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July 2009 
Democrats Divided by an Obama Shaped Wedge
Posted on Aug 26th, 2008
by 
Albert
Albert
Some critical observations from SPIEGEL ONLINE Washinton Correspondentt Gabor Steingart regarding the Democratic Convention. These insights show that no magic bullets and mantras for change are enough. Even gaps inside one party need to be outgrown and understood.
No flying carpets with "WE are all one" songs are working. in the case of US Elections 2008 this realzation has its coming out even before Oabama is nominated....
Democrats Divided by an Obama Shaped Wedge
No flying carpets with "WE are all one" songs are working. in the case of US Elections 2008 this realzation has its coming out even before Oabama is nominated....
Democrats Divided by an Obama Shaped Wedge
By Gabor Steingart
At the Democratic National Convention this week, it will become clear that the Democrats have a long way to go before they can speak of unity. The party is split into at least three factions.
Monday evening will witness the kickoff of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. It promises to be a raucous spectacle, complete with much talk about "change." Indeed, only one other word might have a chance of competing: "unity." But no matter how often we hear that word, the Democrats won't be able to cover up one glaring fact: This year, there isn't one single Democratic Party. Rather, there are at least three of them.
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As is often the case, at world changing events such as the Democratic Convention, it is full of those supporters believing that the success of the event is due to their own hard work.
As Gabor Steingart has quite rightly stated, however, ALL that collective hard work is now directed in three directions and in the context of the simple Maoist truth that the Olympics is all about the athletes, this Democratic Convention must now be about focussing on the selection of the most appropriate leader to address ALL the global issues at hand.
In order that this should happen, the time has now arrived for Obama to assume the ACTION of RESPONSIBILITY and taking ownership of his own performance, by re-directing ALL the democratic party support in ONE direction as a result of explaining, in everyday language, to ALL the voters of the USA, what his messages of “hope” and “change” really mean and how that meaning can be clearly differentiated from all the other messages of “hope” and “change”, as well as the ACTIONS which will be taken to achieve this “hope” and “change”.
yes…..amd of course the complexity of a convention (and beyond it a country) is much higher than that of Olympic Teams. Obama -and his advisors - is circ ling in various ways towards this specification and focusing process.
Look at this Bill Moyers Interview with Andrew Bacevich. It reveals so much complexity which cannot be grasped without some kind of integral thinking and strategic imagination.
The work of Reinhold Niebuhr is popping up again. Referenced by Barack Obama as much as by writers like David Brooks.
When Obama spoke in Berlin recently he avoided to adress Afghanistan for example. However this needs desperately be put on the table. There is good Republican as much as good Democratic respons-abiltiy and cap-ability -framed by transpartisan understanding! -necessary.
There is good Republican as much as good Democratic respons-abiltiy and cap-ability -
framed by transpartisan understanding - that IS ABSOLUTELY necessary … and in the context of Reinhold Niebuhr's distrust of Communism, being more about the political practices he saw in the Russian Revolution and within the Communist Party than a disagreement with the philosophy of a man buried in Highgate Cemetry, IT IS ONLY an understanding of the underlying holistically integral inter-woven threads of that philosophy, by THE LEADER of the FREE WORLD and the willingness to promote that understanding as the basis of the BIG PICTURE GLOBAL SOLUTION, which will indeed propose INTEGRALLY APPROPRIATE ACTIONS to address the issues of Afghanistan, the Caucasus et al.
So we do not ned to wait for 2012. The tipping point is:
NOW!
And, as Ervin Laszlo says:
“We see that any single event …now has global repercussions. And this calls for a completely different comportment than anything before. You can't do just one thing. You can't act in just one place. Whatever you do in one place, at one time, will have repercussions to all other times and all other places.”
However it needs leadership and pioneering spirit, courage, audacious thinking and bold action, hearts, minds, guts and hands.
And Joe Biden, some days ago:
“And the fight ahead will be like nothing you've ever seen.
The stakes couldn't be higher.”
Anything less will no longer be sufficient…
THE tipping point is ABSOLUTELY NOW !!! … and just to clear a possible mis-understanding … my own references to the performance of Team GB, in Beijing, are purely from the point of view that the leaders of that team have exemplified themselves as 'SPIRAL WIZARDS', against all the odds, in that they have completely adhered to Ervin Laszlo's premise, as you have related, in their macro management of all aspects of a macro problem toward the common good of Team GB, which they will no doubt utilise as a Team GB template for the 2012 Olympic Games in London … an event which will have finished before the end of the Mayan calendar event !
My further point is that … IF the earth's resources and learning are to be re-distributed by need, not want, so ALL can survive with enough … the holistic, whole-earth inter-connected, network system of politics necessary, will need a lot more SPIRAL WIZARDS to implement such a goal … and maybe, just maybe the Obama / Biden ticket can act as a catalyst to achieve same in accordance with the Team GB template ? … never forgetting Winston Churchill's words about two nations divided by the same language.
The Team GB is INDEED a great example, Michael.
Want to add this IHT article from Alan Covell:
The Olympic Flame, For Now,Burns Bright in Britain
Play up ! play up ! and play the game of SPIRAL WIZARDRY !