Barack Obama's Audacity of Hope
I'm neither republican nor democrat. I don't know if I'm left or right, conservative or liberal. I like to look at all sides of an issue and see what comes of it. According to the Star Tribune, I should be green. At times I'm both anti-republican and anti-democrat simultaneously. So when my girlfriend bought Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope, I was, shall we say... guarded ... about reading it. She left it for me to read first, while I'm on this business trip to El Paso, Texas. I decided to go for it, given all the hype about him.
This blog series is my response to my readings. I'll leave some money quotes and passages and general impressions. If something hits home, I'll write about that too.
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope - Part I, Background, chapters 1-5
Barack opens with no apologies -- he is and will be a democrat and this is the story of his election and first few years in Washington. A light and quick read, I find his writing intelligible and logical. His points and sections flow together in a structure rarely scene today.
The opening chapters, Prologue, Republicans and Democrats, Values, Our Constitution, and Politics serve to define the basis for the rest of the book as each chapter builds on the previous to define Barack's moral and ethical foundations. Don't worry, I'm not going to go chapter by chapter; I'm just going to hit the highlights.
First and foremost, he's not rich - by today's standards. When he ran for his senate seat primary, his opponent Blair Hull had just sold off his business to Goldman Sachs for 531 Million dollars. That's rich. Obama had raised only 250 thousand in the first three months.
Barack didn't have a father, his dad leaving (I think, need to double check; either way dead/left - not there) when he was young. His father figure, then, turns out to be his Grandfather. Barack tells a story about how he used to challenge - and beat - his grandfather in arguments about household rules. By the time he was 19, however, he realized that winning the argument really meant little but respecting his grandfather's rules meant everything. He learned two lessons that most people today do not know.
One, respecting our elders is important. Throughout the opening chapters, he constantly demonstrates that he acknowledges our forefathers and elders have a wisdom that is worth listening to, even if we think we already have the answer.
Two, he realized that somethings which seem unimportant to us, are of great importance to others and we need to respect that. So often I hear the line, “I'm not responsible for how someone else feels.” That attitude reeks of irresponsibility and naiveté. Barack seems to understand that, yes, indeed we are capable of taking on the responsibility of respecting others, and that we are not blind to other's desires.
Barack is smart. I don't just mean Constitutional Law Professor, wide vocabulary, well read, near historian smart. I mean law smart, street smart, and appealing smart. Okay, I don't have examples for all of these but here's what I do know. He's one of the few senators that actually reads the cases that the higher courts have dealt with in interpreting laws. Of course he's a ConLaw prof, but he has read and studied the federalist papers that followed for formation of the declaration of independence and the constitution. He understands the constitution as a living document, which is something that I agree with.
Here's a directly paraphrased ;-) story about his street smarts.
“During my general election campaign for the us senate, my republican opponent assigned a young man to track all my public appearances with a hand held camera. This has become fairly routine operating procedure in many campaigns, but whether because the young man was overzealous or whether he had been instructed to try to provoke me, his tracking came to resemble stalking. From morning to night, he followed me everywhere, usually from a distance of no more than 5 to 10 feet. He would film me coming out of the restroom. He would film me on my cell, talking to my wife and children.
“At first, I tried reasoning with him. I stopped to ask him his name, told him I understood he had a job to do, and suggested that he keep enough of a distance to allow me to have a conversation without him listening in. ... he remained largely mute, other than to say his name was Justing. ... After two or three days of this, I decided I'd had enough. With Justin fast on my heels, I strolled into the press office of the state capitol building and asked some of the reporters who were having lunch to gather round.
“'Hey guys', I said, 'I want to introduce you to Justing. Just here's been assigned by the Ryan campaign to stalk me wherever I go.'
“As I explained the situation, Justin stood there, continuing to film. The reporters turned to him and started peppering him with questions.
“'You follow him into the bathroom?'”
“'Are you this close to him all the time?'”
“Soon several news crews arrived with their cameras to film Justin filming me. Like a prisoner of war, Justin kept repeating his name, his rank, and the telephone number of his candidate's campaign headquarters. By 6, the story of Justin was on most local broadcasts. The story ended up blanketing the state for a week - cartoons editorials, and sports radio chatter. After several days of defiance, my opponent succumbed to the pressure, asked Justin to back up a few feet, and issued an apology. “
Now, while I find that story simply amusing and a demonstration of street smarts, he had a greater reason for writing it. He goes on to drive that point home, the point of value and civil behavior:
“People might not have understood our contrasting views on Medicare or Middle East diplomacy. But they knew that my opponent's campaign had violated a value - civil behavior - that they considered important.”
Barack is a minority among minorities, only half black, but his understanding of minorities and majorities seems complete. He recognizes how the majority attempt to rule by law and the minorities attempt to rule by court decision. Wisely, he understands the need for understanding:
“I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.
“But that does not mean those who are struggling - or those of us who claim to speak for those who are struggling - are thereby freed from trying to understand the perspectives of those who are better off. ... That's what empathy does - it calls us all to task.... We are al Shaken out of our complacency. We are all forced beyond our limited vision.
No on is exempt from the call to find common ground.”
This is a notion that transcends political lines. I find it very easy to agree with this mentality - I find that it is what I practice, as I stated at the beginning. Barack seems to be a politician that has his head on straight, thus far in his book however. I'm concerned by how simple it all seems and by how he's very clearly avoiding trying to convince anyone to align their views with his. Indeed, he's spoken of his experiences, not his views. His views are already known, they're his platform. What I particularly like is how his story clearly demonstrates what kind of a man he is. A man of intelligence, smarts, and wit who is clearly aware of the pitfalls of his position, including the possibility that he will be consumed by the political machine and lose sight of his values and morals.
