A Foreign Policy for the 21st Century

As we have seen so often, it is when President Obama sits down one-on-one with a reporter that we really see the depth of his thinking. That's why I was so interested in his interview with Ezra Klein on domestic affairs/politics and with Matt Yglesias on foreign policy.

In talking to Yglesias, President Obama rejected the binary choice of labeling himself either a realist or an idealist when it comes to foreign policy.


The first thing we must do is to accurately define the challenge we face today.

So the biggest challenge we have right now is disorder. Failed states. Asymmetric threats from terrorist organizations. And what I've been trying to do is to make sure that over the course of the last six years and hopefully the next two, we just have more tools in our toolkit to deal with the actual problems that we have now and that we can project into the future, rather than just constantly relying on the same tools that we used when we were dealing with Germany and Japan in World War II.

Those challenges look very different from what the world faced during World War II, and therefore require a different set of tools.

But this is going to be a generational challenge in the Muslim world and the Middle East that not only the United States but everybody's going to have to deal with. And we're going to have to have some humility in recognizing that we don't have the option of simply invading every country where disorder breaks out. And that to some degree, the people of these countries are going to have to, you know, find their own way. And we can help them but we can't do it for them...

And so, I think the real challenge for the country not just during my presidency but in future presidencies is recognizing that leading does not always mean occupying. That the temptation to think that there's a quick fix to these problems is usually a temptation to be resisted. And that American leadership means wherever possible leveraging other countries, other resources, where we're the lead partner because we have capabilities that other folks don't have. But that way there's some burden-sharing and there's some ownership for outcomes. And many of these problems don't get solved in a year or two years or three years.

The old tools of military domination and occupation haven't worked - and in many ways have probably made the problem of disorder worse. The new tools that are required include empowering people in these failed states to find their own way, engaging countries around the globe in order to create broad ownership for outcomes and having the patience to allow solutions to emerge organically rather than be externally imposed.

When it comes to the goal of these efforts, the President echoes Reinhold Niebuhr's suggestion that we have to be able to embrace both the world as it is while we hold on to the ideal of what we want it to be.

...the goal of any good foreign policy is having a vision and aspirations and ideals, but also recognizing the world as it is, where it is, and figuring out how do you tack to the point where things are better than they were before. That doesn't mean perfect. It just means it's better.

These ideas are embedded in principles that we've consistently seen from President Obama:

• An embrace of both/and instead of either/or
• A commitment to the power of partnership over dominance
• A preference for the pragmatism of the long game rather than a quick fix
• Realistic strategies as steps towards the idealism of our North Star

But make no mistake about it - when it comes to foreign policy - those principles take direct aim at how most Americans have viewed our role in the world. We have grown comfortable with the idea of splitting the world up into good guys/bad guys (U.S. vs USSR, patriots vs terrorists, "you're either with us or against us") and then using the power of our military dominance in an attempt to defeat the bad guys. The authoritarianism of "might makes right" has become part of the fabric of our culture. That is why so many people literally can't "see" the alternative this President is articulating - or find it somehow threatening.

An honest appraisal of the current situation tells us that our old ways of interacting with the world aren't working. If we didn't learn that lesson in Vietnam, we certainly should have in Iraq. Once we can accept that, these principles President Obama espoused have the potential to transform the destructive path we've been following. In other words, they comprise a foreign policy for the 21st century.

Why the Cuban Embargo Didn't Work - And Why it Never Would Have

I have to give BooMan an awful lot of credit for trying to see Sen. Rubio's arguments about Cuba from Rubio's perspective. This is exactly what President Obama has asked us to do.

“I am obligated to try to see the world through George Bush’s eyes, no matter how much I may disagree with him,” he wrote in Audacity. “That’s what empathy does—it calls us all to task, the conservative and the liberal … We are all shaken out of our complacency.”

Doing this is the only way we'll ever break down the polarization that infects our politics today. And yes, we're the adults, so it doesn't work to simply say to the other side: "You go first."

But in acknowledging that normalization isn't likely to work in bringing democracy to Cuba, BooMan left out the one really big reason why the embargo was never going to work. We all join the bandwagon President Obama articulated in suggesting that if it hasn't worked for the last 50 years, its time to try something new. But the President also suggested WHY it hasn't worked during his announcement about our change in policy last week.

And though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, no other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions, and it has had little effect beyond providing the Cuban government with a rationale for restrictions on its people.

Strategies like an embargo depend on the power of partnership to be effective. By definition, if you have no partners (or not enough partners)...you have no power. The expansion of our partnerships in regards to Iran and nuclear weapons at the beginning of the Obama administration is EXACTLY why Iran is now at the bargaining table. And its also why President Obama worked so hard to get European countries to back sanctions against Russia after their invasion of Ukraine. If we had tried to go it alone, it would have been as unsuccessful as our embargo of Cuba has been for the last 50 years.

All of this is one of the reasons why having a community organizer who understands power dynamics in the White House is such a BFD!!!

So if Sen. Rubio really wants to see some change in Cuba's government, he'd have to make the case for why the rest of the world should join us in the embargo. That's not likely to be an effective argument. And so, regardless of whether or not you think normalizing our relationship with Cuba will bring any change, it was time to end this ineffective strategy.

In which I agree with an Erick Erickson tweet

After all those years of feminists saying we need girls running foreign policy to make the world safer, we get Obama and now look at us.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) December 18, 2014

I sure do agree with that! Of course, not in the way he meant it.

Its true that using the power of partnership is often associated with females - although not exclusively (see: Nelson Mandela). The idea of dominance as the only form of power strikes many of us as a massive "dick-swinging" contest.

What Erickson is reacting to is the use of the power of partnership by a male president. Being a consummate dick-swinger - Erickson doesn't even begin to grasp what that means. So he simply resorts to calling it "girly."

But YES! Look at us now: finally ending the last artifact of the Cold War and watching Russia tumble into the abyss - all while we are likely to be within reach of an agreement with Iran on nuclear weapons, ISIS' momentum has been stopped (although they are not defeated yet) and the new Iraqi Prime Minister is uniting Sunni and Shia in his country.

Not bad for a girly-man.

