The Useless Tree

Night Out

Here is a photo (from the Berkshire Eagle newspaper) of me (on the left) introducing one of my daughter's friends to Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts:

Cbcnight

The Governor was visiting my college, which held a rather extraordinary event: a panel discussion by nine members (not all of those invited were able to make it) of the Congressional Black Caucus, House of Representatives Members from all over the country.  They came to talk about their reactions to the Obama election and their plans for future legislation and political activity.  Leslie Stahl was the moderator.

It was a great night.  My daughter and her friend were able to shake hands with our governor and with John Lewis, the civil rights activist and leader.  It was marvelous to be able to listen to people who have fought for racial equality all of their lives respond to the Obama victory and what it means for the country.  There was a recognition that our social problems are not over and that serious difficulties confront the country, especially on the economic front; but there was also a celebratory happiness in the hall.

Let's hope that we can reach Mencian heights.

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6 responses to “Night Out”

  1. Jonathan Dresner Avatar
    Jonathan Dresner

    I still don’t understand why Patrick’s name isn’t being mentioned for important posts in the new administration. It’s like he’s saving him for something….

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  2. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    He was talked about for Attorney General but that didn’t happen. Maybe something else…

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  3. isha Avatar
    isha

    Of course Obmas need to reward his brothers, good for them! …but the real question is: what is he going to do with these neo-cons and their agendas? His recruiting of Chicago Congressman Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff doesn’t give one a comforting hint…
    Is that too important to be talked out? Are we in a hash-hash zone?

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  4. isha Avatar
    isha

    http://www.antiwar.com/orig/giraldi.php?articleid=13773
    ”
    During the summer of 2008, Emanuel was a key player in the marginalization and humiliation of former president Jimmy Carter, whose book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid had outraged Israel’s supporters. Carter was not allowed to speak at the Democratic National Convention, an unprecedented snub toward a former president and a further indication, if one was needed, that in American politics it is possible to do or say nearly anything as long as one does not criticize Israel.
    And now Emanuel is the president’s chief of staff, one of the most powerful positions in the White House.
    ”
    Now I start to understand the Hash-Hash… So, hashing on, and you call this what? .. . forget it…

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  5. Taoist Voter Avatar
    Taoist Voter

    “Progressives” need to wake up. An Obama victory means nothing if he falls into the same policies of the Bush administration or for that matter, the Clinton administration.
    Do you think the civilians killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan will care if it’s a black man who ordered their deaths or a white man? What of the Iraqis? The Palestinians? Do you think it really matters to any of these people, robbed of their sovereignty, their infrastructure, their resources?
    What about our own people, whose plight Obama saw fit to ignore while authorizing a $750 billion dollar bailout of Washington? The people whose voices are systematically silenced while the voices of multinational corporations continue to gain more and more clout? What about the 20,000 or so people who die because they don’t have healthcare, yet Obama still won’t support a single-payer system? The thousands more who die of diseases associated with air pollution while Obama touts the oxymoronic “clean coal”?
    So far I have seen nothing that suggests to me an Obama administration will bring even incremental change. His platform agreed with McCain’s in far more places than it disagreed, a fact that his liberal supporters refuse to acknowledge. They also refuse to acknowledge his voting record, where Obama approved $300 billion of war appropriations, confirmed Secretary of State Rice, voted for the Patriot Act and for Telecom Immunity. I’ve still yet to hear how a well-oiled component of the Washington machine like Barack Obama represents “hope”.
    To answer Isha’s question, all signs point to a continuation of the neocon agenda, but under the guise of “bipartisanship” and “reaching across the aisle”. What that means in effect is that Obama will be using many of the same advisers and employing many of the same policies; that BOTH political parties will collaborate in the fleecing of the American people and the exploitation of foreigners, but the advertising is now so slick that this wholesale robbery is actually being painted as a political virtue. As you said in earlier comment, it’s a sign of the decadent era the American empire has entered….

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  6. Sam Avatar
    Sam

    TV,
    I appreciate your skepticism, but I have rather low expectations for American politics. I do not expect big changes from Obama, American politics does not work that way, not in its conventional forms at least. But I do think that marginal changes will happen. For example, I think there is a good chance of progress on health insurance, such that fewer people will be faced with being shut out of medical care. Problems will remain, but some improvements could happen. Likewise, in foreign policy, I would bet that fewer people will be killed by the exercise of American power under Obama than was the case under the first W. administration. Now, that might seem an unfair comparison, given how horrendous Bush has been, but it will be better. Moreover, I do not think Obama is a neocon. He will not be quick to unilaterally and preventively use military power. He will be more pragmatic, more realist. And his pragmatism will be focused on the immediate economic problems the US faces. He will see the constraints on US military power and he will be less likely than either Bush or McCain to try to ignore those constraints and attack.
    But those are just my hunches. We’ll see what happens…

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