Last week, I intended to write my reflections on President Obama’s speech at the commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Instead, I offered my ambivalent thoughts on Obama on Syria. Summarized in my opening: “Two Cheers for Obama.” The potentially tragic decisions of the week overshadowed, in my mind, the enduring accomplishments and challenges of decades. Obama is not only threatening Assad. Assad is threatening Obama. A march to war overshadowed a poignant remembrance of this historic march of 1963.

I closed my reflections by expressing my fear that this overshadowing may become emblematic of the Obama presidency: significant work on jobs and freedom challenged by questionable military and national security adventures, including not only the potential attack on Syria, but also drone warfare and heightened domestic and international surveillance. Unlike the President’s full-throated critics on the left and the right, I am not convinced that his positions have been simply wrong. Yet, I too sense that there is a pattern here that is troubling, especially so since the ideals which Barack Obama embodies, symbolizes and has acted to fortify are of such crucial importance to the vigor and health of the American body politic, revealed in his speech commemorating the great civil rights march and its most powerful leader, Martin Luther King Jr.

Obama’s talk, like King’s, is not cheap. His words often act. He is the only man to have been elected President of the United States based on a speech, (William Jennings Bryant was nominated but not elected), and his speeches, in form as well as content, continue to be consequential. This was my hope when I watched and then read the text, despite recent events in Syria, and the possibility of an American attack. Obama’s words on jobs and freedom, and the people who marched on Washington, tell us something about who we are, where we are going, and by what means, and as I see it, even offer interesting insights into the Syrian dilemmas.

The speech revolved around an irony. While, Obama honored King and his eloquent rhetoric, he emphasized the more humble deeds of the many who came to Washington and gave the words substance.

“We rightly and best remember Dr. King’s soaring oratory that day, how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions; how he offered a salvation path for oppressed and oppressors alike. His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time.

But we would do well to recall that day itself also belonged to those ordinary people whose names never appeared in the history books, never got on TV. Many had gone to segregated schools and sat at segregated lunch counters. They lived in towns where they couldn’t vote and cities where their votes didn’t matter. They were couples in love who couldn’t marry, soldiers who fought for freedom abroad that they found denied to them at home. They had seen loved ones beaten, and children fire-hosed, and they had every reason to lash out in anger, or resign themselves to a bitter fate.”

The humble were in Obama’s telling the real heroes:

“Because they marched, a Civil Rights law was passed. Because they marched, a Voting Rights law was signed. Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else’s laundry or shining somebody else’s shoes. (Applause.) Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed, and Congress changed, and, yes, eventually, the White House changed. (Applause.)”

Leaders lead when they are pushed, Obama argues. The eloquence of leaders such as King, but also Obama himself, has power when it is empowered by social movement. Odd to hear the President argue this, a reading of leaders and activists that he also emphasized in his second inaugural, as he is preparing for acts of war that are not only unpopular, but seem to distract from his principal policy initiatives, as Robert Reich recently observed on his blog.

And in the speech, Obama argued the urgency of not being distracted, for, much is left to be done. From defending past gains, to completing the project:

“But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote, or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all, and the criminal justice system is not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails, it requires vigilance.” (Applause.)

He highlighted the legacy of the March by pointing to two courses of action. On justice – there is an urgency to push back reaction, to fight against those who would again limit access to the ballot and who accept growing inequalities and incarceration, and on jobs, there is an equal urgency grounded in the pursuit of happiness:

“For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal? This idea — that one’s liberty is linked to one’s livelihood; that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security — this idea was not new. Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms — as a promise that in due time, ‘the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance’.”

I have a dream, or at least I can imagine, a way out of the Syria dilemma, inspired by these words of the President. In terms of my last post moving from two cheers for Obama to three.

Under pressure of the social forces he celebrated in his address marking the fiftieth anniversary of the march on Washington, Obama works with world leaders to find a course of non-violent common action to responding to the atrocity of Assad’s chemical warfare. I admit that is probably a pipedream.

But alternatively, I can imagine very positive results of Congress turning down Obama’s request for authorization of the use of force in Syria. In his defeat Obama still will have expressed his strong response to the use of chemical weapons, and the need to find more diplomatic means to control Assad will become the order of the day.

It may cost Obama immediate political capital, but it may also help him more assuredly move American foreign policy in the direction he has long sought, that his words point to and can enable in the future. The state senator who spoke up against a stupid war, without democratic support, will have achieved his goal. The newly elected President who won his Nobel Prize for the perceived promise of changing the direction of the global hegemon, will get a boost from among others his most right-wing opponents. The Nobel Peace Laureate explained why war is a necessary evil to be avoided when possible, and this may come to pass. It will become harder for the President, as his aides now emphasize, to embark on military actions for the rest of his term, but it will also make it harder for future presidents to engage in such action without the approval of Congress and the American people. The result will be an American foreign policy that is more suited to the emerging global order, that is less militarized, and is more subject to democratic restraints. America will have turned an important corner: a tactical defeat for the President, but in the long run, a major strategic victory, a foreign policy that Martin Luther King Jr. and the marchers of ’63 would approve of, a foreign policy that makes it more likely that the struggle for jobs and freedom will move forward.