;-)

Why Republicans Admire Putin

Jonathan Chait reminds us of the origins of the neoconservative movement in the Republican Party.

Three decades ago, right-wing French intellectual Jean-Francois Revel published a call to arms entitled “How Democracies Perish,” which quickly became a key text of the neoconservative movement and an ideological blueprint for the Reagan administration. Revel argued that the Soviet Union’s brutality and immunity from internal criticism gave it an inherent advantage over the democratic West — the United States and Europe were too liberal, too open, too humane, too soft to defeat the resolute men of the Iron Curtain.

“Unlike the Western leadership, which is tormented by remorse and a sense of guilt,” wrote Revel, “Soviet leaders' consciences are perfectly clear, which allows them to use brute force with utter serenity both to preserve their power at home and to extend it abroad.”

This is what sparked a love-fest for Putin's tactics from Republicans immediately following his invasion of Ukraine.  "That's what you call a leader" said Rudy Giuliani. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-MI), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, said that Putin was playing chess while President Obama played marbles.

At the time, the Obama administration consistently suggested that Putin was engaging in 19th-20th century tactics in a 21st century world.

...Obama is one of the first to have a broad range of potentially biting nonmilitary responses to employ—a measure of how much Russia has been integrated into the world's financial system since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.

It is why American policymakers are so convinced that Russian President Vladimir Putin has miscalculated by dispatching troops to Crimea. And why you hear over and over again from the White House and State Department that Putin does not seem to understand the interconnectedness of the 21st-century world.

"What we see here are distinctly 19th- and 20th-century decisions made by President Putin to address problems, deploying military forces rather than negotiating," says a senior administration official, speaking on background. "But what he needs to understand is that in terms of his economy, he lives in the 21st-century world, an interdependent world."

President Obama addressed this directly during his speech in Brussels on March 26th.

Throughout human history, societies have grappled with the question of how to organize themselves – the proper relationship between the individual and the state; and the best means to resolve inevitable conflicts between states. And it was here in Europe, through centuries of struggle—through war and Enlightenment, repression and revolution—that a particular set of ideals began to emerge. The belief that through conscience and free will, each of us has the right to live as we choose. The belief that power is derived from the consent of the governed, and that laws and institutions should be established to protect that understanding...

But those ideals have also been tested – and threatened – by an older, more traditional view of power. This alternative vision argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, and that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign.

That speech - which was one of the most powerful of Obama's presidency - was meant to unite the people of Europe (especially its young people) around this new form of 21st century power - even if it meant sacrifice from them. In this interconnected world, it is about the power of partnership as a tool to defeat the power of dominance.

And so, while Republicans continue to believe that the democratic West is "too liberal, too open, too humane, too soft to defeat the resolute men," President Obama is demonstrating that partnership can be a powerful tool in this 21st century.

President Obama and the Power of Partnership

Prior to entering politics, Barack Obama taught classes in the community about power. Unfortunately, neither he nor any of the attendees have written much about the content of those sessions. But in watching him over the last seven years, we can begin to understand his view of the topic. 

As Riane Eisler pointed out in her book The Chalice and the Blade: 

Underneath all the complex and seemingly random currents and crosscurrents, is the struggle between two very different ways of relating, of viewing our world and living in it. It is the struggle between two underlying possibilities for relations: the partnership model and the domination model.

She posits that we are living in the era of the blade (domination), but that archeology tells us that once human beings were more organized around the idea of the chalice (partnership).

When it comes to power, those ideas can be summarized like this:

Dominance assumes unequal power wielded over others, whereas partnership assumes power shared by equals. The truth is that every progressive movement in this country's history (women's suffrage, worker's rights, civil rights, anti-war) has harnessed the power of partnership. And yet today, most political analysis relies on an assumption that dominance is the only form of power.

The power of partnership requires identifying common interests (see "relationships based on self-interests" in the photo above) and building on those. Another name for this is "coalition." As Bernice Johnson Reagon pointed out in one of the most important speeches ever given on the topic, we're not talking about some kumbaya feel-good coming together. Its hard work. 

There is an offensive movement that started in this country in the 60’s that is continuing. The reason we are stumbling is that we are at the point where in order to take the next step we’ve got to do it with some folk we don’t care too much about. And we got to vomit over that for a little while. We must just keep going.

Dominance is the method of choice for the ideologues among us because it eschews that kind of thing in favor of "my way or the highway" or "you're either with us or against us."

It should surprise no one that Barack Obama, as a former community organizer, would embrace the power of partnership. We saw that immediately in how he ran his campaign in 2008 with the slogan "Respect, Empower, Include." And then in his first address on the world stage, he said this:

For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared.

This message of partnership permeates almost all of President Obama's speeches. For example, his entire speech at the 2012 Democratic Convention was devoted to citizenship - and that the very idea of our democracy is rooted in partnership.

We, the people — recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It's about what can be done by us, together through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That's what we believe.

We've all watched that power of partnership be used to develop the global coalitions that the President has formed to bring Iran to the negotiating table, halt Russia's incursions into Ukraine and fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria (bringing together both Sunni and Shia Muslims in the process).

But the power of partnership is no more a guarantee of success than is the power of dominance (which most often leads to blowback). Domestically, when the Republican Party abandoned any self interest except that of obstruction, partnership became all but impossible. So now we're witnessing - via the pen and phone strategy - a President who is willing to go it alone when he has to. Commence blowback.

What the Republicans fear most is the loss of their power to dominate (either globally or domestically) via a rise in the power of partnership. Then-Senator Barack Obama explained why back in 2005.

A polarized electorate that is turned off of politics, and easily dismisses both parties because of the nasty, dishonest tone of the debate, works perfectly well for those who seek to chip away at the very idea of government because, in the end, a cynical electorate is a selfish electorate...

Our goal should be to stick to our guns on those core values that make this country great, show a spirit of flexibility and sustained attention that can achieve those goals, and try to create the sort of serious, adult, consensus around our problems that can admit Democrats, Republicans and Independents of good will.

Welcome to the club, Charles!

