Category Archives: Obama

now you are free…

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One Tuesday afternoon in 1981, while Taslin and I played with what I remember were Barbies, cutting old socks making them into sweater dresses, we heard a wail from the top floor of our apartment building on Teutonia Avenue. I never heard anyone cry like that before. Taslin’s mother ran down the stairs to our apartment and into the arms of my mother, weeping. Anwar Sadat had been killed. I was seven years old. Taslin was five. The rest of the afternoon and evening, I recall, involved me watching Taslin’s mother balled tight on our sofa watching the news, video montages of Sadat’s life. Sadat shaking hands with Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter ran on a continuous loop. What Taslin’s mother told me of Sadat was that she had hoped with the changes he was making, she’d be able to go home someday. She wanted Taslin, who was born in America, to someday return to the country of her forebearers, and if she chose to, live as a free and modern woman there as she would here.

Watching these developments in Egypt today, I’m surprised to find how invested I had been in their story all along. The live feed from Al Jazeera’s YouTube channel ran video of Liberation (Tahrir) Square’s jubilant masses, and I couldn’t stop my tears.  Tomorrow, the real work of rebuilding a nation begins. And from this distance, many questions remain in terms of how this process will actually work. The Egyptian military who has acted as an arbiter between the protesters and the now fallen regime throughout these eighteen days (even protecting protesters from the Basij-like throngs/mobs of men last week) assumes control over the nation. No one is certain of what this may mean for the Egyptian people just yet and hopefully, this transitional period will maintain its peaceful nature.

Again, Obama’s June 2009 Cairo speech runs like a tape in my head since the developments in Tunisia last month, and now today in Egypt:

Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. These are not just American ideas; they are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere… So no matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who would hold power: You must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

It was prescient then. Delivered just a week before the Iranian elections, and subsequent revolution, it was a signal to me that a new era was forthcoming. It’s worth a re-read today.

Tomorrow, we’ll be watching Algeria.

speaking of real talk…

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Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy

While it seems like ages ago (as we’re all transfixed on natural disasters and the revolutions in the Middle East) I haven’t stopped thinking about the State of the Union Address:

What’s more, we are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea -– the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny… The future is ours to win. But to get there, we can’t just stand still. As Robert Kennedy told us, “The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.” Sustaining the American Dream has never been about standing pat. It has required each generation to sacrifice, and struggle, and meet the demands of a new age. And now it’s our turn. We know what it takes to compete for the jobs and industries of our time. We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world. We have to make America the best place on Earth to do business. We need to take responsibility for our deficit and reform our government. That’s how our people will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how we get there. The first step in winning the future is encouraging American innovation. None of us can predict with certainty what the next big industry will be or where the new jobs will come from. Thirty years ago, we couldn’t know that something called the Internet would lead to an economic revolution. What we can do — what America does better than anyone else — is spark the creativity and imagination of our people. We’re the nation that put cars in driveways and computers in offices; the nation of Edison and the Wright brothers; of Google and Facebook. In America, innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It is how we make our living.

The tone of the speech was mature, thoughtful, absent of detailed description of policy initiatives, but a clear lecture of Real Talk. In many ways, I felt like this conversation is about two years late. Sure, better late than never…

And not to sound too arrogant or self promoting, but some of the themes Obama covered reminded me of a blog post I wrote nearly two years ago. Some background: I used to work in one industry and now I am doggedly trying to secure sound employment in another. This is a personal choice, privileged in some ways yet, dare I say, brutally difficult.

I also feel it’s premature to declare the recession over. Yes, the Dow is trading at 12,000, a high we last saw in June 2008, but job growth/creation has not matched that enthusiasm. 9.4% unemployment still holds, and if we count the ‘underemployed’, those with a smattering of temporary, part time and freelance jobs, more than likely uninsured, that rate doubles. If you’re a woman or man of color, god help you. The private sector may be hiring, but it remains unclear what those jobs are. There are some of us in this economy grinding to find work in our respective fields with nil to marginal success. Some of those jobs were eliminated and if we’re to be honest here, those jobs aren’t going to come back. Some of us will have to retrain, learn new skills to be competitive with a generation of new jobs that are hyper-specific to trade and skill. Continue reading →

scattered thoughts on moderation and restoring sanity.

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I had every intention of going to DC for the Rally to Restore Sanity. The spectacle and clarion call, the gathering of moderates was seductive. However, in typical moderate fashion, I didn’t figure out a plan to get there. By the time I realized I should have booked a bus ticket on MegaBus or Bolt, they were already sold out.