Coming out of my dream I still am deeply concerned, as is President Obama that those who would use chemical weapons against innocent civilians should not go unpunished and must be stopped. Obama’s obligation now, as he and his Democratic critics, such as Congressman Grayson, see it, is to make the case for military action against Syria disclosing all the purported evidence of its necessity. But those same critics, of the left and the right, must then work on effective non-violent action. I fear this is another pipedream.

Upwards of 100,00 people came to Washington last week to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. But they didn’t all come for the same event. Indeed there were so many things going on that there is no way to count how many people came for something. There were at least two marches and two celebrations at the Lincoln Memorial, as well as several exhibits, numerous conferences and conventions and a few protests. I went to many and took photos at several.

By August it seemed that everyone wanted a piece of the commemoration pie, but first out of the gate was an amateur without an institutional base. Van White is a civil rights attorney in Rochester NY whose late father frequently talked about going to the 1963 march. As much in memory of his father as anything else, early in 2012, White decided to replicate the march on the actual date, August 28, even though it was a Wednesday. That’s a hard day to draw a crowd, but about 10,000 people got up early to march 1.6 miles to the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

He filed for the ideal domain name in June of 2012 and requested the permits two months later. Once his webpage was up, he invited people to comment and get in touch; that’s how he found a couple dozen of the original marchers to lead his legacy walk the morning of August 28. He also ran a civil rights conference the day before, attended by about 150 people and staffed by a couple dozen students from Alabama State University (an HBCU in Montgomery) as a school history project.

White was going to do a presentation at the Lincoln Memorial, but the National Park Service nixed that idea. White eventually found out why; the White House wanted that spot on that day. He did get permits for his march, but only after the King Center did its best to kill it.

The King Center was created in Atlanta after Dr. King’s death to memorialize Dr. Martin Luther King and house some of his archives. As a family business, it has mirrored a lot of the family disputes. That may be why it didn’t file for a domain name until late in June of 2013, and had to settle for officialmlkdream50.com. For many months, anyone who googled variations of “March on Washington anniversary” to find out what was in the works got Van White’s webpage, not the “official” one.

To pull off an event the size of Reclaim the Dream, MLK III, the current CEO of the King Center, partnered with Brooklyn’s Al Sharpton and his National Action Network. NAN handled most of the logistics and the Rev. Al was the keynote speaker. While they wanted their event to be on Saturday, when ordinary working people could come, they didn’t want any competition. The old dogs didn’t like that new puppy, Van White, poaching on their territory. But he had his permits and wouldn’t go away.

As was true in 1963, organized labor provided major resources. Unions were about half of the official organizational sponsors and probably brought more than half of the participants to DC. All 500 bus parking spots at RFK stadium were filled on Saturday. The UAW alone paid for 106 buses. Other organizations sponsored buses, but their riders had to pay for their passage. Anyone who could get a spot on a union bus road for free and got fed along the way. Saturday’s speakers included a lot of union leaders. If a speakers list had been provided to the press or posted online I could do a count, but that never happened.

Since the speeches started early in the morning, anyone coming from far away had to travel all night or come early. Those that did found plenty to do. The DC Commemoration Committee held its own forum at the African-American Civil War Museum the preceding Tuesday. On Thursday and Friday the Coalition on Black Civic Participation held a two day training session for black youth at the National Education Association. Friday night an anti-war group lighted up the steps of the Lincoln Memorial until the U.S. Park Police made them move. That’s just a small sampling.

On Saturday both sides of the reflecting pool were packed with people. While there is no longer a count given out by any disinterested party, my guess is that there were about a hundred thousand people. A few hundred drifted across the street to see the exhibits at the “Freedom Festival,” but most just sat in the sun, watched the speakers on a large screen and waved their signs. Most of these came from the NAACP, whose logo appeared on at least half of the printed posters. Major themes were “End Racial Profiling” and “Justice for Trayvon Martin.” The march that began when the speeches ended was an anti-climax. Led by bigwigs and mounted US Park Police, the crowd walked pass Dr. King’s statue to disperse at the Washington Monument.

Wednesday’s commemoration was called Let Freedom Ring and featured a bell-ringing ceremony at 3:00, the hour of Dr. King’s 1963 speech. While bells were rung all over the country, the one placed at the Lincoln Memorial had once been at Birmingham’s 16^th St. Baptist Church, which was bombed on Sept. 15, 1963. President Obama spoke afterwards. In contrast to Saturday’s almost slapdash style, Wednesday’s event was carefully orchestrated and timed so that all the other speakers and entertainers finished right before 3:00. The weather was less predictable, with frequent light showers and only occasional sun. Despite the rain, people dribbled in. When the speeches began, there were only a few thousand members of the general public on either side of the reflecting pool. When the President spoke, both sides were full.

