I think I'll let the Democrats define themselves more clearly at the convention before I comment on it. But I cannot help but regard Obama's choice of Joe Biden as a blunder. Hillary must be going nuts and thinking: "How many votes did I get and how many votes did this guy get? Is this affirmative action for white males or what?" Leave aside the fact that the choice is unimaginative, uninspired, banal. It seems that Obama is going after the hoi polloi by naming one of their undistinguished number to the ticket. Sure, Joe is a jovial character, but when is the last time he had an idea? To date his best lines have been plagiarized from others. Let's just hope he doesn't begin his convention speech, "Four score and seven years ago..."
Well, it's Obama who's at the top of the ticket and it's Obama we should be focusing on. So far it sounds like Obama is running not for president of the United States but for president of the world. Obama is a globalist, and in his Berlin speech at the Brandenburg Gate Obama decalred himself a "fellow citizen of the world." I guess this means that in conflicts between our world and other worlds, Obama is decidedly on the side of Planet Earth.
Sure, there's more to Obama's argument than his platitudes. Essentially Obama has been arguing that "there is no challenge too great for a world that stands alone." The problem with this is that there are competing ideals and competing interests in the world. China would like to be a regional bully and kick around the little countries that are in its neighborhood. Russia too would like to restore some of its czarist and later Communist hegemony. How exactly does our Chicago community activist propose to change these global realities?
Obama's answer is: through the power of prose. In his stump speeches Obama has been sounding a Robert Frost note, talking a lot about walls. According to Obama, the greatest threat in today's world is not terrorism or nuclear war. Rather, the "greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another." According to Obama, the walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic, or between natives and immigrants, or between races and religions, "cannot stand."
"Something there is that doesn't love a wall," Frost wrote, and certainly we can all share the feeling. Perhaps the best example of an unloved wall is the Berlin Wall, which came down thanks to the efforts of people like Reagan, Thatcher, the Pope, Havel, Walesa and Solzhenitsyn. Yet Frost's poem ends with these striking lines: "Good fences make good neighbors." Frost's point is that the sentimental resistance to walls must be modified by the recognition of the utility and even indispensability of walls. I'm quite sure the Obamas understand the principle quite well: they would not be happy if their neighbors' kids crossed into their yard and treated it as their own. Good fences make good neighbors.
So when should walls be taken down? Consider a contemporary example. It's possible that the wall the Israelis are building is saving Israeli lives and protecing that nation's security. It's also possible that the wall is unncessary, and that it's fueling further Palestinian grievance. My point is that the correct position is going to derive from a careful analysis of the situation on the ground. Vague and lofty talk about the badness of walls isn't going to help. Yet that is precisely the level of analysis that we are getting from Barack Obama. Now will the press stop genuflecting before this man and do him--and our democracy--the dignity of critically examining his views?
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 17)
16. what happens to your christian perspective when-ever you write? the walls are what ever divides the nation. if more people had the morals and values obama has we would see walls fall on massive scales such as the walls of hatred, bigotry, racism, sexism, economic, class, etc..
some people live it, while others just spew it.
twiggy at 11:12AM on Aug 26th 2008
17. Haven't heard anything about this except on the local news.
Apparently, Denver arrested three or four people in a plot to do smoe long range sniper fire at Invesco Field at Mile High on the night of Democratic nominee's acceptance speech.
naturalpuppy at 11:11AM on Aug 26th 2008
18. Geoff,
I understand your consternation.
There is no failure in not believing in something that the majority of us have been indoctrinated into thinking is true.
They know that atheism is not a philosophy - it is not anything. And that is something that can't be fought against.
The failure is that these people think life has no meaning if there death. We all know that there is death - death is inevitable. But before death, there is life and that needs to be regarded with respect, joy and yes happiness.
Atheism is not a failure, it is the absence of belief in a god or deity - nothing more, nothing less. It is not a lifestyle, it is not a mission - it doesn't need witnesses.
If the only reason given to believe in a god is the fear of grief, of the death of a loved one, well that is not enough to persuade.
If it is only because there is no comfort in death that atheism is to be named a fraud, then think instead that the fraud is dying when one never got to live. Comfort can can only be found in how one lives. Not how one wishes that death be only a door to another life.
To me - religion is nothing but empty promises and mindless determination to believe something that isn't true.
