Smart Is The New Stupid (And Other Subtle But Profound Effects of the Obama Era)

[babylonsister]

Smart Is The New Stupid (And Other Subtle But Profound Effects of the Obama Era

by David Michael Green



Like every good person I know, and a lot of evil (i.e., regressive) monsters I don't, I've been watching very eagerly and carefully to see what decisions Barack Obama is going to make as our new president.

It makes perfect sense for us to do so, for such policy positions are the bread and butter of any presidency, and arguably the most consequential part of the job. Are we going to invade a country, or not? Are we going to have national health care, or not? Will we saddle our children with unconscionable loads of debt in order to lavish upon the super-rich yet more discretionary income, or not? These are the sorts of questions that go to the heart of what government is and does, and the consequences of their answers can be seen most starkly in the difference between the America a Franklin Roosevelt would make, for example, and the one a George W. Bush would create instead.

In short, policy decisions will matter immensely. And, what is more, they already do, just a scant one month into the Obama presidency. Already he is reorienting America programatically - ending the Iraq war, closing Guantánamo, building a national health care system, negotiating seriously on global warming, spending heavily on education, energy and infrastructure, and taking strides to reintroduce some small measure of economic justice to the country. We sometimes lose track of this as we contemplate the national politics of these decisions, but they are not abstract propositions - they have enormous consequences in the lives of individuals. To pick just one narrow example close to home, I might very well not be writing this column today, had it not been for the completely unexpected GI Bill which sent my father to college after the war, the first person in my family to make that leap. Meanwhile, six thousand miles away, perhaps a million people lie dead amongst the rubble that George W. Bush made out of Iraq.

Yep, these things matter, and we are completely justified in devoting so much attention to what presidents do in making such decisions.

Sometimes, though, other effects of presidencies can be quite subtle compared to their overt policy decisions, though equally if not more profound. In much the same way that the application of soft power - in addition to or instead of hard power - can be a hugely consequential instrument of foreign policy, a similar effect applies on the domestic front. Who can say that George Washington's policy decisions as president were more consequential in the long run than the ethos he brought to the presidency as its first occupant and the impact that had in launching and sustaining the new republic? Who can say whether it was more important that FDR created Social Security than it was that he inspired hope across an entire nation's beaten-down and frightened population? Who can say whether Ronald Reagan did more damage by tripling the national debt than he did by getting Americans to believe that their own democratically elected government was the enemy? And I think all of us can say that, with the possible exception of his handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Kennedy's inspirational ethos entirely dwarfed in impact much of anything he actually did policy-wise during the brief thousand days of his presidency.

Similarly, a successful Obama presidency - and my guess is that he will turn out to be regarded by history as one of the best, even if he doesn't turn out to be among the most progressive (though he might do that too) - will have powerful effects of a very tangible nature, such as (hopefully) rescuing the economy, ending the Iraq folly, and creating a real national health care system (only about a hundred years behind the curve, but who's counting?). But it will also produce a raft of far less immediately tangible effects, which may well even surpass in magnitude those of the policy decisions.

It's worth thinking a bit about what those might include.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/06-5

[AyanEva]

1. Also from the article:

I'd be shocked if the impact on how blacks see themselves, and therefore on what they demand of themselves and what they demand of others, isn't changed substantially - and, again, in ways that government programs could probably never replicate even at their most successful.


This is so true. I still see young Black high school students proudly displaying their Obama buttons on their coats and bags (and I've still have one on my bag). I saw a young lady just this morning on the bus ride in to work. I like to think they're taking inspiration from him and following his example. Maybe, just maybe, this will be enough to help keep them in school because every time they look at their button, they'll see proof that you can make it against tough odds and it's not impossible. He's definitely a great role model.

I work in adult education and I do know that we had a waiting list of students to get into our classes, which apparently hasn't happened in years, right around the Fall when the campaign was going into it's final frenzied stage and it looked like victory just might be in sight. I can't prove that the spike in interest and Obama's candidacy were related but the election always came up when I conducted new student orientations and our students mentioned the exact same thing that the article above says. There's no excuse for giving up and failing now, or at least there's much less of an excuse.