Those listed as sponsors of Wednesday’s “coalition” included more black organizations and few unions, but the Secret Service was the power behind them all. Access to the area between the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Monument was limited to press, staff and people with tickets. Press movement was severely restricted; audience tickets were given out to pre-selected people; umbrellas were removed when everyone went through the metal detectors; men stood on top of the Lincoln Memorial scanning the crowd with binoculars. For the final staging, when three Presidents and a first lady were on one side of the speaking level and members of the King family on the other, a three-panel bullet-proof screen was placed in front.

At this semi-centennial celebration of a protest march, there was something for everyone, from the President on down. The only thing I didn’t see, hear or read about were counter-protests.

I wonder if Cornell West ever has second thoughts.

At a “Poverty in America” forum held at George Washington University on January 17^th, West forcefully criticized Barack Obama for taking his oath of office at his second inauguration on Martin King Jr.’s bible. See below for a clip of West’s remarks.

West was sure and authoritative, as a self appointed spokesman for the oppressed, in the name of the oppressed, and their great leader, Martin Luther King Jr.:

“You don’t play with Martin Luther King, Jr. and you don’t play with his people. By his people, I mean people of good conscience, fundamentally good people committed to peace and truth and justice, especially the Black tradition that produced it.

All of the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing a Martin Luther King, Jr. generated a brother of such high decency and dignity that you don’t use his prophetic fire for a moment of presidential pageantry without understanding the challenge he represents to all of those in power regardless of what color they are.

The righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes a moment of political calculation. And that makes my blood boil. Why? Because Martin Luther King, Jr. died…he died…for the three crimes against humanity that he was wrestling with. Jim Crow, traumatizing, terrorizing, stigmatizing Black people. Lynching, not just ‘segregation’ as the press likes to talk about.

Second: Carpet bombing in Vietnam killing innocent people, especially innocent children, those are war crimes that Martin Luther King , Jr. was willing to die for. And thirdly, was poverty of all colors, he said it is a crime against humanity for the richest nation in the world to have so many of it’s precious children of all colors living in poverty and especially on the chocolate side of the nation, and on Indian reservations and Brown barrios and yellow slices and Black ghettos — we call them hoods now, but ghettos then.”

In great fury, West concluded to enthusiastic applause:

“When Barack Obama attempts to use that rich tradition of Frederick Douglas and Ida B. Wells-Barnett? Use the tradition of A. Phillip Randolph? Use the tradition of Rabbi Joshua Heschel? Use the tradition of Tom Hayden and so many others struggling to produce that voice that pushed Martin in the direction that it did? I get upset.”

Other speakers on the panel included Newt Gingrich and Jeffrey Sachs. Travis Smiley moderated. It must have been a great show, typical of a West performance.

I saw the video before the inauguration and Obama’s second inaugural address, tipped off by an approving Facebook friend. I thought immediately that the performance was appalling, a clear example of what I find most problematic in political life. West confuses his interpretation of the King legacy with the truth. He and his approving audience hold one interpretation. Surely, there are others. But the vehemence of West’s conclusion, his absolute assurance that he holds the truth, doesn’t allow for this.

I happen to disagree with West’s reading of King, and I was moved by the fact that Obama took his oath on King’s and Lincoln’s bibles. I see great powerful symbolism in this, a political leader commits himself to the legacy of the predecessor he most admires, and he commits himself to the legacy of the social movement leader he most admires, Martin Luther King Jr., who pushed Lincoln’s legacy most forcefully in the direction of civil rights and social justice. I was outraged that West, in effect, dismissed this reading, which I think is at least as powerful as his. But generally because I judge West’s theatrics to be a playful sideshow, I didn’t feel compelled to write about it. I listen to and read West regularly, often disagree. So it goes.

Yet now, after observing and thinking deliberately about inauguration, and Obama’s address, I feel compelled to speak up, because an important issue is involved, concerning the relationship between official power and the power of criticism, between the power of the state and the power of social movements, between Obama and his critics on the left.

It turns out that Obama gave a full-throated progressive speech. He pushed forward his long term project of moving the center left, of shifting political commonsense. He used the power of the presidential bully pulpit at the event in which that pulpit it most powerful. He used a supreme opportunity, the high holiday of America’s civil religion, to identify himself and the American public with the legacy of King and the civil rights movement, linking that legacy with the women and gay rights movements,

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

Obama also spoke precisely against an over militarized state: “We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.” And he centered himself and the nation on the issue of equality, opening with reflections on the Declaration of Independence and going on later asserting:

“We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.  We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.”

Obama, in effect, spoke to the legacies of King according to West, doing so as the significant political leader, statesman, that he is. Yet, perhaps West or the critical reader will note that the words are not always followed by deeds. I agree, but by uttering the words Obama sets clear and identifiable grounds for critical judgment of state action. He, in fact, is legitimating the criticism.