I've always thought that when I grow up, I want to be a writer like Charles Pierce. No one - but NO ONE - does a take-down better than he does. Todays match-up has him taking Dana Milbank to the matt. But Dana is just one in a long line of folks who are getting their bubbles burst for ridiculous notions about presidential leadership. When Pierce suggests that we're about to read a quote from "Maureen Dowd's Ye Old Shoppe of Daddy Issues," you know its best to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Here's where Pierce gets to the point:

The country doesn't want a conversation on race, especially one led by the blah president whose simple legitimacy has been under assault since the moment his hand came off the Bible. The country doesn't want a conversation on race unless it is sure from the outset that white people will "win" it. The idea that the president could jump-start this conversation, let alone "give voice" to black people's complaints about (largely) white policemen who are killing them, and not be greeted with the shitstorm sharknado of all time, is so fantastical that it makes me wonder whether I even read Milbank correctly...We're not having a serious conversation about race because, as a nation, we're a bunch of chickenshits who aren't interested in being citizens ourselves, let alone extending that title to people whom we consider less than we are.

Pierce is one writer who never leaves you wondering exactly where he stands. That is a thing of beauty when he speaks the truth so clearly. Put it right alongside AG Holder's bold statement about America being a "nation of cowards" and you get the message.

Pierce's last line is a lead-in to an awareness he has recently had about President Obama's leadership style.

It didn't become clear to me until I heard the president accept his nomination for the second time. He referred to "the hard and necessary work of self-government." Put simply, in so many areas, the president is putting the responsibility of governing -- of Leadership (!)tm -- on us, which is where it should be. We shouldn't need a president to start a conversation on race. We should start it ourselves, in thousands of town halls and church basements and radio talk-shows. But, as a self-governing democracy, we are too cowardly to do it honestly, because it rubs up against the comfortable myth of American exceptionalism. We should make him do things, not the other way around. That's been the fundamental challenge of him from the outset. He's left the hard and necessary work of self-government to a country that simply is no longer up to the job.

Of course, I have been talking about the President's commitment to citizenship and partnership for a long time now...just not with the umph Pierce brings to the table. So...welcome to the club, Charles!!!

Crossroads

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly today, President Obama opened with this:

We come together at a crossroads between...

War and Peace
Disorder and Integration
Fear and Hope.

Then he issued this challenge:

Fellow delegates, we come together as United Nations with a choice to make...We can reaffirm our collective responsibility to confront global problems, or be swamped by more and more outbreaks of instability.

Jennifer Bendery noted that in this speech President Obama used the word "collectively" 4 times, "together" 12 times, and "cooperation" 4 times. In other words, he suggested that we are at the crossroads of choosing between the blade of dominance and the chalice of partnership.

There are ancient prophecies that suggest that this is indeed an era of powerful potential.

The roots of violence

I've had to take a bit of a break from the internet lately as the rage explodes about the issues of domestic violence and child abuse following the cases involving NFL players. Its not that these issues trigger personal experiences for me. Having spent my professional life dealing with both child and adult victims of violence, I can't engage in a rage-fest where both sides simply scream at each other in an attempt to ensure that their views dominate the discussion. Ultimately, it accomplishes very little - if anything at all.

But today I'd like to put a couple of thoughts out there for all of us to ponder. They were sparked by these words from Michael Eric Dyson.

The point of discipline is to transmit values to children. The purpose of punishment is to coerce compliance and secure control, and failing that, to inflict pain as a form of revenge...

Regular readers here know that I talk a lot about the difference between partnership as a form of leadership as opposed to dominance. Much of that comes from the work of Riane Eisler who has talked about those two forms of relationships more generally. Here is how she summarized it in her book The Chalice and the Blade:

The root of the problem lies in a social system in which the power of the blade is idealized - in which both men and women are taught to equate true masculinity with violence and dominance and to see men who do not conform to this ideal as too soft or effeminate.

She outlines how children learn about violence and dominance early on.

When children experience violence, or observe violence against their mothers, they learn it's acceptable- even moral-to use force to impose one's will on others. Indeed, the only way they can make sense of violence coming from those who are supposed to love them is that it must be moral.

Terrorism and chronic warfare are responses to life in societies in which the only perceived choices are dominating or being dominated. These violent responses are characteristic of cultures where this view of relations is learned early on through traditions of coercion, abuse, and violence in parentchild and gender relations.

Domestic violence and child abuse are the direct result of a culture where dominance (and the fear it engenders) is idealized over partnership.

Before you watch President Obama's speech tomorrow, read Eichenwald

I believe that tomorrow night, President Obama will school us all on how to best deal with a terrorist threat. But before he does, I suggest that you read what Kurt Eichenwald just wrote about ISIS.

To begin, he tells us why ISIS is ultimately doomed...they've created too many enemies. The list includes not just the U.S. but moderate Sunnis, the Arab oil sheiks, all Shiites, Iraq, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorists groups - including al Qaeda. Its hard to imagine a more disparate group. And so...

ISIS, then, faces two major military threats: other terrorist groups and the possibility of a Sunni uprising in areas under its control, driven by popular revulsion among the Muslims that these jihadists consider traitors to Islam. The group faces enemies in all directions and eventually, no matter how many weapons it holds, no matter how much money it has, ISIS will fall when confronted by those terrorists or those Muslims.

Eichenwald points out that the only thing that could get it the way of their defeat is over-reach by the U.S.

As one terrorism expert told me, ISIS is hoping America will go too far in response, launch attacks that kill lots of innocent Muslims in an attempt to wipe out the jihadists. That would not destroy ISIS, but would derail the Islamic threat to the group. For no matter how hated ISIS is among the other jihadists and Middle Eastern Muslims, the United States is despised more. A new American strategic blunder on par with the Iraq War would distract ISIS’s Islamic enemies and turn the battle, once again, toward the U.S. If ISIS is to survive, it needs America to strike out rashly and harshly against it.

This reminded me of how the world came together following the 9/11 attacks in support of the U.S. We lost all of that good will by invading Iraq based on lies cooked up by the Bush administration.

That is exactly what President Obama is working to avoid by building a coalition (read: partnership) with all the groups ISIS has alienated...to defeat them. There is only one way to ensure that happens:

The U.S. can soften up ISIS with strategic bombing to aid the Islamic fighters taking them on. But it cannot beat them by rolling the Humvees back into Iraq or Syria. ISIS will be defeated by its own brutality against the people who might otherwise be their allies.

