The Audacity of Pragmatism
Obama has a choice between leftist posing and smart, political compromise. Which one do you honestly expect him to choose?
July 9, 2008--"Lurching with abandon," New York Times columnist Bob Herbert said this week of Barack Obama—lurching to the right, that is. Of late, Obama has thrown his left-leaning supporters for a loop by promising, for example, to continue the faith-based initiatives of the Bush administration, voting for the continuation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act procedures that the administration has defended so cagily and defending the Supreme Court's vote in support of gun possession.
To Herbert, Obama is "zigging with the kind of reckless abandon that's guaranteed to cause disillusion."
Well, not in me.
There has evidently been a naïve hope among many that Obama would venture to run the country along the lines of his hard-left voting record in the Senate. It's interesting that they would presume this of a candidate who has given all indication of having high intelligence.
What has excited me about Obama is his sincere interest in splitting the difference between competing interests. The last time I checked, the rest of his fans were on the same bandwagon— "unity" and such.
It looks like many of these people thought bringing the nation together would mean making conservatives more liberal. The trouble with that notion is that there have been plenty of mistakes from both sides of the aisle in recent history, and so bringing the nation together, to the extent that this can happen, will mean making liberals more conservative, as well.
Obama, it seems, has the guts to act on that simple truth. Take his support for the Bush administration's faith-based initiatives. Hallelujah: The program funds neighborhood churches to help inner-city people turn their lives around. Aren't both conservatives and liberals concerned about such people?
Liberal opponents of the faith-based program have complained that some of the funded organizations discriminate by hiring on the basis of religion—but religion is, after all, the core of such organizations' identities. Funny how some of those complaining have no problem with discriminatory aspects of affirmative action, and yet they are suddenly spit-and-polish martinets when it comes to the boundary between church and state—even when the lives of poor, under-served and religiously devout people are at stake.
The college-town/Starbucks wing of the Obama fan base is, by and large, a secular crowd. Poor black and brown people, however, are not. To them, the church has a different meaning than to those for whom devout faith conjures up visions of Jerry Falwell.
Obama knows that change inner-city folk can believe in will include shunting resources to poor churches, regardless of whether doing so happens to be associated, because of historical happenstance, with Republicans. Fans who fail to understand that this is precisely what "bringing the country together" may require are recruiting Obama as a self-affirming symbol of protest, rather than supporting him for a job that requires acting in the world as it actually is.
The hue and cry over Obama's support for renewing the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is more of the same. Obama has made clear that he has supported the current bill not because he would have written it as it is, but because keeping a less-than-perfect surveillance procedure in place would be better than letting it lapse after the end of the summer.
He would get down to rewriting the bill if elected, as he has also stipulated. But for now, he has ranked the gesture of sticking his finger in President Bush's eye below acknowledging the fact that there are terrorists who would like to kill more of us, and that we need even the imperfect bill in place to avert this.
Politics is about pragmatism and compromise—even for leftists, even for black ones.
Obama has a choice between righteous poses and getting elected. Many apparently would prefer that he chose the former. But leaders who are intellectual, charming and inspirational can also be politicians—in fact, they'd better be if they want to get into the White House.
Take Obama's support of the Supreme Court's recent defense of the right to bear arms. The ruling leaves cities' anti-gun policies virtually intact. Obama knows that striking a leftist pose over this issue would likely alienate segments of the white working-class whose votes he needs to become president. Why the surprise as to what choice he made?
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The Audacity of Pragmatism
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View All Comments »jdylan at 07/12/2008 11:57:34 PM
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There is no room for "consistent support" in a democratic nation. That support is only for Kings who order it; for soldiers who's greatest virtue is obedience above all else. The people of this country are not soldiers, they are citizens, Kings who decide who shall be in their court. And if a King finds a member of his court has in fact misrepresented his positions he removes him. We, as Kings, must and will always maintain our freedom to change our minds should new information present itself. People are now seeing what I've known since first hearing and reading Obama's naive words of hope and change.
Hope is used as a weapon against the weak who still believe they have no control over their lives. Hope torments those by telling the weak they are weak. Then the weak ask those who are strong, the one's who have no need of hope because they are men of action, to help the weak become the strong. Hamlet was correct when he asked "to be or not to be." Those who hope choose not to be. Hope is truly a slave morality; recalcitrance.
Obama's calling for "change" is nothing but a false ideology which he proves with his now pragmatic approach; reality can not be denied. In order for change to occur the bickering ideologies of the right and left must be destroyed, which they can not. They are like Siamese twins; born at the same time and if you kill one they both die. If a man cuts off one of his arms, he is then a man with only one arm. And even more foolish if the man then realizes it is the center, the head, which controls the arms. The independents and independent thinkers decide who the President will be. Obama is fully aware of this, but has already been seen to much as a liar to make it count.
thevegasstyleguy at 07/12/2008 3:16:17 PM
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Obama said he was "different" now he's "pragmatic". C'mon, would so many people have voted for him if they knew he was for FISA? How many gays would have voted for him knowing he wants to triple faith based funding. How many anti-war folks would have voted for him if they knew he was going to think about the situation before making any changes in the current plans? How many military families or Muslims would have voted for him if they knew the "pragmatic" O wouldn't want them sitting behind him on stage or attend town hall meetings with the republican candidate in military towns.
Talking outta both sides of his neck.
jdylan at 07/12/2008 3:50:48 AM
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Pragmatism vs. ideology? It amazes me that this is still a question. Since when have ideals been anything other than a rope with which to hang oneself. Ideals do not discuss options or choices or examine outcomes; they solicit followers. They say that they are the one and only option, the only path. Ideals find themselves to the far left and the far right equally. Ideals lie by saying that a theory is indisputable fact. Example; Jesus is your savior. The true pragmatist asks, "what free man ever needed to be saved? And from what other than ideals?"
To understand the center of the continuum America, the independent thinkers have and always will be the deciders of elections, is to be an expert on pragmatism. An understanding that the best paths are to be found in any given situation, not to always use the same path in every situation. Pragmatism is truly an ability to adapt. It finds its root in survival of the fittest. Any nation that lacks this kind of adaptability is destined to fall, along with the whole of humanity should we all become idealistic. One must be superior to his ideals, must learn to throw the square block away should it not fit in the round hole. But ideology doesn't find its only enemy is pragmatism, but also liberty, freedom and consciousness; reality itself.
To have one ideal is better than having two. To have more than one is to have a war of ideals with in oneself. They will always fight for superiority in the self to become the one and only ideal. It is best if one's ideal is pragmatism; supreme freedom is always the best ideal.
It's to bad only a few will be able to understand what I've written here. One would have to know and understand Nietzsche. A recent poll stated that 92% of Americans believe in a god, so I would say less than 8% will see the truth in the dangers of ideals. The chains it binds a person with.
Because of what I just stated this election comes down to the lesser of two evil yet again. Until the candidate which acknowledges the overwhelming possibility that there is not one god but perhaps as many gods as there are people will there be one truly worthy of my vote. Are not all views of god interpretations, hence many gods? And as for candidates who actually have stepped across the isle, put away there left or right ideology, McCain has at least shown some pragmatism.