Political leaders, social movement leaders and public intellectuals play different roles. All are necessary. I wonder why so many on the left don’t get this. Perhaps Brother Cornell, as he might have me call him, is having second thoughts.

I hope so because I think that Obama is a great, though far from perfect, president, who promises much more, and that it should be the role of his critics to push him to do so. Talk of the middle class should be accompanied by clearly addressing the problems of poverty in America. Transforming American foreign policy, recognizing the normative and practical limits of military force (to be examined in detail in a future “in depth” post), needs to include a public examination of drone warfare, setting clear limits. The beautiful and challenging words of the inaugural address on climate change have to be followed my meaningful legislation and changes in policy.

My hope for the left: to paraphrase the great union leader Joe Hill (“don’t mourn organize”): don’t perform, seriously criticize and demonstrate. In this way, as Obama pushes the center left, which he clearly did in his first term and in his second inaugural address, he can be pushed further.

By the way, this is how I understand the success of the activism of Occupy Wall Street, and spectacularly the success of LGBT movement in the first term, culminating in the powerful words in the inaugural address:

“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law  –- (applause) — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  (Applause.)”

Obama wouldn’t have said this, he wouldn’t have understood it, without a powerful social movement pushing him. With this in mind, in tomorrow’s post, we will publish a report on the protests in Washington at the time of the inauguration.

By electing its first African American, bi-racial president, America redefined itself. Barack Obama’s singular achievement has been, and will be for the ages, his election, and his confirming re-election. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. It colors all aspects of Obama’s presidency, as it tends to be publicly ignored. Today, at Obama’s second inauguration, he will highlight his and our achievement, as he will take his oath of office on the bibles of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.

Of course, Obama is not just a pretty dark face. He has a moderate left of center political program. He is a principled centrist. He is trying to transform the American center, moving it to the left, informing commonsense, changing the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, re-inventing American political culture. This will clearly be on view in today’s speech.

Obama has changed how America is viewed in the larger world, as he has slowly but surely shifted American foreign policy, ending two wars, developing a more multilateral approach, reforming the American military in a way that is more directed to the challenges of the 21^st century. I should add: I am disappointed with some of this, particularly concerning drone warfare (more on this in a later piece). The President has finally established the principle of universal healthcare as a matter of American law, putting an end to a very unfortunate example of American exceptionalism. Another dark side of American life, the centrality of guns and gun violence in our daily lives, is now being forthrightly addressed by the President. His second term promises to address climate change in a way that has been foreclosed by the Republican opposition to this point. And he will almost certainly lead the country in a more tolerant and progressive approach to immigration and citizenship for undocumented Americans.

He has accomplished a big fuckin’ deal, as Vice President Biden declared in an unguarded moment following the passage of Obamacare (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and today has been underscored by one of Obama’s primary critics from the left, Paul Krugman, the Nobel prize winning economist and New York Times columnist.

But in my judgment it all exists in the context of the redefinition of what it means to be an American. He now represents the typical American. His is the face of America and many of those who felt excluded, and not only African Americans, now feel that they are full citizens.  Take a look at this open public letter from a gay family attending the ceremonies today.

Lincoln turned the “Declaration of Independence” into a sacred text, when he redefined it in the Gettysburg Address. “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”  He elevated the ideal of equality, reinterpreting the significance of the “Declaration,” turning equality into a central political value. In the same way, Obama has redefined the significance of the motto on the American seal E pluribus unum, “out of many one,” into a central commitment to the diversity of national origins, religious, commitments, racial and ethnic identities and sexual orientations, elevating diversity, a central empirical fact of American society, into a central normative commitment, to be celebrated and cultivated. I anticipate that the theme of equality and diversity will animate his speech.

Now I listen to the speech and respond:

Extraordinary. More than I could have hoped, though I expected a lot. Comprehensive, principled, visionary, clearly setting out a (left of center) path for the country, embedded within a history, distant and recently passed. There was a noteworthy opening, centered on equality and diversity in American history. He engaged the politics of the day – climate change (with striking prominence), Social Security and Medicare, immigration, and women and gay rights -along the way, but it was the central vision that I found most powerful.

The audience was large and enthusiastic, fervently waving the American flag, red, white and blue, with resulting purple waves of enthusiasm. And Obama worked with this, presenting his vision that would unite, the liberal blue and the conservative red, moving the country in a progressive and more inclusive direction. Obama’s words soared.

He concluded with a series of paragraphs repeating the phrase “we the people.”

“We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity…

“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity…

“We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war…

“We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law…

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.”

Obama addressed many policy issues, surprising instant pundits. But what was most noteworthy to me is that he did it by building upon and returning to his greatest accomplishment. It was a speech built upon the power of American diversity and outlined how this diversity will be used to address the pressing problems of the day, and as this happens, the United States stands as a city on a hill for others to observe and learn from. At least, this is the very ambitious promise of Obama’s second term.