That's some brilliant analysis to absorb prior to listening to the President outline his strategy.

Too many pundits think Americans need a Daddy

By now we all know that Maureen Dowd longs for a "Daddy-in-Chief." But she's not the only one. Lately lots of pundits are complaining about what President Obama called "political theater" in his interview with Chuck Todd. What it all amounts to is that they seem to agree with Jack Nicholson's character in A Few Good Men when he yells "You can't handle the truth!"

For example, here's Frank Bruni at the New York Times:

He’s [Obama] adopted a strange language of self-effacement, with notes of defeatism, reminding us that “America, as the most powerful country on earth, still does not control everything”; that we must be content at times with singles and doubles in lieu of home runs; that not doing stupid stuff is its own accomplishment.

This is all true. It’s in tune with our awareness of our limits. And it reflects a prudent disinclination to repeat past mistakes and overreach.

But that doesn’t make it the right message for the world’s lone superpower (whether we like it or not) to articulate and disseminate. That doesn’t make it savvy, constructive P.R.

Do you see what he did there? He admits that what President Obama is saying is true. But its not "savvy, constructive PR." Jay Rosen rips him (and other journalists) a new one for that mess.

Dig it: Obama is speaking truthfully, treating us as adults, and being prudent, but there’s a problem because Bruni wants better P.R. Is this what we need journalists for? He quotes two other journalists, Karen DeYoung and Dan Balz of the Washington Post, making the same point. Obama, they said, was speaking candidly but in no way projected “an image of presidential resolve or decisiveness.”

This style of analysis is so common among American journalists that it passed by without comment. As your blogger, I cannot allow that. Worrying about image projection and the degree of savviness in the Administration’s P.R., asking “Where are your infantilization skills, Mr. President?”— these are signs of a press corps that can be deeply unserious about international politics.

A press corp that values PR skills (i.e., optics) over reality is all the proof we need that they find the President's "infantilization skills" wanting. In other words, they think we're immature and "can't handle the truth." And yes, we should all be offended by that!

Perhaps this is one of the reasons why many pundits struggle so much with understanding President Obama. He plants himself squarely on the opposite end of that continuum with his "shocking, almost certifiable faith in humanity." He thinks we are adults who are capable of handling the truth and is more interested in being a partner than a Daddy.

President Obama: Finding Common Ground

I have to say that the threat posed by ISIS in Syria and Iraq has resulted in some fascinating changes to the dynamics in the Middle East. As we all should know by now, much of the conflict in that region has its roots in the divide between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Countries like Saudi Arabia (dominated by Sunni) have provided support to terrorist groups like ISIS who are fighting against the Shia-ruled countries of Iraq, Syria and Iran.

But then ISIS got out of hand. And now Sunni and Shia have found some common ground and are coming together to fight them. This is creating the possibility of a coalition President Obama is developing as his strategy to defeat ISIS.

American officials are hoping to expand the coalition against ISIS to include as many countries as possible, particularly in the region...

Enlisting the Sunni neighbors of Syria and Iraq is crucial, experts said, because airstrikes alone will not be enough to push back ISIS. The Obama administration is also seeking to pursue a sequential strategy that begins with gathering intelligence, and is followed by targeted airstrikes, more robust and better-coordinated support for moderate rebels, and finally, a political reconciliation process.

This is the Obama Doctrine at work - much as we've seen it create the coalition of countries imposing sanctions that brought Iran to the negotiating table as well as punish Russia for their incursions into Ukraine.  The difference between this example and the others, however, is that the end game is the destruction of ISIS rather than a negotiated settlement of differences.

However, after having worked together to defeat ISIS, you can bet that President Obama will attempt to use that same coalition to develop the "new equilibrium" he discussed with David Remnick that would both prevent extremism and benefit the citizens of their countries.

Ultimately, he envisages a new geopolitical equilibrium, one less turbulent than the current landscape of civil war, terror, and sectarian battle. “It would be profoundly in the interest of citizens throughout the region if Sunnis and Shias weren’t intent on killing each other,” he told me. “And although it would not solve the entire problem, if we were able to get Iran to operate in a responsible fashion...you could see an equilibrium developing between Sunni, or predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran in which there’s competition, perhaps suspicion, but not an active or proxy warfare...

If you can start unwinding some of that, that creates a new equilibrium. And so I think each individual piece of the puzzle is meant to paint a picture in which conflicts and competition still exist in the region but that it is contained, it is expressed in ways that don’t exact such an enormous toll on the countries involved, and that allow us to work with functioning states to prevent extremists from emerging there."

There is a theme to President Obama's message here that he constantly comes back to. It might best be summarized by this quote from Guatama Buddha:

Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Our shared histories, be it in this country or around the globe, have given us many excuses to be angry.  But hanging on to that anger poisons us. To be able to move forward means letting go of the divisions that anger creates. Here's how President Obama talked about that in Cairo back in 2009.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, those who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. And this cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I've come here to Cairo to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, one based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles -- principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

He made a similar point in this speech about racism during the 2008 election.

I chose to run for president at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together, unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction — toward a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

As he's said many times, this doesn't mean ignoring our history or pretending like the differences don't exist. As a matter of fact, he often tells us that conversations that go on about that behind closed doors need to come out into public view.

But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly to each other the things we hold in our hearts and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground.

Its that "common ground" that is the key for President Obama.  He believes that "what unites us is always greater than what divides us." That's because his own personal journey meant finding that common ground inside himself - the son of a black Kenyan and white Kansan.

Letting go of the old anger and divisions is difficult. A lot of the backlash we see against President Obama is a result of people clinging to that old anger as if their lives depended on it. But one of the most beautiful moments I've heard in the last six years came as Rev. Gordon Stewart described his own personal letting go during the 2009 inauguration ceremony.

They are strange tears, like none other I have ever felt. It confuses me. I wonder what they're about. It feels like joy. A joy I have not felt for a long time. Joy... and hope... that something really new is happening. Joy that all the struggles and all the marches that wore holes in my generation's shoes on behalf of civil rights and peace have brought us to this indescribably holy moment that transcends the old divisions.