He makes people feel better about themselves and feel more confident.

I think that's also what made me get off my ass apply for grad school, which I'm in the middle of doing now. I want to be as awesome as Obama in my chosen field and I know I can do more than what I'm doing now. I can do better. I can BE better. I want people to look at me, a young Black female, and be like, "WOW! She's really something!"
-----------------------------

In other news, this article is excellent. Definitely sending out the link to everyone I know.

[babylonsister]

2. Thanks for that encouraging news on students. Heck,

I'm a middle-aged white woman and I still have an Obama pin on some carry-on luggage and a sticker on my car. I know how the kids feel!

[leftupnorth]

3. Definitely worth the read. What a great summation of the past and future America!

My favorite part:

Perhaps, more than anything, though, it will be changes to the character of our discourse that may provide the most profound effect of all. The single thing that excites me most about the Obama phenomenon is the manner in which he injects a long-missing grown-up maturity into that discourse. Jimmy Carter was probably the last American politician to talk to the public with this degree of honesty and sophistication. We weren't ready then, but after 30 years of the alternative and its consequences, it strikes me that we may be now.

To which I say, put aside all the legislation, policy discussions and executive orders - this may be the biggest single effect of the Obama years. Because if we can't talk about politics like adults, we'll never get an adult politics. If we can't discuss the massive debt implications to our children of slashing taxes, we'll just keep getting both. If we can't recall our own sickening past sins against the people of Iran, we'll continue to argue over whether it's best to adopt the really stupid approach to that country, or just the merely idiotic. If we can't be honest about class politics in America, the middle and working classes will continue to abet the wholesale transfer their own property to the already fabulously wealthy. If we can't discriminate between real science and junk dogma used to enrich oil companies, we'll continue to commit planetary suicide in the greatest act of destructive foolishness ever known.

Whatever one feels about Barack Obama's policies, watching his thoughtful, respectful and intelligent approach to the politics of our time provides a stunning contrast to the faux swagger, willful stupidity, and inherent contempt for the public of his predecessor. Even during the latter years of his own administration, watching tapes of Bush in his earlier years, announcing this or that invasion, threatening this or that adversary, could be a jaw-dropping experience for any mildly sentient creature. Imagine how pathetic they'll look in a year or two, after experiencing the Obama alternative, especially because the GOP keeps sending out junior versions of Junior (hard to imagine that's physically possible, isn't it?) like Limbaugh, Gingrich and Jindal to go up against the president.

I don't think Americans are ever going to want to go back to that sadly immature politics, any more than most adults ever crave a return to the fun days of adolescence. And this is huge. Make no mistake about it - regressivism not only thrives on an immature, two-dimensional, dumbed-down, bumper-sticker sized politics, it requires it. Creating an America in which the public demands a more intelligent and thoughtful political discourse automatically takes ninety percent of regressive arguments off the table before the discussion even begins - at least outside the hollows of Appalachia, the tabernacles of Utah, or the grubby currency shrines on Wall Street, where they either haven't gotten the message, or don't want it. An intelligent people who demand an intelligent politics will have no more interest in the kind of fear-based politics Karl Rove specializes in than they will in Zoroastrianism.

And, really, this may bring us to the best change of all. Anybody with a heart and a brain has spent so much of the last eight years (if not thirty) in a stupefied daze, gazing upon the knuckle-draggers of the right in action, and wondering in befuddled astonishment how this could be happening in twenty-first century America. Particularly for any of us with memories of the Sixties, who could have imagined back then a return to the Fifties, then to the nineteenth century, then to the seventeeth, and then to the thirteenth? It was if something was in the water, and everyone went on a decade(s) long bender, leaving a few of us somehow unaffected by anything other than grief and chagrin at the actions of the rest.

But I think that's over now. Welcome to the new American sobriety.




INDEED, INDEED!!