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day and I am thinking about the Obama Presidency. I reject the simpleminded criticisms of Obama in the name of King, such as those presented by Cornell West. I think we have to look closely at the political challenges the President has faced. In an earlier post, I assessed Obama’s political performance on the political economy working with a Democratic Congress. Today I consider his work with Republicans. I think it is noteworthy that he kept focus on long-term goals, even as he experienced ups and downs in the day-to-day partisan struggles. I believe he kept his “eyes on the prize.” Although King’s project is incomplete, Obama is, albeit imperfectly, working to keep hope alive. This is more apparent as Obama is now working against the Republicans, pushed by the winds of Occupy Wall Street, the topic for another day. It is noteworthy, though, that it was even the case during the less than inspiring events of the past year.

Responding to the Republican victories in the 2010 elections, the President had to face a fundamental fact: elections do indeed have consequences. While his election provided the necessary mandate for his economic policies and for healthcare reform, the Republican subsequent gains in the House and Senate, leading to a smaller majority for the Democrats in the Senate and the loss of the House, empowered the Republican calls for change in policies. And, even though divided government became a reality and gridlock was the basic condition, action was imperative. The sluggish economy, long-term budget deficits and the debt ceiling defined the agenda after the bi-election. The approaches of the Republicans and the Democrats could not have been more different.

Obama had a choice, to fight the Republicans head on, or to try to accommodate the new political situation and seek compromise. He chose compromise. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it particularly successful as a political tactic.

The Republicans made clear that their first priority was to turn Obama into a one-term president, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell infamously put it. With this opposition, Obama faced a dilemma between the demands of an ethics of responsibility and the demands of the ethics of ultimate ends, as Max Weber would have put it. Trying to be responsible, led to mixed results. The Bush tax cuts were extended, as were unemployment insurance and the payroll tax cut. And while there was no government default, as Tea Party Republicans seemed to seek, as they held the government hostage to an increase in the debt ceiling, they did successfully veto a grand compromise on the deficit that Speaker Boehner and Obama negotiated.

The President appeared ineffective and weak. He seemed to negotiate poorly, giving more to his opposition than they gave to him. He seemed to lack core principles: accepting Republican and Tea Party deficit and debt priorities. The substance and theatrics of his performance disappointed his supporters, left and center, confirmed the convictions of his opponents on the right.

Most of my academic friends, and, I imagine, most of the readers of Deliberately Considered, have been disappointed, convinced that on one issue after another Obama followed rather than led. The Republicans pushed him around. As he pursued, in the eyes of many on the left, Bush-lite policies in foreign affairs in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond, and on human rights and national security (I promise more on that in a future post), he seemed to be at best a moderate Republican on the political economy.

Centrists also saw a problem. For them, form was more important than content.  He seemed weak, as he was trying to move to the center and appeal to moderates. I remember a brief conversation I had with a neighbor. He proudly explained to me that he was a person who voted for the man, not the Party. He had voted for Obama in 2008, for Kerry in 2004, Bush in 2000, and now he was against Obama. Obama is ineffective, doesn’t lead, and doesn’t deserve another term, in my neighbor’s opinion. We need someone who gets things done during these hard times, a leader, not an amateur who is in over his head.

My neighbor knew where I stood. We were chatting across from my car, which already had a re-election sticker on it. He, on that summer day, didn’t know who he was for, but knew who he was against. This meeting was before the primary season. I assume that my neighbor is now a less than enthusiastic supporter of Governor Romney, hoping that the Governor doesn’t mean some of the things that he is now saying, mirroring die-hard conservative distrust of the Massachusetts moderate.

As I have already indicated here, I think my friends on the left don’t understand the nature of Obama’s political stance, a principled centrist trying to move the center left, in terms of today’s holiday, mainstreaming King’s dream of social justice. I also think that they, along with centrist skeptics, don’t appreciate the President’s continued commitment to civility in public life.

There is an unrecognized tactical dilemma. The moderates want him to reach out to left, right and center and address pressing problems, but when he does, they think he is weak, following, not leading. He is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t.

Although this was, to a large extent, a no win situation, presenting impossible tactical difficulties, I do recognize that Obama didn’t handle the situation very well. As a supporter, I often want him to be more cunning in his negotiations with the Republicans. I feel that he should be tougher in negotiations, clearer in expressing his core convictions. Nonetheless, I think it is also important to understand what the long-term challenges were and recognize how tactical performance ultimately was less important than the pursuit of long-term strategy and goals. It is notable that Obama’s commitment to his ultimate ends, King’s dream of justice, in the political economy has been quite steady. And as far as tactics, I am not sure that a tougher stance toward the Republicans would have a achieved better results, though I know it would have felt better for many, including me.

The President’s long-term view and commitments were on clear view, appropriately in his last State of the Union Address, as I pointed out at the time.