TJ at 11:23AM on Aug 26th 2008
19. Okay, we have someone that wants to "bring down walls" and so of course the republicans are saying that if walls come down people are going to get hurt, AS IF THAT WAS WHAT OBAMA WAS TALKING ABOUT.
When a wall comes down, as the Berlin wall came down, it's not because some idiot dynamited it, leaving everyone unprotected! It's because the NEED for the wall IS GONE. GET IT NOW? IS THIS REALLY SO HARD FOR YOU MOUTHBREATHERS?
Also Michelle said something in her speech that got to me last night. She said that people tend to see the world as it is, and know in their hearts what a perfect world would look like, but the difference between the two is so daunting that they don't even TRY to move toward the perrfect version. And if nobody's trying, it's never happenning. So we need to believe that it's worth it to at least strive for the dream, while keeping our heads about us of course, and never forget that if we all thought that way we'd already *have* world peace. It's the most worthy goal out there. So those that scoff at it as a pipe dream and a foolish desire, are themselves standing in the way of it. In my opinion, it's actually *evil* to work against world peace like that, by scoffing at the very idea the way MOST republicans are doing. There *is* no nobler pursuit. There *is* no more worthy goal. So cut the shit and start dong something worthy with your lives besides lying to everybody.
Saint Brian the Godless at 11:35AM on Aug 26th 2008
20. Senator Obama was talking about "walls" because he was at the site of Regan's wall speech. This is the level of intellectual vigor that appeals to him and his constituency. "Hey, speechwriters, what should we talk about at Brandenburg? Oh, hey, how about walls? Bad, no?"
This is the same level of oratory as "General Betray-Us" which was so cool because it rhymed. But like the walls stuff it really doesn't stand up to even the most cursory examination. The young people's problem was with President Bush not General Petraeus. They used his name, again, becuase it was so clever. Same with the walls.
Walls are good when they are used by good people to keep out bad. Walls are bad if they are used by bad people to keep out good, or, more likely and worse, to keep good people prisoners, a la Brandenburg.
Is that really so hard? Is it the "good" and "bad" parts that are so hard to accept? If you refuse to accept that people can be good or bad because who are we to judge and stuff, and it isn't just black and white and stuff, can you see that calling all walls "bad" is more actually engaging in black and white divisions and ignoring the gray?
GaryB at 11:54AM on Aug 26th 2008
21. Is that really so hard? Is it the "good" and "bad" parts that are so hard to accept? If you refuse to accept that people can be good or bad because who are we to judge and stuff, and it isn't just black and white and stuff, can you see that calling all walls "bad" is more actually engaging in black and white divisions and ignoring the gray?
GaryB at 11:54AM on Aug 26th 2008
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Did you even read my post just before yours? Obama isn't sayig that all the world's walls must come down, or that all walls are bad. It's apparently tll sophisticated a position for you people. He's saying that the walls that seperate us from each other need to come down. Big difference. It's not literal, as much as you sad people seem to need it to be here for your silly rebuttal to work.
You just look like you're grasping at straws.
Saint Brian the Godless at 11:59AM on Aug 26th 2008
22. I think I see dinesh's point now. If a wall comes down and people are standing there to revel in its fall, they could be hurt. Imagine the tragedy of the collapse of even a small retaining wall next to a playground packed with children on a sunny day. Let alone the failure of a heavier, building-sized brick structure...if something like that fell on some people they could be badly hurt or killed. Thank god the great patriot John McCain does not want to tear down any walls. They're frickin' dangerous, my friends.
America's Most Gangsta at 12:04PM on Aug 26th 2008
23. In all seriousness, I agree with I think Brian, above there, who said that it's not about the actual physical wall-thingie, but the REASON WHY the wall had to be there in the first place.
For dd to actually analyze the wall itself betrays a staggeringly shallow thought process, and/or obvious strained agenda.
America's Most Gangsta at 12:05PM on Aug 26th 2008
24. This blog is stupid. DD is intentionally taking the "walls" thing in a way that it wasn't meant to be taken, like as in a real concrete wall, just to make it sound like a stupid idea when it's practically christlike in it's intent. It's a scurrilous lie. And christians lying to stop a good man from getting into office is a sin, no? So STOP IT. CUT THE SHIT AND GROW UP, DINESH!
Saint Brian the Godless at 12:06PM on Aug 26th 2008
25. 21. I think I see dinesh's point now. If a wall comes down and people are standing there to revel in its fall, they could be hurt. Imagine the tragedy of the collapse of even a small retaining wall next to a playground packed with children on a sunny day. Let alone the failure of a heavier, building-sized brick structure...if something like that fell on some people they could be badly hurt or killed. Thank god the great patriot John McCain does not want to tear down any walls. They're frickin' dangerous, my friends.