For sure, the tears that rise up in me are tears of joy. But they're also about something else. They feel like the convulsing sobs of a prisoner released from prison. They come from a hidden well of poison -- the well of deep grief stuffed away over all the years because of all the marches, all the beatings, all the blood, the well of buried anger -- the silent tears of grief over the America we had almost lost.

Then I realize: Only the appearance of joy and hope can release such deep grief. It was the joy on Yo-Yo Ma's face that finally released the poison locked inside my soul. It is the joy and hope of a new generation that's able to take us where my generation cannot -- free of the taint of sore feet and scars and old grudges the new President says we must move past.

Rev. Stewart recognizes that it is likely up to a new generation - free of the poison from the past - that will be able to lead us to that common ground. This is something that President Obama regularly suggests both at home and abroad. But for us oldies who are interested in letting go of the past so that we can move forward, note that for Rev. Stewart, it was "the appearance of joy and hope" that released the deep grief. That's where we'll find our North Star.  

"The myth of American omnipotence"

From this liberal's perspective, most of what has gone wrong in American foreign policy has happened when - due to ideology or corporate interests - we have assumed that we can dictate what happens in other countries (usually through either covert or overt military intervention).  

From both a pragmatic and ideological perspective, President Obama has consistently rejected that path. He is steering our ship of state in a different direction...one where we provide assistance, advice, support - but the end result is up to the people of individual countries to decide.

This requires a big change in our view of how the world works. We have to give up our assumptions of control via dominance and embrace the possibilities of partnership. When we see pundits and neocons reacting to President Obama's strategy in Iraq, the resistance to that change is on display. 

This morning President Obama gave a master class on all this at his press conference about Iraq. Michael Cohen captured the reason so many don't get it.  

The myth of American omnipotence is a hell of a drug
— Michael Cohen (@speechboy71) August 9, 2014

We've been fed this myth so consistently that - like an addict - we can't see that it is the cause of our problems rather than the solution. When challenges arise around the globe, we simply look for another "fix," even though it never works.

The path President Obama is suggesting as an alternative is hard. That's because it requires that we give up the idea that we can control things and join him in his "shocking, almost certifiable faith in humanity" to chart their own course. Of course, almost 240 years ago, some folks staked a pretty important claim on that same shocking, almost certifiable faith in humanity.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

Is the world really exploding?

You don't even need to read the article. Michael Tomasky's column today is titled: Is it just me or is the world exploding? So why isn't Obama doing more? I'm going to pick on Tomasky. But he's hardly the only one. The Very Serious People in the media have created a reality out of world events that they want us to ponder. What Tomasky did was pretty much summarize it all in a headline.

But I'm not buying it and here's why:

First of all, lets consider whether or not the world is really exploding. Its true that several "hot spots" have developed in the Middle East. I'm not going to minimize the seriousness of what is going on in Israel/Gaza, Syria or Iraq. I'd simply point out that, for some reason, the U.S. seems to get fixated on what happens in that region of the world. We tend to pay precious little attention when the same kinds of things happen all over Africa, for example. And we certainly don't have columnists who declare that the "world is exploding" when those hot spots flare up. Why do you suppose that is?

If we were to pay attention to the whole globe, I'd suggest there is a framework for understanding what's going on. For decades the places that are inhabited by black and brown people were the playground of colonizers. About the time that was coming to an end, the Cold War heated up and they became pawns in our proxy battles with Russia/China.

Once the United States "won the Cold War," the neocons vision of a new world order was Pax Americana (think: Pax Romana for the origins) as outlined by the Project for the New American Century. Their goals were three-fold:

1. Total U.S. military dominance
2. Pre-emptive war against any challengers
3. U.S. control of the world's oil supply

These are the folks who were advocating for "regime change" in Iraq all the way back to the Clinton administration. The 9/11 attacks simply provided them with an excuse. But it was also their un-doing. The fiasco of our occupation of Iraq dealt a serious blow to the neocons and PNAC was disbanded in 2006. 

I would suggest that when the media reduces our understanding of global concerns to either the activities of Russia and/or what is happening in the Middle East, they are playing right into the hands of the script laid out for us by the neocons. It doesn't surprise me when this kind of tunnel vision comes from Bill Kristol (PNAC founder). Someone like Michael Tomasky should know better.

Secondly, this approach to foreign affairs has the added benefit for the neocons of framing the conversation in such a way that Tomasky asks, "So why isn't Obama doing more?" We've been hearing that one for a while now, haven't we? But the truth is that the real critique comes in simply asking the question. It implies that the President isn't doing enough. As Bill Maher so powerfully demonstrates though, the answer to the question about what he SHOULD be doing is always a vacuous reference to "leadership." Tomasky's two big suggestions come down to (1) more positive rhetoric about the Syrian rebels and (2) more pro-democracy foreign aid. Pretty damn weak tea if you ask me. 

What we need from our media is for more of them to go back to first-principles and begin to examine the question of the role of the United States in global affairs. President Obama carefully laid out his own vision in his speech last May at West Point. The reason so many in the media have avoided applying that vision to his actions is that they remain wedded to the idea of Pax Americana - the idea that the United States can/should control world affairs via dominance and that any president who fails to do so is not doing enough. 

As countries in Africa, South/Central America, the Middle East, and Asia emerge from the effects of both colonialism and the Cold War, a certain amount of chaos is inevitable. I believe that President Obama has articulated his North Star when it comes to responding to that chaos:

1. The people of those countries have the right to determine their own destiny
2. Global norms and ideals must be followed and enforced
3. We must face our challenges via partnership

That's an American foreign policy for the 21st century.

Pundits join Putin in 19th century thinking

An awful lot of pundits these days seem just as stuck in the 19th century as Vladimir Putin. For example, check out this jaw-dropping commentary on the Israel/Palestinian situation from Cokie Roberts on ABC's This Week:

It's a real absence of the American leadership in the region...We haven't made a strong enough presence in that region to have people be afraid of this country. So I think there's a sense that they can get away with anything they want to get away with. So much criticism of President Obama for not going in, conducting the air strikes against Syria.

