I've gained a number of well-conceived insights from some of the recent columns written by E.J. Dionne Jr. in the Washington Post. Today's piece continues to offer several more examples of Dionne's acuity.
Dionne observes: "President Obama intends to use conservative values for progressive ends. He will cast extreme individualism as an infantile approach to politics that must be supplanted by a more adult sense of personal and collective responsibility. He will honor government's role in our democracy and not degrade it. He wants America to lead the world, but as much by example as by force."
Dionne succeeds in uncovering the temperament that Obama is attempting to instill in the American public. Obama's efforts include his effort to downgrade the 19th century fascination built on the catch phrase of 'rugged' individualism that over the decades and through the machinations of most recent conservative politicians who have used it to foster an insatiable avariciousness; always on the prowl for materialistic gain that has lost its hold and fascination over the American people and replaced with a public lead by Obama that is hungry to make a more concerted effort to achieve a collective effort that will finally make our nation more responsive to the needs of the many. And during his inaugural address, Obama struck a cord regarding our overt fascination with "childish things," reminiscent of St.Paul's admonitions and challenged Americans to become responsible adults as we confront our nation's woes.
Dionne accurately posits that Obama's intentions will cause many citizens a great deal of confusion at first. And it will not matter which part of the political spectrum that individuals identify themselves with because; as Dionne reveals: "One of the wondrous aspects of Obama's inaugural address is the extent to which those on the left and those on the right both claimed our new president as their own."
The struggle over the right to claim Obama as one of their own that has broken out between the left and the right allows Dionne to shine a light on: "Many conservatives (who) were eager to argue that Obama is destined to disappoint his friends on the left because the president who now wields power will be far more careful than the candidate who deployed rhetoric so ecstatically." Dionne continues on the boastfulness of those on the right: "Their evidence included Obama's stout defense of old-fashioned values -- "honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism."
The right has been overwhelmed with a giddiness not witnessed since the days of Ronald Reagan when Obama included in his inaugural address that: "These things are old,...These things are true." It was one of the most powerfully conservative sentiments ever to pass any president's lips," Dionne explains.
And Dionne cautions the right to be careful not to overreact with their expressions of joy: "But note the nature of that list: "Tolerance and curiosity," in particular, are values notoriously associated with the adventurous, with those who seek out the new and the novel. "Hard work" and "fair play" have long been invoked by egalitarians on behalf of the salt of the earth."
Obama came straight to the point, Dionne explains: "the ends toward which he was conscripting the old virtues." Was Obama's way of saying that: "They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history."
Obama has laid his trap expertly. Dionne explains: "That emphasis on progress pervaded what was in many ways a radical speech. Obama clearly broke with the conservative past, more recently associated with George W. Bush and more distantly with Ronald Reagan."
As Dionne explains from Obama's perspective: "As he has done so often, Obama pronounced debates about the size of government irrelevant. What matters is "whether it works." Quietly but purposefully, he was overturning the Reagan revolution." And in such an easy and unassuming way the task that had confounded Democrats for decades vanished; Obama turned Reagan into nothing more than an irrelevant curiosity of presidential politics past.
Dionne continues by arguing that Obama made further progress when he revoked the Bush administration's ill-conceived policy for domestic security when Obama announced: "We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." As he proclaimed America's power, Obama revoked Bush's homeland security policies as he said: "that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please."
"Finally," Dionne reminds us it is not the usual role of a president to question if "the market is a force for good or ill." Obama understands that Wall Street has the "power to generate wealth and expand freedom" but Obama recognizes the key component achieved by market regulation is to ensure that the market does not "spin out of control." Obama also spoke against the inequality created by the market and, insisted that: "the nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."
Obama used his inaugural address to introduce his strategy to displace the ingrained myth of Wall Street as a place governed by gods who wield their omnipotent powers over our nation's monetary resources and disperse their closely guarded authority by opening up the clubiness of Wall Street power brokers to enliven the prospects of the lower and middle classes.
To Dionne, this is: "What makes Obama a radical, albeit of the careful and deliberate variety, is his effort to reverse the two kinds of extreme individualism that have permeated the American political soul for perhaps four decades."
Obama, in Dionne's opinion: "... sets his face against the expressive individualism of the 1960s that defined "do your own thing" as the highest form of freedom. On the contrary," Dionne continues: "On the contrary, Obama speaks of responsibilities, of doing things for others, even of that classic bourgeois obligation, "a parent's willingness to nurture a child.""
"But he also rejects the economic individualism that took root in the 1980s," explains Dionne, because: "He specifically listed "the greed and irresponsibility on the part of some" as a cause for our economic distress. He discounted "the pleasures of riches and fame." He spoke of Americans not as consumers but as citizens. His references to freedom were glowing, but he emphasized our "duties" to preserve it far more than the rights it conveys."
"This communitarian vision fits poorly with "the stale political arguments" between liberals and conservatives that Obama condemned," Dionne insightfully explains; "because they are really arguments between these two varieties of individualism. Their quarrel has been fierce not only because of how the two sides differ but also because they share so many assumptions. Family feuds and civil wars can be especially brutal."
Dionne concludes by adding that: "For now, each side in the old debate can enlist aspects of Obama's rhetoric in their polemics against the other. But in associating our recent past with "childish things," in insisting that greatness is "never a given" and always "must be earned," Obama is challenging the very basis of their conflict."
Dionne determines that: "It is a worthy fight. It will also be a hard fight to win because rights are so much easier to talk about than duties, and freedom's gifts are always more prized than its obligations."
More importantly, the fight that Obama has decided to engage in could forever transform American political thought and action because it provides the opportunity to redefine our past in order to guarantee a more equitable future. Obama intends to reestablish an evolutionary progression for America that will enliven the lofty goals of our past that were proclaimed in the first sentences of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence; but never fully codified into the laws of the nation that America will once again strive to attain the truths of equality that guarantees the "unalienable Rights" for all American citizens to attain the promise of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Obama is simply attempting to reengage the source of hope that was intended for all Americans to obtain before it was derailed by the rapacity of the few and the acquiescence of the many.
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