The President offered a balanced approach. He recognized that Republican concerns about deficits were serious and accepted the proposition that cutting spending had to be a part of the long-term goal of reducing deficits, but he underscored that in doing so “…let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.”

He engaged a political debate with Republicans on their terms, accepting the problem of the deficit as a priority, but he emphasized the continued need for public investments in education, alternative energy sources and public infrastructure, in transportation and communications. He supported tax reform, including the lowering of corporate taxes, and he spoke about free trade, but he emphasized what he asserted were the accomplishments of his first two years in office, specifically health care reform. He proposed cutting dramatically discretionary spending, but he also called for the end of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The speech included calls for investment and reduced deficits, intelligently focused, clear moves to recognize the interests of his opposition, but without giving up on his fundamental commitments.

I think it is striking how last year’s State of the Union address summarizes the course Obama has followed through the year. This includes both the attempt to find common ground with Republicans, which led to great tension and minimal accomplishment, avoiding the worse, but not much more, and also his move to a more confrontational approach, specifically as it has to do with jobs and caring for the least fortunate. He has held a steady position, and now has the initiative – I think importantly with the help of Occupy Wall Street.

The economy improved a bit this year, but many still suffer. Obama presented a balanced approach, strikingly different from what the Republicans offer and he has been able to pursue this approach despite sustained opposition empowered by a major social movement, The Tea Party. But as that movement seems to be weakening and with the presence of another social movement, OWS, pushing the issues of social justice and inequality onto the public agenda, Obama is moving forward.

When I look at his tactical moves, in the day to day attempt to govern with the Republicans, I worry, sharing concern with his critics on the left that he has not been the real deal and his moderate critics that he has not been an effective leader, but over all in the long run, it seems to me that people have rushed to their negative judgments. Obama achieved a great deal in his first two years and has managed to minimize the damage of the last year, and is now poised to move forward. More on that in my next post.

In our dour moment in which citizens of all stripes are taking to the streets, the plazas, and the parks, we see accusing placards, but no persuasive manifestos. As sociologist William Gamson has pointed out, the first step is to demonstrate an “injustice frame” as a precursor to action. Point taken, but it is a start.

Despite their manifold and manifest differences, the polyester Tea Party and the scruffy Occupy Wall Street protests have at least this in common: palpable anger and resentment. We feel at the mercy of distant puppet masters, and elites in pinstripes and in gowns have much to answer for.

Neither the Partiers nor the Occupiers are wrong to recognize the sway of elites, even if they are not sufficiently aware of those powers that stand behind their own movements: David Koch, the Alliance for Global Justice, and FreedomWorks. Anti-elites are the playthings of the powerful.

Yet, despite their backers, both the Partiers and the Occupiers are solidly 99%’ers. Both radicals of the left and upstarts of the right think that there is not so much difference between the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration. The oil establishment and the financial services establishment could share breakfast of caviar and champagne, discussing whether their interests are better served by this president or the last one. Peasants with pitchforks are on no guest lists, whether they dress in denim or dacron. Despite partisan bickering, it is easy to feel that on the basic issues of security and capital the gap between competing establishments is small. I am struck by how little fundamental restructuring, hope and change has brought. The same powers will control health care, energy development, and financial services.

The fatal illusion of the Tea Party Movement is that America could have a smaller government, without programs cut, and more freedom, by allowing those with control to have less oversight. The Tea Partiers treasure the idea of a stripped down government, but what they call for is a government that provides largess without controlling that largess. A sincere Tea Party would be talking about slashing safety nets and insuring that small businesses can compete against corporations that, in effect, operate as governments. The Tea Party supports in fact a conservative movement whose desires are sure to permit few of its dreamy members to enter that one-percent. (At least the collegiate corner of Occupy Wall Street movement has a few budding oligarchs in their midst). The grievances are real, but blurred, and the solution of freezing government spending at past levels is dishonest in its unwillingness to make tough choices about programs.

The Occupy Wall Street collective also has its illusions. Are they socialists, naïfs, the distraught, or simply leeches? Whichever it is, they too smell rotten fish. In order to establish a movement – a congregation of collegiate radicals, union members, and impoverished minorities – these occupiers of tiny bits of public space drew a cartoonish enemy: the super wealthy fat cat, erasing the class fractions of Barbra Streisand, David Koch, Glenn Beck, Oprah, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. And they are right in that each, despite varied political positions, demands social stability, governed by those wise oligarchs that they prefer.