So instead, I spent my Saturday restoring sanity on the home front. I cleaned my bedroom. I cleaned the bathroom. I vacuumed. I groomed my cat. I folded laundry. I organized the stack of ungraded papers for my review. I took a walk around the neighborhood. I bought a latte. I did most of this in relative silence. I refrained from checking my twitterfeed for updates of value and snark regarding the day’s events. I peaked once. Kid Rock performed? (Dude, like seriously?)

There were shows I’m missing. A happy hour I would’ve liked to have gone to. At the very least, I would’ve loved to rub elbows with the young progressives and shared in their sideways glance, witty banter and commentary about a comedian who’s righteous indignation against the tide of batshit crazy in our political discourse has manifested itself in a not so cleverly disguised get out the vote rally on the Washington Mall. Instead, I’m here in Brooklyn. Unable to check into foursquare to unlock uber swarm badges to acknowledge that I exist among the crowd of young(ish) moderate voices in American politics. I’m fine with this. Continue reading →

phoning it in.

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Ta-Nehisi Coates touches on something that I’ve been stuck on too with respect to the ‘freeze’ and POTUS most recent comment about his presidency:

Andrew also notes that it’s largely a symbolic measure, but has faith that Obama will eventually move to the hard choices around defense and entitlement. I don’t know. I think the way Obama has evidently decided to fold on health-care leaves me with little faith that he’ll actually do the hard work.

It is, potentially, like this with all presidents. And I heard his point the other day about being happy with serving as a great one-termer. But I’m struggling to understand what he deeply, truly believes in. What he believes must be done right now. What he’d fall on his sword for. Again, maybe it’s this way with all presidents, and maybe my larger beef is with electoral politics. I’ll sort it out over the next few weeks.

I feel a lot of ambivalence too. On one hand, I really hope that the freeze is a strategic boondoggle, symbolic as Andrew Sullivan says, to weather the midterm election season. Yet, I know that this ‘strategy’ won’t necessarily yield any substantive results in deflating the Right’s objections to the Democratic Party’s governance.  A freeze on discretionary spending won’t silence POTUS most vehement objectors. I’m not sure if anything will. If this is in fact a fake pass, that will allow POTUS to effectively quarterback the real work of governance -creating policies that support job creation and restore some balance to our economy– by canceling out aspirations for a second term, we’d be lucky.  It’s a leap of faith in taking that tact.

I’m not sure what Obama’s doing right now.  Junot Diaz wrote a piece for the New Yorker last week bemoaning the loss of story in Obama’s rhetoric as he moved from Candidate to President.  And although there’s some validity to that in terms of connecting the message of candidate and man capturing the imagination of the electorate (election platforms are aspirational), governance is an entirely different beast. I don’t need Obama to tell me a story to tuck me in at night. I need him to reform the banking system. There’s nothing inspirational about debating the merits of Glass-Steagall. I need for him to reform the banking system so my friends who run small businesses can secure loans to build and grow and hire people (ahem, job creation). I need for him to push for diplomacy that will inevitably lead to our military withdrawal out of Afghanistan and Iraq, which would reduce defense spending. There isn’t a pretty story for that. I need him to put a foot up the ass of the leadership of the Democratic Party to pass. the. damn. bill. already. Jeez.

This question about the state of our democracy, the state of our union, is invading my dreams. A couple of nights ago, I dreamed I had 8 missed calls from David Plouffe? And the only meaning I can derive from that is that these guys need our help.

there’s a party at the crossroads…

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A few months back this earworm invaded my mental mind and prompted me to post it as a stub. Today, it’s my writing prompt as I re-read Pygmalion and think about the code/switch.

For the uninitiated, here is a sampling of X-Clan’s tome to the complexity of black identity in the black and white imagination:

Let me tell you about blackness,
Grits and cornbread how can you act this?
I exist on a plane, where the jar is my brain, I’m livin’ to retrieve
cells,
Antenae my stick, picture bigger, made of liquor, figure,
The pull of the trigger goes zoom not boom,
Not a bunch of sissies, but saviors braver,
The red, black, and green,
It’s just so much more than red, black, and green,
You ask what I mean, but yet the sundial shades on lights and dreams,
Watch too late, oops, upside your head!
You drop through abyss like lead,
Where you goin’, what’s your speed, what’s your pleasure, what’s your
need,
Trees to branches, roots to seeds, forwards, backwards many
degrees,
Questions answers, what’s the sum?
We have come.

Continue reading →

Ballots, bullets and bombs in Afghanistan – The Big Picture.

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via boston.com

All eyes on Afghanistan. Obama has authorized deployment of 13,000 more troops.

Although I haven’t seen the film yet, I plan to see Rethink Afghanistan as soon as I get a free moment. It has been said that wars are necessary to secure a lasting peace, eight years in, I’ve got too many questions unanswered.

