Discussing Liberally Salt Lake City

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Most of us will recall that during the period that we took turns each month selecting a book and then promoting/hosting that month’s discussion, I selected for January 2007 “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream” and, for extra credit, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.”

The following e-mail arrived from Amazon.com a few moments ago about a book just off press that lists “The U.S. Senate” as the author (???!!!) and analyzes in 464 pages what bills Barack proposed, co-sponsored, etc., in 2007.

If Barack is the Democratic nominee by the time of our Mar 13 meeting, I think it is time for us to up-date our file on what he stands for. Particularly if we are going to “go to bat” for him in our “full court press” with our friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc. (I thought you would like the mixed metaphor!!!)

Though (full disclosure) as a Harvard Law alum who sponsored an “I Have A Dream” program that provided tutoring/mentoring for 200 housing-project kids with a guarantee of college tuition and served as Eugene Lang’s volunteer IHAD-National treasurer in the 1990’s, I can’t help but worship someone who was President of the Harvard Law Review and then turned his back on a lucrative career to be a community organizer in Chicago’s worst slums!!!!!


---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Now available: "Barack Obama: What He Believes In - From His Own Works" by Barack Obama on Amazon.com
From: "Amazon.com" <books-store@amazon.com>
Date: Mon, March 3, 2008 7:41 am
To: John Karls
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Amazon.com Customer,

As someone who has purchased or rated books by Barack Obama, you might like to know that "Barack Obama: What He Believes In - From His Own Works" is now available. You can order yours for just $14.99 by following the link below.

Barack Obama: What He Believes In - From His Own Works

Barack Obama

Price: $14.99

To learn more about Barack Obama: What He Believes In - From His Own Works, please visit the following page at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/160450 ... pe_snp_170

Sincerely,

Amazon.com


***********************************************
The following is what appears from visiting the referenced page at Amazon.com –


Barack Obama: What He Believes In - From His Own Works (Paperback)
by Barack Obama (Author), U.S. Senate (Author)

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List Price: $14.99
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Editorial Reviews

Book Description

We are all familiar with the phenomenon known as Barack Obama. However, many of us don't know what he has worked for while in the Senate-what sort of legislation has he, himself, sponsored or co-sponsored. This book provides an invaluable glimpse of what the Senator feels passionately about, listing and detailing all of the Senate Bills and Resolutions that Senator Barack Obama sponsored or co-sponsored during 2007, the first term of the 110th Congress.*****It also lists all the co-sponsors of these bills so you can see who he has worked with-which Democratic and Republican Senators he has reached out to for these legislative initiatives.*****Because of the complexity of some of the Bills and Resolutions, each of the pieces (with the exception of two) are accompanied by highlighted, official summaries of the legislation that clearly, in simple language, outlines the intent and impact of that Bill or Resolution.*****The legislation covered here encompasses a wide variety of subjects, including Iran and Iraq, US energy policy and health care.*****Take a look for yourself at what Senator Obama has done during the 110th Congress of the United States during 2007.

Product Details·

Paperback: 464 pages ·
Publisher: Arc Manor (March 1, 2008) ·
Language: English · ISBN-10: 1604501170 ·
ISBN-13: 978-1604501179 ·
Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches ·
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies) ·
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Amazon.com Sales Rank: #48,668 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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New York Times On-Line
Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Think Again - Denouncing and Renouncing
By Stanley Fish

*****
Editorial Note -
Stanley Fish is the Davidson Kahn Distinguished University Professor and a professor of law at Florida International University, in Miami, and dean emeritus of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has also taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Johns Hopkins and Duke University. He is the author of 10 books. His new book on higher education, "Save the World On Your Own Time," will be published in 2008.

*****
Some years ago when a high ranking official of the Nation of Islam was being interviewed on TV, he was challenged to denounce another prominent member of the Nation who had called Jews “bagel-eating vermin who had escaped from the caves of Europe to pollute the world.” He replied, “I’m not in the denouncing business.” He did not elaborate further, but I understood him to be saying, It is not my job either to defend or repudiate every statement made by someone I know. Neither my integrity nor my life’s work depends on my clearing myself of suspicions provoked by the words of others.

At least I hope that’s what he was saying, because it is definitely what I want to say.

In politics, and in much of the rest of life, being held responsible for your own words comes with the territory. Once you’ve opened your big mouth, others have a perfect right to ask, “Do you really mean that?” or “What did you mean by that?” or “If you say that, would you also say…?” (a question that usually has you frantically disassociating yourself from Hitler). But why should you be held responsible for words spoken by someone else, even if that someone else is a person you work with or share a bed with? I frequently say things that make my wife cringe, but whatever blame attaches to my utterances certainly should not be extended to her, and it would be entirely inappropriate to ask her to denounce me or to fault her if she didn’t.

Yet this is the position we routinely place our public figures in. The demand that Barack Obama denounce and renounce his pastor, who delivered himself of sentiments a million miles from anything Obama has ever said, is only the latest and most publicized example. In previous little dust-ups Obama has had to distance himself from Louis Farrakhan (after Hillary Clinton demanded that he both denounce and renounce) and from his own middle name. Clinton, in her turn, has been called on the journalistic carpet because of remarks made by Robert Johnson, Geraldine Ferraro, a campaign manager and her husband. John McCain has had to repudiate a talk show host who introduced him and a minister who embraced him. And it’s only March. What do we have to look forward to? Denunciations of grade-school friends who grew up to become neo-Nazis or sub-prime lenders?

This denouncing and renouncing game is simply not serious. It is a media-staged theater, produced not in response to genuine concerns – no one thinks that Obama is unpatriotic or that Clinton is a racist or that McCain is a right-wing bigot – but in response to the needs of a news cycle. First you do the outrage (did you see what X said?), then you put the question to the candidate (do you hereby denounce and renounce?), then you have a debate on the answer (Did he go far enough? Has she shut her husband up?), and then you do endless polls that quickly become the basis of a new round.

Meanwhile, the things the candidates themselves are saying about really important matters – war, the economy, health care, the environment – are put on the back-burner until the side show is over, though the odds are that a new one will start up immediately.

I don’t mean to suggest that denouncing and renouncing are never serious acts. One renounces the devil and all his works in many pre-baptismal liturgies (and in “The Godfather”). Renunciation of a position you no longer hold and now consider to be profoundly in error may be helpful to your psychological health. Renouncing a group from which you have broken away may serve the useful purpose of warning others away from the dangers you have now escaped.

Denouncing is a bit different. Usually we denounce our opponents, not our friends or associates or loved ones (unless we are living in a totalitarian state where denunciations are offered as proof of loyalty). So it seems overly dramatic to denounce a supporter because he or she has uttered an opinion you find distasteful. Better to say something mild and nuanced – I don’t agree with that, but I’m not going to turn my back on someone because of a few unfortunate remarks – and get on with the real business at hand.

That is what Obama did in his justly praised speech. He rejected Reverend Wright’s rants against the United States and against the white power-structure, but he refused to reject the man to whom he had looked for spiritual guidance. And he deplored the tendency “to pounce” on every “gaffe,” because, he said, if we continue to do that, we’ll just be “talking about some other distraction, and then another one, and then another one.”

The odd thing is that the press that produces these distractions and the populace that consumes them really believe they are discussing issues and participating in genuine political dialogue. But in fact they have abandoned genuine political dialogue and have committed themselves to a conversation that differs only in subject matter from conversations about Eliot Spitzer’s and David Paterson’s sex lives. It’s not politics; it’s titillation clothed in political garb.

We should collectively denounce and renounce denouncing and renouncing.