery.

The plural of anecdote is not data.

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by: vernonlee @ Sun Jan 06, 2008 at 21:05:45 PM UTC

You're not alone in your reading (0.00 / 0)

and I once tried to take classes with Derrida and Cixious but my housemom threatened to kick me out. I eventually switched host families and the rest is history. Curiosity killed the cat.

Banned for posting five straight diaries.

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by: donna darko @ Mon Jan 07, 2008 at 05:50:38 AM UTC