Its almost hard to know where to begin. In the end, her point seems to be that if President Obama had bombed Syria he could have prevented the current escalation of the situation in Israel/Gaza. And that's - of course - because there aren't enough people in the Middle East who are afraid of us. So lets go bomb some more brown people over there because they're sure not going to get mad about that and fight back. What they'll do instead is be afraid and quit all that shooting/bombing each other.

You have to wonder if folks like Roberts actually think about stuff like this before they say it. But the patriarchal myth of dominance runs deep in folks like her. They seem quite capable of ignoring all of post-WWII history. After all, its not like military dominance was actually effective in Iran, or Korea, or Vietnam, or Chile, or Iraq. No matter how hard we've tried, it seems that we can't get the rest of the world to cower if fear and do what we want them to. They just keep fighting back. Imagine that.

If Ms. Roberts were to actually have studied recent history, she might have seen that our military adventurism in Iraq demonstrated the folly of her 19th century assumptions. Speaking of "the experiment in American unilateralism that has failed with the collapse of the adventurist campaign in Iraq," Michael Weinstein rather presciently wrote the following back in 2004:

Whoever occupies the Oval Office after the November 2004 election will have to try to recoup the power that the United States lost during its rendezvous with neo-conservative fantasy. That can only be done - if at all - through an attempt to reconstitute a multilateral consensus on globalization in which the United States is primus inter pares*, guaranteeing the security of world capitalism militarily, but not using its military power to impose its policies on its allies and independent limited collaborators without genuine negotiation and compromise...The Iraq adventure has demonstrated that unilateralism alienates allies and collaborators, resulting in the loss of American credibility and clout. Multilateralism [ie, partnership] remains the path that leads to the maximization of American power in the world.

* First among equals

Unfortunately it took us until 2008 to find a president who understands this. As he said in 2009:

For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes -- and, yes, religions -- subjugating one another in pursuit of their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; our progress must be shared.

President Obama isn't interested in making the people of the Middle East fear us. Nor does he assume they need to do what we tell them to do. What he is interested in is protecting our own national security interests and holding other governments accountable to global norms/agreements/ideals. Beyond that, "our problems must be death with through partnership."

If Ms. Roberts is interested in seeing what real American leadership looks like, I suggest she read this story about how one phone call from President Obama followed up by staff on the ground calmed a potential civil war in Afghanistan last week. While she wants to rely on fear, the President promoted patience and calm. The result?

After weeks of intense bad feelings between their camps, Mr. Abdullah and Mr. Ghani embraced in the living room after striking the deal. They would do the same thing a short while later, at the end of news conference to announce their agreement to the Afghan people.

The presidential candidates, Abdullah Abdullah, right, and Ashraf Ghani, after a pact was announced, as John Kerry looked on.
More of this, please.

Crafting the narrative that explains Cantor's defeat

Eric Cantor's primary defeat is one of those things that fascinates me about politics. As I mentioned yesterday, pundits are not only tripping over themselves to understand why it happened, but also to predict what it means for the future. In order to do so, they have to examine the motivations for human social behavior - and I suppose it shouldn't surprise us that an awful lot of them are really bad at that.

It strikes me that what happened is that a narrative everyone had settled on to understand social behavior (how Republican primary voters would behave in the midterms) got broken by Cantor's loss.  And now everyone is scrambling to be the one who tells us what the new narrative will be. We need a narrative to understand what's happening - that's why storytelling is so important. The trouble is, these things take time to develop and understand...and we're impatient.

In the meantime, we have folks telling us that it was all about immigration reform, or that it portends the rise of populism in our politics. The one thing I can guarantee you is that anyone who says they know the one and only reason for Cantor's defeat right now is likely wrong. These things are always more complicated than that.

Eventually a new narrative will develop. But it won't be a reflection of the actual reality of what happened. It will be shaped by what people chose to believe about what happened and how that influences their behavior in the future. History never has a beginning and ending, its a continual process of events, the stories we tell ourselves about those events, and how those stories affect our interactions in the future.

One part of the story I think is important to recognize, but hasn't gotten much attention, is what David Jarman wrote about the reasons for Cantor's defeat. He's smart to listen to the analysis of Erick Erickson - someone who has played a key role in the tea party insurgency. Here's the money quote from Erickson:

Cantor and his staff both lost the trust of conservatives and constituents. They broke promises, made bad deals, and left many feeling very, very betrayed. Much of it was because of Cantor’s hubris and the arrogance of his top staffers. He could not be touched and he could not be defeated. He knew it and they knew it. He kept his attention off his district, constituents, and conservatives while he and his staff plotted to get the Speaker's chair.

And here's Jarman's insightful conclusion:

"Hubris" may be the key word here. The climb through the ranks through treachery and intimidation, and then the sudden realization when you're at the top that you've burned through all your allies, is almost allegorical. It's a pattern we've seen many times before, whether it's from the Greek playwrights or Shakespeare, or in the collapse of some of history's nastiest regimes: When the leader who appeared to rule effortlessly suddenly falls with a lot of knives in his back, few people are saddened, while many people are surprised at just how thin and flimsy his support actually was, and how he was just staying in power propped up by a combination of fear and entropy.

Beyond hubris, what Jarman is describing is someone who went all-in with the power of dominance.

That is the achilles heel of Republicans - because its their go-to mode on a style of leadership. Its also why President Obama's call to remind us of the responsibilities of citizenship (ie, the power of partnership that is the very basis of democracy) is the critical message for today.

"Without us firing a shot"

In his speech at West Point yesterday, one of the points President Obama made was about the need for the United States to demonstrate leadership by strengthening institutions that provide for international order. As he did in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he referred to President Kennedy's call for a peace based upon "a gradual evolution in human institutions." As I've been saying all along, those human institutions are based on the power of partnership rather than the dominance of unilateralism.

To point to the effectiveness of such an approach, the President gave two examples. The first is the global response to Russian incursion into the Ukraine.

In Ukraine, Russia’s recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern Europe. But this isn’t the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia right away. Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine’s economy; OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine. And this mobilization of world opinion and international institutions served as a counterweight to Russian propaganda and Russian troops on the border and armed militias in ski masks.

