One speech - two more columns

by: teacherken

Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 07:57:57 AM EDT

A WEEK has passed since a black man's burden was nailed to the podium. The burdens of white leaders are never nailed down.

The speech, which has gotten wonderful reviews, should be required reading in classrooms across the country - and in as many other venues as possible. With a worldview that embraces both justice and healing, Senator Obama is better on these issues than any American leader since King.

Unfortunately, what is more likely to happen is that the essence of the speech will be lost in the din that inevitably erupts whenever there is a racial controversy in the United States.

I am White, and I am not a prominent columnist.  The quotes are from two prominent Black columnists.  The first is from Derrick Jackson's The black man's burden in The Boston Globe, the 2nd from Bob Herbert's With a Powerful Speech, Obama Offers a Challenge in the New York Times. This diary will explore both.

Hope and the universality of human imperfection

by: teacherken

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 12:28:14 PM EDT

'WE THE people, in order to form a more perfect union. . ." So begins the US Constitution, and so began Senator Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia last week. Those remarks sparked such positive and negative consternation because they broke the cardinal rule of political rhetoric, lifting up a question that can be answered only by a deeper question. Obama's subject was nothing less than the American paradox: The people who long for perfection are themselves imperfect.

Those are the opening words of a reflection upon Obama's speech, in a column by James Carroll whose title is the same as that of this diary.  I urge in the strongest terms possible that you read it.  NOW.   Before you go on to read the rest of the diary.  Because there is little of value I can add to what Carroll has to say.

Obama's Promise -- And Its Limits

by: teacherken

Sun Mar 23, 2008 at 08:27:36 AM EDT

In many ways, Obama's appeal flips the politics of race on its head. Without using the phrase, he promises something akin to "white liberation," a term I first heard growing up in the dying days of the Jim Crow South and then again in reporting from apartheid-era South Africa as white rule there began to crumble. Only by thoroughly understanding and rejecting the politics of race can whites liberate themselves from their own chains of exploitation, hatred and, yes, guilt, at least for older Americans.

That paragraph is from a column in today's Washington Post entitled, as this diary, Obama's Promise -- And Its Limits.  The author, Jim Hoagland, won Pulitzers for International Reporting in 1971 and for Commentary in 1991.  And as can be seen in the paragraph quoted above, he offers an interesting perspective on Obama's "A More Perfect Union" speech which this diary will explore.

Principles, purity, and politics

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 11:13:15 AM EDT

One criticism of politics I often heard from my college classmates is that politicians would do anything to get elected.  They lacked any meaningful principles.  And one recurrent issue at any political site today is how this politician or that is abandoning his or hr principles for the sake of gaining or keeping elected office.  But principles can be in conflict.  This site is dedicated to the election  of Democrats, and for those who may see themselves as liberals or progressives, some of those who run under the Democratic standard seem not to uphold the same principles or beliefs on some, often core, issues.  How do we support them?  But then, how to we achieve implementation of at least some of the policies that flow from our principles without the support of those whose own principles require them to oppose us on others?  Is not the political process one of ever-changing coalitions in order to achieve the goal at hand?  And is that political process therefore inevitably in conflict with the purity of our principles?

My understanding of this seeming conflict comes from the knowledge of monasteries.   Bear with me.

What I commemorate on March 21

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 11:02:38 AM EDT

Eisenach, in Thuringia, in  Germany.  The calendar read March 21, not having yet switched to the Gregorian method.  From there comes a part of my soul, my very being.  On that day, in 1685, Johann Sebastian Bach was born.

I am by background and more a musician.  If evaluated on Gardner's Multiple Intelligences I come across heavily musical-rhythmic.  I taught myself to read music at age 3.  I grew up playing piano and cello, and by junior high school also sang.  We always had a record player, and I have never been without collections of recorded music to go along with the massive amounts of sheet music and miniature scores I have accumulated over the years.  And I love many composers, and have on the occasions of their births or with connections to dates associated with their music written about them.   But if forced to choose only one composer, and never be able to listen to or play anyone else, today's birthday boy would be my immediate choice.  And so this diary is a birthday offering, to the man who gave us a Musical Offering, and so much more.  My words cannot match the gift he has given me in his music, but I will offer them nonetheless.  I invite you to share them.

How diverse and interconnected we are becoming . . .

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 11:00:59 AM EDT

So there I was, a couple of weeks back, sitting under a mango tree in western Kenya, when Senator Barack Obama's half-sister Auma says to me:

"My daughter's father is British. My mom's brother is married to a Russian. I have a brother in China engaged to a Chinese woman."

So begins Roger Cohen's Obama's Brother In China in Monday's NY Times.

It is worth reading, to see how diverse and extended his family is, and you will encounter at the end:

If elected, Obama would be the first genuinely 21st-century leader. The China-Indonesia-Kenya-Britain-Hawaii web mirrors a world in flux. In Kenya, his uncle Sayid, a Muslim, told me: "My Islam is a hybrid, a mix of elements, including my Christian schooling and even some African ways. Many values have dissolved in me."

Obama's bridge-building instincts come from somewhere. They are rooted and proven. For an expectant and often alienated world, they are of central significance.

But my wife makes this more personal.

there is an elephant in the political room

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:58:29 AM EDT

and it is called race

eventually Obama was going to have to directly address it

far too many Americans do not understand how Jeremiah Wright's words are reflective of attitudes in the larger black community, born of the pain of the ongoing experience of racism in this country.