Time to think differently.

UPDATE.
I think Frank Rich’s column covered most of my concerns and objections to the escalation. The same congress that voted to divert resources from Afghanistan to pursue the threat of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq, is responsible for the hot dusty mess in Afghanistan. I’m not a paid policy wonk on this, but I’ve maintained this position in private conversations with friends over the years that Afghanistan suffered from benign neglect. And that neglect has allowed the Taliban to seize control over the region and the years have taken its toll on our soldiers and the Afghan population. I understood why we went there in the first place, but our mission was muddled. We can topple regimes, but can we build nations?

Civil society can thrive with infrastructure. There’s no infrastructure in Afghanistan. There are barely roads that lead from mountainous terrain to towns, or cities. I’m not even sure how they’re able to gain access to water. Water is an under-reported political issue. I can only imagine that the geopolitical interests of powerful men who control these small provinces and villages have huge sway over people to secure their cooperation with Taliban leaders. It’s evident that to untangle the grip of Taliban has over Afghanistan will require more than 13,000 American soldiers that may have already served multiple tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan to date.

McChrystal’s assessment of the foothold of the insurgency aside, what are we going to do after that? What are we going to do to preserve the peace? The State Department was severely underfunded during the Bush Administration, a significant partner in preserving any military gain we make in any conflict we’re engaged in. And for those of us who believe that stability magically happens with a wave of a pen or at the barrel of the gun fail, it’s time to recognize that peace also comes from the hard work of civilians it takes to repair or build civil society. I’m remembering a scene in Charlie Wilson’s War, where Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson presented a plan where our government had denied his request to fund school construction in villages in Afghanistan after we supplied copious resources to the Afghanis to help them drive out the Soviet army.

Obama’s Nobel Prize win presents the obvious paradox. How can he escalate a conflict and still be honored with the highest award in the world? Simultaneously, the global recognition of an American leader that’s asking the world to be accountable in their own fate is crucial. And on the heels of that recognition, will the Afghan people secure their own future and achieve a lasting peace without a civil war? How do we in the West support a people’s desire in self-determination?

And I’m still left asking the most important question, how can we be the change we wish to see in the world?

Pastime Paradise

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I posting this as a stub.

As I was reading this post by TNC, my iTunes DJ randomly landed on this classic track. I don’t believe in coincidences. As the summer presses on, and our national debate centers around flash point issues of health care reform and race. Within those two issues are layered complexities of class and the shadow side of our American heritage.

I can’t remember who said it last year during the campaign, if it was a pundit, an analyst or Michelle Obama, but with advent of Candidate and President Obama, someone said, ‘Now we’ll find out how racist this country really is.’ That sentiment loops through my head as I try to sort through the barrage information and misinformation.

If you haven’t watched Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary, I think it’s worth at least a once over. I don’t feel that she necessarily presented these folks in the most objective light, but given the growing populist right resentment towards a reform agenda government complicated by their racial animus, maybe she wasn’t so far off.

There’s a fine line between discourse and disruption. A fine line between civil disobedience and sociopathy.

More later.

‘Teachable Moment’

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I think it was Malcolm X who had once said, ‘You got to make them laugh in order to make them think.’

Last night, the Colbert Report tried to disambiguate the furor over Gates-gate.

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The Word (flatulence, aside) picked apart why this drama struck nerves. The media frenzy over Obama, Gates and Crowley meeting for a beer, is frankly annoying. And to borrow, POTUS’s word (sans modifier), stupid. The amount of minutes devoted to trying to pick apart what racism and racist means in our culture in lieu of real reporting time to present useful details about the health care reform bill is the real tragedy.

You can’t cure cancer with a coke and a smile.

Public Option Now

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It should be restated again. We need health care reform now.

For one, like MSM, I got distracted by the Gates-gate episode. Following this very complex conversation or rather deconstruction about race, class, authority, law, free speech, and frankly, a story of two ‘reasonable’ men clashed which escalated about who’s member is bigger than the other, was riveting.

It’s already been said by many more wiser writers and minds than me; that Obama’s presser last week that the real message of the urgency of the need for reform was buried in the MSM coverage of a seemingly gaffe by POTUS.

I’ve been trying to synthesize my thoughts about the bubbling race in America today question for weeks now. I had a rather random post that was only to function as a primer for me to redress late. I felt something was coming. I just wasn’t expecting it to come in the form of segregated pools, excessive force/abuse of power cases, and the death of a pop icon.

Again, I digress.

