Thursday, April 14, 2011

President Obama Gets It Right This Time

In response to an editorial in today's New York Times called "President Obama, Reinvigorated", I wrote a response, which I am also posting here.

I live one congressional district over from Paul Ryan’s but in vision for this country, I might as well live on the other side of the world. The gap between Democrats and Republicans on today’s issues is greater than at any time in the 68 years I’ve been on the planet. George Bush pushed the idea of an “ownership society.” What he meant is “you’re on your own.” And that is the essence of Ryan’s approach to things. Well, the fact is, folks, we are interdependent, and to the degree we don’t acknowledge and act on that, we facilitate our own demise. President Obama’s speech seems to agree with that.

After reading the book “The Bridge” by David Remnick, I know that Obama’s default position is to listen and seek common ground with all parties. But I hope he holds to his position stated yesterday and uses his powers to stop Republican foolishness now. The Ryan crowd won the house not because of their policies but because in Obama’s first two years in office he was not able to get us out of the Great Bush Recession. Let us hope that this dose of culture war, science rejecting, rich get richer approach to governing is rejected quickly in 2012.

A few weeks George Lakoff wrote an essay on his blog called “What Conservatives Want.” In it, he included this paragraph:

“Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should NOT have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil’s own means can be used against conservatism’s immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture, or even death, say, for women’s doctors.”

This pretty well captures what the Republicans want. I am glad to see President Obama unequivocally rejecting such nonsense, and so should all thinking Democrats and especially independents (whoever they are) who ultimately decide elections in this country.