Quick Note for Humanitarians Everywhere
I love this, as it expresses two very worthwhile thoughts simultaneously.
One is the point of the meme, i.e., we actually did have presidents who were capable of incredibly profound levels of thinking, and that it’s at least possible that we’ll have them in the future.
The other is the content of Obama’s comment, which applies so directly and so beautifully to everyone on Earth who endeavors to improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet today, and for generations to come. We must neither become apathetic in fighting against evil, nor overestimate our capacity to win these battles.
Wow.
This reminds me of Chris Hedges’ comment, “I don’t fight fascists because I think I will win. I fight fascists because they are fascists.”
Craig,
Oh Dear, I’m afraid President Obama like most men had many faults, and weaknesses both as a President and a man.
That doesn’t make him a bad person, he was certainly well intentioned, but it doesn’t make him a paragon of virtue or a saint either!
Elevating past political leaders into a mythic and nostalgic pantheon is pointless ad unproductive.
The (undeserved) elevation of Ronald Reagan into a mythic and nostalgic pantheon has neither been pointless or unproductive. Efforts have continued to lionize him and obscure his many faults and misdeeds, with the result that people are misled about the nature and ‘achievements’of his administration, and his (latter) party receives more respect and trust than it should based on historical data.
Likewise, though Obama was a highly intelligent and an excellent public speaker, his administration massively expanded the drone wars and used a WWI era espionage law to punish journalists three times more than all former administrations combined. He is also undeserving of lionization.
All that said, Obama cast the United States in a far better light internationally than we currently enjoy or are likely to enjoy under Trump. That better light (when it shines) is important for all manner of diplomatic, trade, and public relations efforts
Cameron,
Ronald Reagan was the last President of America at a time when the US was at the apex of power economically and militarily. For a brief period the US really was the world absolute leader. President Reagan’s policies, ambitions, methods and aspirations were exactly right for a President of that era.
Both the American people, and subsequent Presidents have tried to maintain the illusion of that era with a facade of symbolic gestures and ill conceived adventures.
The task of dismantling the grand illusion has fallen to President Trump.
President Trump may not be the best President, but he understands the US is a nation in decay, beset by fierce economic competitors. The US is a victim of it’s own success.
President Trump openly admits future US Presidents no longer possess the economic luxury of a huge national internal economy with vast surpluses and accumulated national treasure to wield in the pursuit of idealistic international goals.
Globalization has certainly produced winners, but US institutions and sections of the US economy have been massive losers.
The void left by the collapse of US power and prestige has been filled by other, much tougher and more cynical, nations.
Rightly or wrongly, President Trump is the man who is best describes by the expression “cometh the hour, cometh the man”.
His speech in Poland, and later in the PRC, was remarkably candid for any US President. The speeches may have lacked the elegance and high minded polite, but hollow, symbolism of President Obama, but President Trump’s “tell it as it is”, honesty is far more effective, and essentially more American.
It can’t be easy for the idealistic US left to live in and era where the US is no longer needed or wanted as a the “prefect of the world”.
It can’t be easy for the US left to understand the old ideals and aspirations are not so much defeated as simply obsolete and irrelevant.
Hopefully, US Presidents will no longer stride the world stage pontificating in increasingly threadbare robes, while rivals ravage the US economy and US cities, institutions and infrastructure decays into ruins, fought over by internal division like rats on a carcass.
In this era the US can no longer worry about the niceties of buying “diplomatic, trade, and public relations efforts” .
In reality, most nations apart from the English speaking world, never liked or admired the US. Mostly America was always resented for it’s wealth,influence and insistence of exporting a Readers Digest version of US culture.
Trump may be inept in many ways, but at least he recognizes the changed reality and is doings his best to clear away the accumulation of Hubris and delusion.
President Trump’s instance on putting American interests first, his brutal rejection of political correctness or diplomatic niceties have come as a shock to many Americans and foreign powers.
His attitude to Russia is is simple, he understands Russia is no longer the mighty Warsaw Pact/USSR, but a pygmy economically heavily reliant on energy sales to stay afloat. President Trump sees Russia as a useful tool to annoy the PRC and possibly the EU, but not a security threat to the US.
Russia’s border wars are just the age old squabbles of East European tribalism, inconsequential (and incomprehensible) to anyone but themselves.
His main concern is how to contain the PRC while disarming the little rogue state of North Korea without war. For this task he needs the PRC.
His task isn’t help by a hysterical leftist press talking about WW3 ! (North Korea has no allies to make the treat of WW3 credible).
Wow… …”leftist press”…? Over the past three decades, mass media has very thoroughly consolidated, so that 90% of what we see, hear, and read, is now controlled by just six corporations. For those entities, left and right are merely tools to divide and control. It’s an old game with new players.