What Obama’s Inaugural told me about His Immigration Policy

With all his rhetorical might, Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address endeavored to pull the country back into the realm of the rule of law.  Although this sisyphusian task will require a great deal more work than rhetoric, this is where it starts and already perhaps this indicates a reverse of course. It certainly feels good to see the new president playing to his strength and using his force of his words to serve notice on the planet that the false choice between security and liberty is over and the constitution has returned.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.  Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.  Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.  And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born:  know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

 Similarly, Obama also served notice that

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, not does it entitle us to do as we please.  Instead they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

Such is his attack on the sovereignist approach to power that is derisive of the rule of law. Obama reminds us that such power is doomed because it is discordant with the “justness of our cause, the force of our example.” Obama here is referring to the integrity of our institutions in their treatment of individuals when integrity is measured against the American character which is recognizes is rooted in the immigrant and slave experience.

Obama also reclaimed the immigrant basis for its own identity, appealing to the small town in Congo where his father was born.  The ideal for Obama is to be found in the immigrant experience.

His use of the immigrant experience in this speech is anathama to the immigrant control system that has been developed over the past eight years.   Put simply, Obama entered office with a strong commitment to end the injustices experienced under the Bush Administration.

It seems clear that an Obama Administration will use much different tropes when framing the immigrant.  than the ones the country has been forced to endure under Bush.  The question I have is whether this is enough of a commitment to actually reverse course, given the inordinant amount of government resources already exhausted on immigration control.  Keep in mind his address bore no refere3nce to immigration reform; it spoke of cleaning up other messes in concrete terms but his references to immigration were vague and abstract.  America’s greatness lies in its immigrant past; its character built on the backs of immigrants and slaves.  But will his appreciation of immigration translater into concrete policies that reverse the Bush abuses of power?   It remains to be seen if the President’s attack on sovereign approaches to power will translate into concrete efforts to extend constitutional law into the immigration field. 

Michelle Obama: Race and Post-Racism

Michelle Obama had an impossible task last evening. Her job was to bridge the huge gap between modernity and its still festering wounds of racism, and post modernity where racism and race for that matter are signifiers of things no longer relevant.  Barack has the same challenge which, admit it or not, makes winning this november more difficult than we like to admit.

First, let me agree with Olbermann and suggest that Michelle was brilliant. Now, here’s the challenge.  Michelle’s objective was to 1) sell America on the possibility of having an African-American first family in the White House. This task supposes a modernist America that remains muddied in the racist waters of the not too distant past in terms of law and the very real presence in terms of every day realities. As commentators suggested last evening and this morning, Michelle needed to convince America that the Obama’s were not “the Other.” Something unsettling about having mainstream media discussing and even judging whether the Obama family (a black family) “deserves” or should be considered eligible to be treated like a “white” first family.  I don’t think Cindy McCain will be expected to give this sort of speech.

2) second, has to do with a “post racial” America,  the idea that many people associate with barack’s candidacy.  As the idea applies to Michelle’s speech, she needed to show america that the Obama’s are no different than any other American family.  As unsettling as the first task was, this one strikes a different chord: on the one hand it is such a “no-brainer” as to challenge commentators to say anything at all that is not incredibly stupid or blatantly racist. And is there not something incredibly patronizing about forcing the Obama’s into the white fantasy of a color blind country? You see, the thing about post-racism is that it plays out on two different fields: one is the field of mainstream media fixating on the faux notion that if Obama gets elected, then, fantastically, racism becomes a thing of the past.  Obama’s bio happens to represent the more complex notion of post-race and post-racism.  This is the idea that Obama is mixed race, and is only considered black or african american because of the binary categories established and maintained by mainstream culture.  It is my guess the Obama’s would rather challenge America to think about the latter category of post-race; but last, evening, Michelle was forced into the “black and white” version of the term.

Finally, as much as the Obama’s face an incredible test over the next 70 days or so, I believe the real test lies with the american voter who must answer some vital questions about american identity in the 21st century.

Barack Should Speak Out Against Denver’s Free Speech Cages!’

As Vietnam vet and hero Ron Kovic has discovered this week in Denver, even when Democrats are nominating a constitutional scholar and civil libertarian like Barack Obama for president, there remain a great many limits on a person’s right to tell Obama and other Party leaders what they are thinking.

Consider the thousands of protesters who will be separated from the 4,000 delegates by a distance of some 400 feet and by chicken wire and chain link fencing.

Late last month, a dozen organizations concluding the ACLU and American Friends Service Committee filed suit against the US Secret Service, The city and county of Denver for infringing on the rights of protesters to engage on their free speech rights during the democratic convention. The ACLU asked for two things: 1) to compel the city to reveal information about the protest restrictions; 2) to rule the restrictions unconstitutional.

The Court (Judge Marica Kramer presiding) ruled the protesters had a right to know about the restrictions, but on the bigger issue, the court sided with the Secret Service, citing the “need for security” that trumps the right to protest.

Undeterred, Kovic led 1,000 protesters yesterday through downtown Denver. Their message? “Stop the torture, stop the war. That’s what we’re fighting for.” Luckily for Kovic and the other protesters, there were no arrests, but the convention had yet to begin.

Overall, the protestors, which include the group, “Recreate ‘68″ (Mark Cohen organizer) are protesting the following: 1) continued war funding; 2) threats to escalate war in Afghanistan; 3)corporate control of politics (ATT is biggest sponsor of the Denver convention).

The first two points are self explanatory. Obama agrees with them on the first point; there is some tension between his and their second point; and on the third point, Obama is almost as bad as the pro-corporate Republican party.

The real problem here is the appearance of a conflict of interest between ATT $$ in Denver and the recent vote, supported by Obama, on Telecom immunity. Personally, I’d like to be convinced this was a coincidence, but it would take some convincing.

My point here is twofold: 1) Obama is sympathetic to what the protestors have to say; 2) on the issues of disagreement, he is keenly on the record in favor of robust and open dialogue. (did he not want a Veep candidate who would reasonably disagree with him on issues?); 3) It would be in Obama’s interest to help ensure that the protestors are caged and separated from this important public forum.

Part of Obama’s new politics that is so alluring is his repeated cadence of overcoming such anachronisms of the old politics, such as free speech cages and other mechanisms of control that separate speakers from their fellow citizens.

Although Obama wasn’t party to the ACLU lawsuit, and he is not yet president, he is in a position of moral authority to begin to guide this important free speech debate.

 

 

 

Biden Wastes No Time

What a relief.

Biden is talking to Springfield Illinois and he wasted few moments before going after Bush-McCain.  First he talks about his own kitchen table talking about financial worries and says John McCain first has to decide which of his 7 kitchen tables to sit at before a conversation. From energy policy, to war in Iraq and perhaps even more important his emphasis on the American Dream and leadership, Biden is hitting all the issues… out of the park. 

Some lines:

“The reckoning is NOW” 

“These times require more than a good soldier, they require a wise leader.”

On McCain:  ”you can’t change america, when you say on the most important issue of the day, ‘I support George Bush.’”

On what he has seen in Obama: “learn about the strength of his mind and the quality of his heart.”  ”the Steel in his Spine.”

warms the heart.

Thanks JOE. We are glad you are here.