But something essential is missing. It is what George H. W. Bush ineptly, if memorably, called the “vision thing.” I have observed a South Carolina Tea Party rally and a Washington OWS encampment, and in both cases, I was struck by an absence of a call to greatness. Consequential leaders – Kennedy, Reagan, King, Bush in the days after 9/11, and campaigner Obama – have persuaded us that we are a city on a hill, imbued with destiny. Effective movements begin in grievance, but end in achievement. Ultimately, neither group has a vision of America transformed, bathed in golden light. Who speaks for a revived America in which we reconsider our institutions? It is easy to ask for more and cheaper student loans, a safety net for home buyers, banks that can never fail, and Medicare for everyone, all on the cheap. But will this produce a robust nation? Anger is a tonic whose bitter tang is but a jolt. To last, an infusion of communal faith is what matters. The Partiers and the Occupiers taste a jangly, acrid past; what they need is to brew a chamomile future.

As a rule, we do not post on weekends. But because of the rapidly approaching hurricane and the likelihood of a power outage, I offer today these thoughts inspired by Michael Corey’s last Deliberately Considered post, celebrating the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial on the Washington Mall, and by Cornel West’s op.ed. piece criticizing the Memorial and Barack Obama in yesterday’s New York Times. -Jeff

I am not a big fan of Cornel West. I liked and learned from his book The American Evasion of Philosophy, but most of his other books and articles involve, in my judgment, little more then posturing and preaching to the converted (I in the main am one of them). He does not take seriously the challenges political life presents. As he shouts slogans, cheers and denounces, I am not sure that he persuades. His and Travis Smiley’s ongoing criticism of President Obama seem to me to be first personal, then political, more the work of celebrity critics than critical intellectuals. That said, I think West’s op.ed. piece has a point, though not as it is directed against Obama and against the importance of symbolism.

“The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy…

As the talk show host Tavis Smiley and I have said in our national tour against poverty, the recent budget deal is only the latest phase of a 30-year, top-down, one-sided war against the poor and working people in the name of a morally bankrupt policy of deregulating markets, lowering taxes and cutting spending for those already socially neglected and economically abandoned. Our two main political parties, each beholden to big money, offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule.”

This is unserious. The two parties are very different, and Obama has clearly been trying to address the needs of the socially and economically abandoned in his battle against the Republicans and so called moderate Democrats in Congress: on healthcare policy, financial regulation and jobs. A debt default would not only have hurt Wall Street and Main Street businesses. It would have profoundly affected the poor and working people for whom West and Smiley claim to be speaking. Perhaps, Obama doesn’t negotiate in the most effective way. Perhaps, he has given in more than was required. But to assert that the two parties “offer merely alternative versions of oligarchic rule,” is to ignore crucial realistic differences.

Certainly Obama is not a revolutionary, as West imagines he should be, following his particular vision of the King legacy. But, the office of the President is not where social revolutionaries are likely to be found. Revolutions and their revolutionaries, as West, Obama, King and I would agree, are usually elsewhere, particularly in the sustained actions of social movements. They push Presidents, as Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement pushed Lyndon Baines Johnson, and President Kennedy before him.

West blames Obama for one important social movement, The Tea Party. The most eloquent of politicians, in West’s judgment, has failed in his primary story telling responsibility.

“The absence of a King-worthy narrative to reinvigorate poor and working people has enabled right-wing populists to seize the moment with credible claims about government corruption and ridiculous claims about tax cuts’ stimulating growth. This right-wing threat is a catastrophic response to King’s four catastrophes; its agenda would lead to hellish conditions for most Americans.”

Yet, the Tea Party is a radical response to the narrative of inclusion and opportunity that Obama forcefully has presented in his campaign and during his Presidency. The consequential fight against the Tea Party narrative cannot come primarily from the President, as I have analyzed in an earlier post. The fight has had to come from a social movement. Strong opponents of the Tea Party, like West, need to take the movement seriously and need to go beyond the leftist sentiment that whines about Obama’s failings. A movement has to directly oppose the Tea Party and push for different social values, a movement such as the one that seems to be developing since the pro worker confrontations in Madison, Wisconsin and beyond.

Here I agree with West that “extensive community and media organizing; civil disobedience; and life and death confrontations with the powers that be” are necessary. I just don’t understand why he imagines this as being something directed against Obama. It should, rather, push him on specific issues, and work against his significant opponents. Clearly, he is likely to bend in favorable ways, while the Republican alternative political leaders will likely continue to resist social change with all the power of the Tea Party behind them.

I also don’t get West’s concern about the symbolism of the new King memorial in DC. He seems to think that there is a choice between symbolism and substance and thinks that King was on substance’s side.

“King weeps from his grave. He never confused substance with symbolism. He never conflated a flesh and blood sacrifice with a stone and mortar edifice. We rightly celebrate his substance and sacrifice because he loved us all so deeply. Let us not remain satisfied with symbolism because we too often fear the challenge he embraced.”

Yet, King used symbols brilliantly, especially in his speeches, to achieve substantial goals. The monument doesn’t stand against substance, but contributes to the vocabulary of the alternative narrative that West calls for.

Words etched in stone, on the Washington Mall, at the symbolic center of the American Republic, as Michael Corey describes in his last post, provide the opportunity and inspiration for critical discussion such as West’s. He uses the symbolism of the inauguration of the monument to present his criticisms, but denies the importance of the symbol, revealing a limited self-awareness.