Despite the advances made in the Civil Rights movement, despite the number of blacks now able to succeed in sports, industry, politics and academia - all changes that have occurred in my own lifetime, as I was born in 1946 - far too many blacks are still left out of the process.  

and if we stay and listen to the preacher?

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:56:36 AM EDT

Let me instead take a slightly different path, which I invite you to explore below the fold.  

the argument - a contrarian view

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:54:58 AM EDT

As the Democratic primary battle continues, we continue to hear concern that it will damage the party, that we need quickly to come together and refocus our attacks on John McCain and not on one another.   After all, many party officials will say, it is hard to imagine any scenario where Clinton can catch up with Obama in elected delegates and only barely possible that she could in popular vote, and of course it is too late for her to catch him in states won.  Yesterday I heard this argument from one of the most important Democrats in Virginia, who argued that we needed to get field operations organized as part of a unified party, and it was hard to do that until they knew for whom they were organizing. All of this constitutes the argument

I am an Obama supporter.  I fully expect that he will be the nominee at the end of the day.  And I have decided that I disagree with this argument, which is the conventional wisdom of most Obama supporters.

... the categorical imperative and the acting politician. . .

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:53:09 AM EDT

I'm sorry I have not been all that active the past few days.  I was finishing up grade for our 3rd quarter before heading for Williamsburg, from which I now write, for the beginning of my participation in the Political Leaders Program of the Thomas Sorensen Institute of the University of Virginia.  Much of the benefit of the program is that it is off the record, so that political figures from around the state who talk to us can do so candidly, and so that we can can build relationships among ourselves.  I assure I have seen evidence of both.

One of our speakers in his handout had something I thought worth sharing, so I asked and received permission to do so.  It is words of Helmut Schmidt, who served as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) from 1974-82, and is described as his attempt to "establish the relationship between the categorical imperative and the acting politician"...

Below the fold I will explain a very wee bit about this Kantian approach, then offer the words from Schmidt which I encountered today.

Thoughts on Pennsylvania from a former resident

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:51:26 AM EDT

Please note - I did say FORMER resident, but someone whose connection with the state began upon my arrival as a freshman at Haverford in September of 1963, and in a sense has never ended.

This diary began as a comment on dday's Everybody's doing a preliminary Pennsylvania analysis, why can't I? from earlier today.  I came to realize it was long enough to justify posting separately as its own diary.  What you see below the fold is a modified and somewhat expanded version of the original comment.

I think that Obama will be far more competitive than the current polls would seem to indicate.  And I would not be at all surprised to see him win the state, if his campaign is willing to devote the necessary resources, including the time of the candidate.

House Democrats and educational policy

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:49:02 AM EDT

this will be brief.  I had occasion to talk today with a House Democratic Congressman who told me that the House Democratic Caucus is meeting tomorrow afternoon at 3:30 on educational policy.  They have come to the conclusion that NCLB is going no where as a complete package for reauthorization, so some of them are looking to see if they can move parts they care about as separate bills.

I was also told that Ted Kennedy was going to cross over and talk with them.  The Congressman in question told me that it was his sense that Kennedy cannot move a complete bill through his committee either.

I have been busy with finishing out the 3rd quarter at school - one reason i have not been here much the past two days.  But I find it fascinating that the Dems may be willing to move meaningful educational legislation while ignoring the overall framework of NCLB.  

The Congressman in question promised to stay in touch.  If I find out more I will let people here and elsewhere know.  But please accept that I cannot identify the particular Congressman.

peace.

In Sorrow - with updated explanation at the end

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:47:39 AM EDT

I have written in the past that to choose the lesser of two evils is still to choose evil.  Sometimes the choice, in sorrow, to make such a choice.  Sometimes however to make such a choice is too violative of all that one holds dear.

Once before in a presidential election I found myself confronting such a choice.  The situation was somewhat different than it is now.  But my choice then was, in sorrow, not to cast a vote for president.

I have, in sorrow, come to the conclusion that should Hillary Clinton be the Democratic nominee, I will not cast a vote for president.  I live in Virginia, which she has no realistic chance of carrying, so perhaps it takes little courage for me to make that decision, should it be necessary.  But given that I am politically active, that I teach government to adolescents, that I encourage them to participate, it is truly in sorrow that I find I must make this decision.

I will try to explain, if you care to keep reading, why I have made this decision.

Paying school teachers $125,000 / year?

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:45:31 AM EDT

"I would much rather put a phenomenal, great teacher in a field with 30 kids and nothing else than take the mediocre teacher and give them half the number of students and give them all the technology in the world,"

that is the key quote from the founder of a new charter school in New York City, who plans to pay his teachers $125,000 a year.

I want to call your attention to the article, entitled At Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay, which is about the efforts of school's creator and first principal, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, A Yale graduate and former middle school teacher who founded a tutoring company that paid its employees far more than the competitive wage for the field.

Facts in combination

by: teacherken

Sat Mar 22, 2008 at 10:43:02 AM EDT

1.  we have the highest rate of incarceration in the Western industrialized world

2. we have the highest rate of execution in the Western industrialized world

3. we have the highest rate of murder in the Western industrialized world

4. we have perhaps the greatest economic disparity in the Western industrialized world

5. we have the lowest rate of medical insurance in the Western industrialized world

It seems to me that our American exceptionalism should be a matter of embarrassment if not outright shame, and not something about which we brag.

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