America's Most Gangsta at 12:04PM on Aug 26th 2008
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PRECISELY! THAT'S HOW THEY ARE *INTENTIONALLY* MISUNDERSTANDING IT!!!
This is a really lowlife tactic, Dinesh, even for you. And SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STUPID!
Saint Brian the Godless at 12:09PM on Aug 26th 2008
26. Obama's philosophy does not ring true though with the relativistic position the left has taken over the course of the past 2-3 decades.
Theirs is a belief system that doesn't respect another's rights to their walls, if indeed those walls aren't a detriment to other's (Israel comes strikingly to mind as such a detriment).
I don't see how Obama can reconcile this with his "down with walls," if it is not simply pragmatic.
What do the Obama supporters here have to say? Once again I am clarifying to state that I would really like to know. I cannot remotely claim an expertise in regard to his viewpoints, any extrapolation is welcome.
oneblood at 10:57AM on Aug 26th 2008
Really? As a member of 'the left', by default really, I'm always shocked to hear from the right what I believe.
I thought the 'walls' in this speech were figurative, I don't think he's refering to various brick and mortar constructions throughout the world, rather the fear inducing xenophobic sense of other that infects much of the world, that the right wing seems to not only promote but relish in(yeah I Know I'm telling you what you believe now. I'm basing it on the guy who writes this blog.)
tmo at 12:13PM on Aug 26th 2008
27. DD, you have to understand the difference between a wall and a fence. Wall signifies arrogance, isolation and contempt for the neighbors, while a fence gently conveys the property boundaries and the need for privacy. There are communities that live in harmony without a wall or a fence. Walls foster paranoid suspicions, hatred and animosity while the picket fences or any other fences for that mater are only a gentle reminder of where your property boundaries are.
It seems to me that in the last eight years USA has arrogantly tried to trespass into others territories without regard to their sovereignty or the approval of the world community. Bush and the administration has acted on the principle of "Might is Right". This has sowed some world wide resentment towards America and the Americans. Barack Obama is talking about the world before "Bush" the bad boy in the block who is creating a need for walls between nations. Internally it is costing us a lot in young lives and to our economy.
R Shanker at 12:18PM on Aug 26th 2008
28. Jesus said to turn the other cheek...
Now if you turn the other cheek, you might get whiplash if you do it too hard, and what if they slap that one too? Do you turn the *other* cheek again, presenting the first one that was already slapped? This could go on all day.
He also said to love others as you love yourself. Now, what if you have a very low self-image and hate yourself? Is this a divine licence to hate all other people as well? Makes no sense, is all...
And what about "That which you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me?" Apparently if Jesus isn't actually related to the person, he doesn't care how you treat them!
Of course, by saying "love thy neighbor" he is saying that it's okay to hate people that don't happen to live near you.
Oh, and "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" means that if you happen to be a masochist it's okay to kidnap a stranger and torture them as you like to be tortured...
And when he said "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven" he meant that if you're rich enough you can have someone make a really, really huge needle, and get into heaven on a loophole.
The above are examples of how the right distorts Obama's words. I just chose someone closer to *your* hearts as an example. Or at least you claim that you love Jesus; with you people it's hard to tell when you're lying and when you're not. You certainly don't follow his examples at all. I guess you think that just using his name is enough to get you all in, huh?
Saint Brian the Godless at 12:25PM on Aug 26th 2008
29. Even listening to Pink Floyd on acid, one could reasonably be expected to see the figurative nature of walls, and how it's a positive message for us to not need them.
double-dope
America's Most Gangsta at 12:35PM on Aug 26th 2008
30. In the Rick Warren event, both candidates were asked what to do about evil.
Obama had the right answer. We have to deal with it, but with humility. That way we won't be thinking that we're doing good when we're actually doing evil. (Think: Iraq)
McCain had the kindergarten answer. "Defeat it!" Gee, of course defeat it, but if you don't think about what you're doing you might just try to "defeat evil" by making another blunder like Iraq. (Think: Iran) Which decision McCain *agreed* with, if I recall. The black-and-white answer is preferable to simpletons, but the real answer was the one that Obama gave. That was the adult response.
Saint Brian the Godless at 12:37PM on Aug 26th 2008