This weekend, Ukrainians voted by the millions. Yesterday, I spoke to their next President. We don’t know how the situation will play out and there will remain grave challenges ahead, but standing with our allies on behalf of international order working with international institutions, has given a chance for the Ukrainian people to choose their future without us firing a shot.

The second was the work that is currently underway to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Similarly, despite frequent warnings from the United States and Israel and others, the Iranian nuclear program steadily advanced for years. But at the beginning of my presidency, we built a coalition that imposed sanctions on the Iranian economy, while extending the hand of diplomacy to the Iranian government. And now we have an opportunity to resolve our differences peacefully.

The odds of success are still long, and we reserve all options to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But for the first time in a decade, we have a very real chance of achieving a breakthrough agreement -- one that is more effective and durable than what we could have achieved through the use of force. And throughout these negotiations, it has been our willingness to work through multilateral channels that kept the world on our side.

Neither situation is completely resolved. But its interesting to note this recent news on the Iranian negotiations.

Iran has neutralized most of its stockpile of higher-grade enriched uranium that could be turned quickly into the core of a nuclear weapon, the U.N. nuclear agency said Friday, leaving the country with only about a fifth of what it would need for such a purpose.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a quarterly report that Iran now has less than 90 pounds of the material.

The report also said Tehran was meeting all other obligations under an agreement reached four months ago in Geneva that serves as a prelude to a comprehensive deal now being negotiated.

Both of these situations are demonstrations of how the Obama Doctrine has been successfully implemented:

1. Articulation of international norms
2. Development of a global partnership to reinforce those norms via economic pressure
3. The use of diplomacy to identify a "way out" of that pressure via an appeal to the self-interests of the offending country

Prior to this presidency, our country's foreign policy was mostly limited in these kinds of situations to a response that either ignored the challenge (isolationism) or responded with military intervention. The one big exception to that would be President Kennedy's handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis - when the world stood on the brink of nuclear war.

Demonstrating the power of partnership as an effective tool for U.S. leadership in the world will truly be one of President Obama's most enduring legacies.

President Obama's legacy: A foundation for peace

Let's be honest - after the terrorist attack on 9/11 this country went on a bit of a freak-out...wars, torture, Gitmo, terror threat levels, TSA, warrantless surveillance, etc. Its easy to simply blame the Bush/Cheney administration. But the truth is, they got re-elected after most of that was underway. So there's plenty of blame to go around.

President Obama had to deal with the legacy of that freak-out from the moment he was first elected. He assumed office knowing that another terrorist attack like the one this country experienced in 2001 could ignite more of the same. And he knew that allowing that to happen would threaten any attempt to wage a lasting peace.

I've always maintained that President Obama has actually had to deal with three wars: Iraq, Afghanistan and the Global War on Terror. He proceeded to end the war in Iraq, and this year will end the one if Afghanistan. But the Global War on Terror was refocused into a War on al Qaeda. While he stopped the use of torture and tried to shut down Gitmo, he used drones to target al Qaeda and the NSA's surveillance programs to track them.

I can understand the arguments the President's critics make against his implementation of a War on al Qaeda. But they are left with either making a case that the threat doesn't exist or offering alternatives to deal with it. I almost never hear either one. That's why a few years ago I began to speak up about the need to end this particular war and to track the Obama administration's signals that they were attempting to do so.

We are now six years into the Obama presidency and not only is Osama bin Laden dead, but there have been zero attacks by al Qaeda on American soil. Last year, with very little fanfare from his critics on the left, the President called for an end to this "indefinite war." Other than preventing another great depression and passing/implementing health care reform - I believe this will be his great legacy.

Not only that, he's responded to the more imminent threats from Iran and Russia by mobilizing the world to respond via partnership rather that simply inflame the situation with bravado. When he did use military intervention, it was in partnership with NATO to stop the massacre of innocent civilians in Libya and his threats to use it in Syria resulted in an agreement to get rid of chemical weapons. Unlike many of his predecessors, President Obama responded to the Arab Spring by encouraging the dictators in those countries to respond to the will of their people rather than coordinate covert coups to prop them up (remember everything from Iran 1953 to Chile 1973).

While President Obama's efforts at peace-making have not always been perfect and some are yet to reach fruition, I challenge anyone to point to a president in our history with a more progressive record in this area. I believe that two years from now he will have laid a solid foundation for peace that his successor can build upon. I hope the country choses wisely.

Love + Power = Justice

One of Cornel West's most famous quotes is:

Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.

Its a beautiful sentiment that is embraced by progressives because we are drawn to values like love and justice. But theologian Paul Tillich reminds us that there is an ingredient that is missing.

Paul Tillich taught us that the work of justice requires power, and for power to become justice requires love. All three are intimately related. We cannot turn our love into justice without engaging power.

And so the equation would look something like this:

Love + Power = Justice 

Love without power is sentiment and power without love is domination. Neither have the capacity to bring justice on their own.

This is something liberals have struggled with - especially in the post-modern era. I believe that is because we have grown uncomfortable with the concept of power. We see it only in the form of dominance. And because we eschew that form of power, we remain victims of those who dominate and become cynical about the possibility of justice. 

As an example, I'm watching some progressive "thought leaders" respond to the demise of Donald Sterling due to the racist remarks he made that were captured on a recording. Ta-Nehisi Coates is right to suggest that he and Cliven Bundy represent examples of "oafish racism," and contrast it with the more "elegant variety" that is not so easy for white people to condemn. Leonard Pitts makes basically the same point.

The truth is, the idiocy of these men doesn’t mean a whole lot, doesn’t impact much beyond their immediate lives. We hyperventilate about it, yet somehow manage not to be overly concerned as black boys are funneled into prison, brown ones are required to show their papers, voting rights are interdicted, Fourth Amendment rights are abrogated and some guy has his job application round-filed when the hiring woman sees that his name is Malik.

Those are very valid points. But what do they have to do with power, you may ask. In this moment, when the dying beast of white male patriarchy is lashing out at every turn, rather than inspire us all with a victory (and examining the ingredients that made it happen), we are told that it really is no victory at all and asked to once again wallow in victimization. To have done the former would have been to claim the power of success - which is exactly what we need to continue the struggle against the more elegant varieties of racism.