In the future, I am rather certain, there will be demonstrations, moving from the Lincoln Memorial, to the King Memorial, perhaps with activity as well at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Indeed, a walk around these places and discussion about the walk will enact and describe the alterative narrative to the Tea Party, as it most certainly will be inspired by King’s vision. And when President Obama takes part in the hurricane postponed official dedication of the monument in a few weeks, I won’t be surprised if he presents a compelling version of this narrative.

On Monday, August 22^nd, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial on the National Mall in Washington, D. C. was opened for visitors. The official dedication of the memorial was scheduled to take place on Sunday, August 28^th (indefinitely posted by Hurricane Irene), the 48^th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom before over 200,000 people. The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation notes that this is the first memorial on the National Mall “to honor a man of hope, a man of peace, and a man of color.” The memorial, according to the project’s mission statement, honors Dr. King for “his national and international contributions to world peace through non-violent social change.” A virtual tour of the memorial is available on the Foundation’s website.

The 120 million dollar memorial is located on the Tidal Basin adjacent to the FDR Memorial, and its line of sight connects it with the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials. The project was launched in 1996 when President Clinton signed a resolution to build a memorial in honor of Dr. King. Groundbreaking for the project took place on November 13, 2006. The origins of the idea for memorial is traceable to January, 1984, when George Sealy met with four fellow Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity brothers to develop a proposal for building a national King memorial.  As with most projects of this type, it origins were small and informal. It then had to proceed through numerous associational and institutional gates as public and private support for the project was developed. The bureaucratic and procedural steps involved were formidable; and the long process had many controversial elements, including its design, the selection of Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin, the use of Chinese granite, and the $800,000 of licensing fees charged to the Foundation by the King family for the use of Dr. King’s words and image in fundraising materials. McKissack & McKissack/Turner/Gilford/ Tompkins are the design-build team. All the principals are American, and many have strong connections with businesses owned by minorities and women, or are principals in these businesses.  Such are the backstage considerations.

Center stage is the memorial itself as it honors the man, his vision, his values, and his actions. A paragraph from the “I Have a Dream” speech inspired design elements:

“With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”

The entryway to the memorial is through two stone granite structures shaped like a mountain (the Mountain of Despair). Through it, visible on the horizon is a granite monolith (the Stone of Hope) symbolically separated from the mountain. The design emphasizes the monolithic struggle that has been taking place. As visitors approach the Stone of Hope, the following text from Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream speech” is chiseled, “Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope.” On the other side is a reflective comment by Dr. King, “I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness.”

It is out of the Stone of Hope that Dr. King’s likeness is sculpted looking out over the Tidal Basin. The gaze is intended to share a vision of the future for which citizens strive to achieve justice and equality. Connected with the Mountain of Despair is a 450-foot curved inscription wall which features fourteen quotes from Dr. King. The quotes were selected to act as a platform to contemplate messages about “Justice, Democracy, Hope and Love.” None of the quotes are taken from the “I Have a Dream” speech. Reasons given for not including elements from the speech are space limitations and a desire to share less well-known observations by Dr. King. The open elements of the memorial are enhanced by Yoshino cherry blossom trees which were a gift from Japan in 1912 and are meant to be a living sign of unity and peace. The foundation contributed another 182 cherry blossom trees. The trees blossom each year in the spring and the peak period for blossoming is around the same time of Dr. King’s assassination on April 4^th, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel, which is now the site of the National Civil Rights Museum. The motel as an artifact of a tragic event still has the feeling of pathos haunting it.

The Telegraph incorporates an interesting short video showing the statue in its article about the Memorial. I have mixed feeling about the statue. My memories of Dr. King are different from the characteristics captured in the 30-foot statue. Dr. King is shown bigger/huskier and sterner than I recall; and his crossed arms holding papers in his left hand send mixed signals. Yes, he was resolute, yet he was outgoing. While I remember him as being determined and resolute, I don’t have an image of sternness. The depiction of Dr. King offered by Lei Yixin was challenged during a U. S. Commission of Arts review in May of 2008 where some members thought that the statue looked more like a socialist leader than a non-violent protest leader. The Commission asked Lei Yixin to rework some elements of his rendering.

I would hope that anyone who visits the memorial would also revisit the “I Have a Dream” speech, remarkable in its form and content. It demonstrates how social transformation can be imagined and enacted through a powerful speaker, delivering forceful message. Dr. King presented a compelling reason for change; identified an inspiring vision; shared his values (the MLK National Memorial Foundation cites: courage/truth, unconditional love/ forgiveness, justice/ equality, reconciliation/peace); identified the sources of legitimation; and offered a call for action. Dr. King’s voice and body amplified his charismatic message. The moving tone of the speech builds throughout its approximate 17-minutes; and ends with:

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.”