Following the furore that Trevor Phillips’s piece on Barack Obama has provoked, we’ve now made available online a companion piece from the current issue by Robert Reich—US secretary of labour under President Bill Clinton—which argues that, although Obamania may not signal a significant shift to the left in American politics, it does indeed represent “a new political chapter” for the US. Obama, Reich argues, manages to be both a realist and an idealist, and in this he recalls JFK—who stood on a platform not of radical politics, but of a tireless projection of America’s founding principle that “above all, that all men are created equal.”
As ever, let us know what you think here.
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[...] EDIT 2: As our publisher has noted in the comments below, those seeking a counterpoint to Phillips’s arguments should turn to Robert Reich’s piece in our current issue, which can now be read for free online—and can be discussed on the blog here. [...]
Dear Sir:
Time to call a halt to the racist legacies of the JFK assassination era and book in an African for president of the Freeing World?
Tim Valentino
READ MY ANSWER ON http://poitou-crystalclear.blogspot.com/
All men are NOT created equal, otherwise, all men would BE equal. They are not and they never will be. To try to make that happen you would need to embrace the worst of communisms failed ideas. Once we realize that all men have varied amounts of talent skill patience and curiosity, we then move on to allow each to find his/her niche and fill it. How can it be otherwise? I am a physician and my next door neighbor is a lawyer. He is about as curious of medicine as I am of law, yet to make him out to be my equal and I his in these areas of interest is…well…stupid. We are not all equal. We are all equally worthy of RESPECT, but that ship stops at the shore. Please, PLEASE all you idealists out there…the real world awaits your influence. Bring it down to earth where we all live and you will do a LOT more good for the world. As it is, you only spin and yell and attract other loons, making a mess in the kitchen that we realists have to eventually clean up.
Obama really ideal president for new era.He will elect or not that I can not predict, but his colour is main drawback for his success.Today some Hillary `s supporters are accusing him for his black origine.
Up till now black people playing joker`s roll, entertenting white people, those outsiders who visited U. S.their observation tell us black enjoy as a roll of entertenters, that may be effect of salvery at that peroid white master expect from their servent enterntentment.That roll black till playing.
If by luck he elected white people expect from him to play a roll of joker
Of course it is better that the citizenry is inspired. This is where Reich trumps Krugman. The problem, however, is that once the population is inspired, they need power to implement a reformist platform. Eventually, if Obama can’t deliver on this score, his campaign will be more hype than promise. The interesting point is when leaders use their campaigns and or executive branch power to create a more democratic space through specific kinds of institutions. McGovern’s reforms to the Democratic Party campaign structure did this. FDR’s New Deal institutions did this. Maybe even Dean’s neutrality in the present race does this. The real question is what and how the Obama candidacy can evolve into something and how accountability structures can be generated from within or outside the campaign.