I also started to draft a post about my recent trip to DC to lobby for reform. Particularly, I wanted highlight the people I met and why they were willing to bake in the late June heat, to push for reform and a public option. A few real life things happened that got in the way of that for me. And then my uncle died. I don’t meant to make him out to be some sort of martyr, but the significance of his passing and the health care debate cross hairs for me. He was diagnosed with stage four cancer in March. He didn’t have health insurance. It wasn’t provided to him through his job. I can’t help but wonder if there were a public option, would he have been able to seek medical attention months, years ago for a stomach problem that he could have easily dismissed as indigestion. He stopped treatment in June. Apparently he lived an expectantly longer life than any doctor would have conceived. He had a pre-existing condition that complicated his treatment with chemo. As my mother explained to me this past weekend, he had a childhood disease that should have been terminal. And it’s apparently genetic. The irony, if you want to call it that, is that my uncle may have saved the life of his children with the discovery of this disease that was responsible for the complicating treatment that would’ve prolonged his life. I’m still trying to wrap my head around that.

The other story that seems to get lost is the face of the uninsured. It’s an issue beyond black, white and class. 43 million Americans do not have health insurance. I’ve heard reported (trying to verify) that the number of uninsured Americans under the age of 30 constitute the large part of that number. A detail that I don’t find too surprising. The low skilled worker, or the recent college graduate who have entry level jobs often are, for lack of a better word, shafted. Ask any bright, young thing who’s employed by a publishing house, magazine, or advertising company to someone who’s working as a janitor, security guard, or retail clerk. Do they have adequate health coverage, if any? Would a public option help small businesses who factor fringe benefits in employee compensation? Would small businesses be able to expand and hire more workers? Would that aid in our economic recovery?

I think Obama failed to explain these facts in a way that can incite urgency among everyone. MSM failed in deconstructing the argument in digestible bits that would push the conversation beyond what polls supposedly say about what Americans want: deficit reduction.

I’m biased of course. I’m part of a Venn Diagram of constituencies that’s affected by this. I want a public option. I’m a bright, young, African American, thirtysomething that would love the independence of not relying on an employer to provide health care coverage. I’d also love a system that would make it affordable so that people like my uncle can seek and receive care in instances where their employer can’t afford to provide them coverage. I’d also like for the forces that claim to read tea leaves through polls realize that my biggest care in the world is not the growth of the American deficit. I do care about it. But I’m a member of the generation that will carry the burden of many debts. I’m still researching the data, but my impression is that the national debt will increase with reform and without reform. I’d like to hear a sound debate about the rate of that growth if we don’t reform our entitlement programs now.

It’s food for thought.

Mad World

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I feel their sense of urgency. And I’m hopeful for their success in achieving self determination as a society. The people deciding who represents them. It’s not so much about the who’s the best leader for the Islamic Republic of Iran. It’s about respect for the process, the structure of the civil society itself. Mousavi is symbol now. I don’t think we’ll ever come to know what kind of leader he would be. But these protests do show that the people were seeking an alternative to Ahmadinejad, a leader that could be a vehicle for reform within their society. And the system failed them.

Remember 1989? There’s a weird symmetry in history. Deja vu all over again. I remember feeling the same desperate sense of urgency and hope and dread for the students in Tiananmen Square in June 1989. I was a tween then, but I understood the longing of an oppressed people challenging the system. Later when we started high school that same year, two German tourists spoke to my world history class and talked about the shifts they were feeling then in their own country. I asked them a question that I felt in bones. I asked them if they thought the Wall would come down. I still remember his facel, and he said, ‘I hope so. I sure hope so.’ It could not have been more than two weeks later and the unthinkable happened. I remember Jeremy running to class the next morning saying to me, ‘Syreeta! How’d you do that? How’d you know? You called it!’

All I can say is that people dream in a common language. If you heard those German tourists in my history class in 1989, you could feel the urgency for change. And I don’t think it’s a stretch that young Germans felt a kinship with the students in Tiananmen Square. In the wake of that tragedy, they might have found their courage to challenge the old order in their nation.

The poignant part of the President’s Cairo speech two weeks ago sort of reads now as a prophetic allusion to events that are now manifesting. Pundits have found fault with the connection with Civil Rights Movement and resistance movements -fringe to moderate- of some Arab communities to regimes. I felt that it struck a very raw nerve. Something that we all had to acknowledge. African Americans learned from the Indian struggle against British rule during the first half of the twentieth century. In 1947, India became a sovereign nation again. Our own history shows how civil disobedience can affect change. It ended injustices my forebearers suffered through. It gave me the right to vote without fear. It seems clear to me now that the Iranian kids heard him. Still, Obama can’t engage them directly. That’s not his purpose at this time. A statesman engages governments. This is a populist movement. And all we can do is watch, support, and hope that human rights are respected.

My color scheme is green so that they know that I’m with them.