The truth is that the consequences meted out to Donald Sterling happened because the power of both current and former NBA players was wielded. It was not the power of domination - but of partnership.

As I pointed out before, these players had access to money and fame that many others do not. But its also true that working together - they used what they had...and WON! Its instructive to note that former general manager of the Clippers Elgin Baylor was not successful when he acted alone to sue Sterling for racism. 

Yesterday I talked about the power of storytelling to mobilize hope in the face of daunting odds. What we need is not simply to be reminded of the challenges that remain, but a narrative that both captures the essence of success and inspires us to hope for more. For providing us with that, I want to thank the players of the NBA. 

Democracy: Balancing private wealth with public voice

Today I found myself re-reading something Marshall Ganz wrote years ago about the historical roots of organizing in this country. Given our concern about the recent court cases that have magnified the problem of money in politics, his opening quote is even more profound today.

“Democracy is based on the promise that equality of voice can balance inequality of resources.” Prof. Sidney Verba, Harvard University, 1993.

Next, he quotes de Tocqueville.

In democratic countries, knowledge of how to combine is the mother of all other forms of knowledge; on its progress depends that of all the others.

In commenting on de Tocqueville's observations about our civic associations, Ganz says:

In other words, he saw that we had learned that the choices a few people make about how to use their money could be balanced by choices many people make about how to use their time.

He then goes on to summarize various movements in our history. What de Tocqueville observed was soon challenged by a different kind of organization.

Late in the 19th century, however, other currents began to run counter to this populist, if not always progressive, form of association. A new form of large-scale organization took root...the national corporation. But unlike the civic association, the object of which was to amplify the voice of its members, the corporation was designed for control. The authority of its leadership based on property, not voice, it enabled the few to efficiently — and profitably — harness the effort of the many.

Labor unions and the New Deal initially provided a balance that was later followed by the civil rights, anti-war, women's and environmental movements.

What struck me is that Ganz included something that many other commentators leave out - the social work movement. It is where much of the nonprofit world as we know it today is rooted.

Traditional social work ignored the power disparity most often responsible for poverty, and treated its victims as clients seeking public patronage, rather than citizens able to act together to make their voices heard and thus do something about the power disparity responsible for the problem in the first place.

He also described something most of us are very familiar with today: a market driven approach to advocacy and electoral politics.

...fueled by new targeting, fund raising, and information technologies that replaced constituency based organizing with direct marketing techniques...professional activists began mobilizing individuals to support their causes by contributing money rather than organizing them to act together.

All of that is the historical context for what developed in the 80's and is still at work today.

...the conservative movement had...channeled its energy into a deep restructuring of the relationship of public institutions - and the organized groups to whom they afforded influence – to private wealth. New challenges facing government, rather than providing an impetus to reform, became an excuse to outsource its functions - to the private sector if there was money to be made, to the nonprofit sector if there was not. And these institutions, whether for profit or not for profit — and whether large scale or small scale — assumed a traditional corporate form. As a result, the scope of citizenship itself as way to balance private wealth with public voice, narrowed, as we became “customers” of the private sector or “clients” of non-profit funders.

I want to stop there and just say "wow!" That is perspective you're not likely to hear from any other source. But based on my experience in politics, advocacy and the nonprofit world, I think he nailed it. What runs through almost all of that is the theme of organizations taking on the "traditional corporate form." I'll remind you of part of the quote from up above:

But unlike the civic association, the object of which was to amplify the voice of its members, the corporation was designed for control.

No wonder JFK's words about "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country," have been replaced by "what have you done for me lately?" Someone else is in control and we are simply customers/clients of their power.

What strikes me is that if we as liberals want to work towards a "democracy that is based on the equality of voice," we need to not simply challenge corporate power - but the corporate mindset that has been embraced by so many of our institutions.

But before we can even get there, I am reminded of what Al Giordano wrote about "the Wall Street within" in response to the Occupy Wall Street protests.

Wall Street, ahem, isn’t just in your wallet: It’s in everything you own, rent, use, borrow, find or steal. It’s also in the “identities” and roles we put on and take off in each department of our daily lives. And one should never worry as much about the police on the street...as much as one should be very concerned about the cop in one’s head...- the invading army in our innermost thoughts and fears that polices our very behavior, officers of the psyche that we all have, through unspoken fears, invited into our brains and hearts...

In a world where the advertising industry shouts that “everybody is connected,” that’s really to distract from the alienation imposed by an over-mediated technological society. Maybe your family, your relationship, your classroom, your workplace, your home, your building, your neighbors are so caught up in dysfunction and the food chain of domination of one person over another that everything within you screams for an EXIT sign and that you must go out and find that place where you can see a path to begin to drive Wall Street out of your body, the cop out of your head, and the imposed loneliness of residing in a technological “paradise” out of your aching heart.

If your aching heart is screaming for an EXIT sign from the domination of one person over another - its time to take the off ramp. That might be the first step in finding a way for us to work in partnership and develop a public voice.

I'll leave you with the call President Obama gave to us all at the 2012 Democratic Convention.

What we can learn from LBJ

We are right to honor President Lyndon Johnson on this 50th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Its also fitting that we honor him for working so hard to pass the Voting Rights Act, launching things like Medicare/Medicaid and initiating the Great Society. That is a powerful progressive legacy. Perhaps its true, as Adam Serwer implies, that it took a racist white southerner to do all that in the 1960's.

But before we go wishing for a return to that kind of leadership - as some have done recently - lets also remember that the same heavy hand that accomplished all of that is the one who was driven out of seeking re-election by chants of "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

The same man who muscled legislation through Congress by doing things like giving Sen. Richard Ruseell "the treatment"...

...is the one who lied to Congress about the Gulf of Tonkin in order to escalate the war in Vietnam.

An argument can be made that this is the kind of power that must be wielded in order to bring about the progressive change we witnessed in the 1960's. That is a discussion worth having. But we cannot afford to do that without taking into account the "dark side" of that kind of power. President Lyndon Johnson is a perfect example of that. He used the power of dominance for tremendous good and unconscionable evil. I would suggest that its very likely you don't get one without the other.