-- I'm into Politics now, so we'll see how that game is played. I'll post again with some more insight into Barack's life in Washington.
This blog series is my response to my readings. I'll leave some money quotes and passages and general impressions. If something hits home, I'll write about that too.
Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope - Part I, Background, chapters 1-5
Barack opens with no apologies -- he is and will be a democrat and this is the story of his election and first few years in Washington. A light and quick read, I find his writing intelligible and logical. His points and sections flow together in a structure rarely scene today.
The opening chapters, Prologue, Republicans and Democrats, Values, Our Constitution, and Politics serve to define the basis for the rest of the book as each chapter builds on the previous to define Barack's moral and ethical foundations. Don't worry, I'm not going to go chapter by chapter; I'm just going to hit the highlights.
First and foremost, he's not rich - by today's standards. When he ran for his senate seat primary, his opponent Blair Hull had just sold off his business to Goldman Sachs for 531 Million dollars. That's rich. Obama had raised only 250 thousand in the first three months.
Barack didn't have a father, his dad leaving (I think, need to double check; either way dead/left - not there) when he was young. His father figure, then, turns out to be his Grandfather. Barack tells a story about how he used to challenge - and beat - his grandfather in arguments about household rules. By the time he was 19, however, he realized that winning the argument really meant little but respecting his grandfather's rules meant everything. He learned two lessons that most people today do not know.
One, respecting our elders is important. Throughout the opening chapters, he constantly demonstrates that he acknowledges our forefathers and elders have a wisdom that is worth listening to, even if we think we already have the answer.
Two, he realized that somethings which seem unimportant to us, are of great importance to others and we need to respect that. So often I hear the line, “I'm not responsible for how someone else feels.” That attitude reeks of irresponsibility and naiveté. Barack seems to understand that, yes, indeed we are capable of taking on the responsibility of respecting others, and that we are not blind to other's desires.
Barack is smart. I don't just mean Constitutional Law Professor, wide vocabulary, well read, near historian smart. I mean law smart, street smart, and appealing smart. Okay, I don't have examples for all of these but here's what I do know. He's one of the few senators that actually reads the cases that the higher courts have dealt with in interpreting laws. Of course he's a ConLaw prof, but he has read and studied the federalist papers that followed for formation of the declaration of independence and the constitution. He understands the constitution as a living document, which is something that I agree with.
Here's a directly paraphrased ;-) story about his street smarts.
“During my general election campaign for the us senate, my republican opponent assigned a young man to track all my public appearances with a hand held camera. This has become fairly routine operating procedure in many campaigns, but whether because the young man was overzealous or whether he had been instructed to try to provoke me, his tracking came to resemble stalking. From morning to night, he followed me everywhere, usually from a distance of no more than 5 to 10 feet. He would film me coming out of the restroom. He would film me on my cell, talking to my wife and children.
“At first, I tried reasoning with him. I stopped to ask him his name, told him I understood he had a job to do, and suggested that he keep enough of a distance to allow me to have a conversation without him listening in. ... he remained largely mute, other than to say his name was Justing. ... After two or three days of this, I decided I'd had enough. With Justin fast on my heels, I strolled into the press office of the state capitol building and asked some of the reporters who were having lunch to gather round.
“'Hey guys', I said, 'I want to introduce you to Justing. Just here's been assigned by the Ryan campaign to stalk me wherever I go.'
“As I explained the situation, Justin stood there, continuing to film. The reporters turned to him and started peppering him with questions.
“'You follow him into the bathroom?'”
“'Are you this close to him all the time?'”
“Soon several news crews arrived with their cameras to film Justin filming me. Like a prisoner of war, Justin kept repeating his name, his rank, and the telephone number of his candidate's campaign headquarters. By 6, the story of Justin was on most local broadcasts. The story ended up blanketing the state for a week - cartoons editorials, and sports radio chatter. After several days of defiance, my opponent succumbed to the pressure, asked Justin to back up a few feet, and issued an apology. “
Now, while I find that story simply amusing and a demonstration of street smarts, he had a greater reason for writing it. He goes on to drive that point home, the point of value and civil behavior:
“People might not have understood our contrasting views on Medicare or Middle East diplomacy. But they knew that my opponent's campaign had violated a value - civil behavior - that they considered important.”
Barack is a minority among minorities, only half black, but his understanding of minorities and majorities seems complete. He recognizes how the majority attempt to rule by law and the minorities attempt to rule by court decision. Wisely, he understands the need for understanding:
“I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our politics in favor of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.
“But that does not mean those who are struggling - or those of us who claim to speak for those who are struggling - are thereby freed from trying to understand the perspectives of those who are better off. ... That's what empathy does - it calls us all to task.... We are al Shaken out of our complacency. We are all forced beyond our limited vision.
No on is exempt from the call to find common ground.”
This is a notion that transcends political lines. I find it very easy to agree with this mentality - I find that it is what I practice, as I stated at the beginning. Barack seems to be a politician that has his head on straight, thus far in his book however. I'm concerned by how simple it all seems and by how he's very clearly avoiding trying to convince anyone to align their views with his. Indeed, he's spoken of his experiences, not his views. His views are already known, they're his platform. What I particularly like is how his story clearly demonstrates what kind of a man he is. A man of intelligence, smarts, and wit who is clearly aware of the pitfalls of his position, including the possibility that he will be consumed by the political machine and lose sight of his values and morals.
-- I'm into Politics now, so we'll see how that game is played. I'll post again with some more insight into Barack's life in Washington.