{"id":4641,"date":"2011-01-12T20:22:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-13T03:22:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/?p=4641"},"modified":"2014-01-09T10:23:42","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T17:23:42","slug":"a-strong-speech-but-more-is-needed-beyond-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/a-strong-speech-but-more-is-needed-beyond-words\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama On Giffords: More Is Needed Beyond Words"},"content":{"rendered":"

O<\/b>bama delivered a powerful speech. Senior Movement people tell us tonight they acknowledge the moment’s impact. He’s at his best in these circumstances. He hit the right tone at the right time.<\/p>\n

To be blunt? By tomorrow? It’s not enough. Gone. More fleeting feelings and words. <\/p>\n

Obama, to have a real impact beyond the next 3 news cycles, must lead purposeful, concrete political action. He must do what he said tonight we all must never do — engage in the dirty retail business of politics, acting to create incentives and exact penalties. Actual politics will change America. A conversation is a whisper on the wind. Even if you say things nicely and try and ‘heal instead of wound’.
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

H<\/b>e gave a stirring speech. No doubt. We get it. But he’s got this bizarre notion that politics — in general — somehow is the problem. And that this problem can only be overcome by emotional or empathetic purity. He abandons the very notion of politics as the philosophical fundamental sense of ‘things concerning the polis<\/i>‘ at the origins of Western civilization. This stance is emblematic of his presidency 2008-2010. Obama again rejects ‘dirty usual politics’ and calls us to float with him serenely in his bubble of detached empathy. That’s frankly an irresponsible abdication. <\/p>\n

How bizarre that both Obama and the Movement rush to call this moment apolitical. To the solemn approval of cable heads.<\/p>\n

Obama said ‘I want an America that [insert some warm fuzzy nice future thing here]’. Great. We all do. But ‘a conversational’ bubble of detached empathy once it moves into concrete specifics soon pops. Worse, the proposed specifics are actually chasing phantoms. Consider gun policy. Like Matthew’s obsession with the word ‘gun’ that powerfully political issue is the problem’s abstract manifestation, not its essence. <\/p>\n

There are it seems two separate completely politics tracks that Obama must deign to recognize and address. The first? Something his own administration helps propagate — the American predicament of perpetual ambient mobilization designed to destabilize domestic political foundations with agitated fear, threat and force. The second is the issue we all have been discussing for years – the Movement’s ideological and philosophical core. When seen by this bifurcated prism, guns, Confederate re-habilitation, ‘national security’ as the unassailable American version of Bourbon raison d’etat<\/i> and so on are manifestations of that underlying reality. Does Obama really think the Movement will dissolve itself and jettison its undeniably successful reality for a hug? That the Pentagon, Community and vertical integration of local LEOs with DHS will all cheerfully surrender budgets, prestige and careers?<\/p>\n

It’d be nice if the world could be changed by a stirring speech. Or a hug. Both are necessary but not sufficient. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obama delivered a powerful speech. Senior Movement people tell us tonight they acknowledge the moment’s impact. He’s at his best in these circumstances. He hit the right tone at the right time. To be blunt? By tomorrow? It’s not enough. Gone. More fleeting feelings and words. Obama, to have a real impact beyond the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[260,163,114,17,157],"class_list":{"0":"post-4641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-acolytes-in-media","7":"tag-election-2012","8":"tag-media","9":"tag-movement","10":"tag-obama","11":"tag-pundits","12":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stiftungleostrauss.com\/bunker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}