Obama's proletarian struggle

Individual conscience and service or a proletarian struggle?

personal conscience of each individual

For Obama it is the collective force that individuals can exert through mass action such as the Occupy Wall Street movement. Not the individual but the collectivity of individuals subsumed to some greater goal that causes important change according to Obama. Life is a proletarian struggle.

For Romney, “the call of service is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”

Recently, Gov. Romney told graduates of Liberty College that “the great drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life… and that Men and women of every faith — and good people with none at all — sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”

Life is politics says Obama. Obama tells college graduates at Banard College that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle and that they need to be ready to occupy everything. Mass political action is the way to make significant change says Obama.

The contrasting world views of Romney and Obama as to how change occurs through individual actions could not be starker.

What say you as to why individuals matter?

DrCameronJackson@gmail.com

See Opinion piece in WSJ A Tale of Two Commencements below

“Two days after Mitt Romney delivered the commencement speech at Liberty University, the big evangelical Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell, Barack Obama tutored graduates at Barnard College, the intensely liberal all-women’s school adjacent to Columbia University. As you might guess, the wisdom these two political elders imparted to the Class of 2012 was not the same.

Of course the first purpose for both men was to turn young graduates into believers. Mr. Romney, a Mormon, needs to win over ambivalent evangelical voters. Mr. Obama, a liberal Democrat, expects to have the 22-year-old college graduate vote locked up—if they vote.

Yes, of course, they pandered.
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Columnist Daniel Henninger on what Mitt Romney and President Obama’s commencement speeches say about their world view. Photo: Associated Press

Barack Obama, by now a master at faux self-deflation, admitted he was pandering: “Now I recognize that’s a cheap applause line when you’re giving a commencement at Barnard.” (Laughter.) He had said the women of this generation will help lead the way. (Applause.)

Mitt Romney solved his more problematic pandering assignment by piling praise onto the university’s late founder, the Rev. Jerry Falwell—”a cheerful, confident champion for Christ.”

But even amid pandering one may find truths about candidates revealed, and so it was in New York City and Lynchburg, Va.

The world that Barack Obama conveyed to the women at Barnard is totally, overwhelmingly political. To be sure, there were references to parental joy at the success of children completing college, but virtually every thought in the Obama commencement address—on the accomplishments of the past or a graduate’s goals—was defined by political activity.

He said they are about to grapple with unique challenges, “like whether you’ll be able to earn equal pay for equal work” or “fully control decisions about your own health.”
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Read a transcript of Barack Obama’s commencement speech at Barnard College

Read a transcript of Mitt Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University

The role of the citizen in “our democracy” began 225 years ago at the Convention in Philadelphia, which had “flaws,” to wit: “Questions of race and gender were unresolved.” Nonetheless, it “allowed for protest and movements.”

And so: “Don’t accept somebody else’s construction of the way things ought to be. It’s up to you to right wrongs. It’s up to you to point out injustice. It’s up to you to hold the system accountable and sometimes upend it entirely. It’s up to you to stand up and to be heard, to write and to lobby, to march, to organize, to vote.”

Mr. Obama described his own early job as a community organizer: “I wanted to do my part to shape a better world.” He cited the accomplishments of previous generations of young people who “stood up and sat in from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall.” This, Mr. Obama said, is how “we achieved” women’s rights, voting rights, workers’ rights and gay rights.

Barack Obama seems to inhabit a world of history and personal experience in which good people at every turn are held back by individuals or oppressive forces that one only overcomes by personal or public resistance.

Someone in high school told Labor Secretary Hilda Solis she wasn’t college material. Mr. Obama’s grandmother worked for a bank but hit the glass ceiling. And today there are “those who oppose change, those who benefit from an unjust status quo [and] have always bet on the public’s cynicism or the public’s complacency.” He predicts they will lose “this time as well.”

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The president giving remarks at Barnard College, May 14

Fair enough. That’s how the world works for Barack Obama, though it strikes me he is telling America’s 22-year-olds that the road ahead is a fairly grim proletarian struggle. Be ready to occupy everything. Where’s the joy in that?

There was less tooth and claw in the Romney speech at Liberty University. In a discussion of the uses of religious freedom, one passage in particular separated Mr. Romney from Barack Obama’s default to mass action. “The great drama of Christianity,” Gov. Romney said, “is not a crowd shot, following the movements of collectives or even nations. The drama is always personal, individual, unfolding in one’s own life.” Out of this, he said, “Men and women of every faith, and good people with none at all, sincerely strive to do right and lead a purpose-driven life.”

Progress, he argued, emerges through “conscience in action,” for him “the nation’s greatest force for good.” Mr. Romney referred several times to the idea of personal service. “The call to service,” he said “is one of the fundamental elements of our national character. It has motivated every great movement of conscience that this hopeful, fair-minded country of ours has ever seen.”

For Barack Obama, life is politics. For Mitt Romney, life includes politics; politics, he said, does not define us.

To wage a presidential campaign in our nonstop media age, the man who sees politics as a battering ram may have an edge. But Mitt Romney, with his politics of optimism and personal conscience, could be onto something that will serve him well.

Write to henninger@wsj.com

treat all terrorists alike -- whether captured in a cave or shopping mall

Tell Adam Smith and Justin Amash that they are ‘losing it’ to seek to remove the legal authority granted by Congress after 9/11 to fight terrorists on every front.

If you live in Adam Smith’s district it is easy to contact him. He is on Facebook so you can leave him a note there. Adam Smith’s FAX is 202 225-5893 and voice is 202 225-8901.

Smith and Amash have proposed an amendment to next year’s defense authorization bill that more or less revokes the legal authority granted by Congress to fight terrorists on every front.

Let’s not reward terrorists with better treatment for having the wits to get out of their caves and sneak in to America to blow up civilians in shopping malls. Whether discovered in a cave in Yemon or Time Square New York all terrorists must be dealt with through legally approved military methods.

Obama refuses to transfer terrorists to Gitmo. Obama gave the protections that criminals have — Miranda rights — to terrorists. Obama has treated terrorists as though they were common criminals.

Obama is wrong. Terrorists are terrorists and not simply criminals. And that’s why the military must have the freedom to use military methods to deal with terrorists.

Obama supports gay marriage

And let me tell you, George, I’m getting chills again,” “Good Morning America” co-host Robin Roberts said about her interview with Obama.

“When you sit in that room and you hear him say those historic words. It was not lost on anyone in there right there. You never know what he’s going to say until you ask him,” she added.
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In another courageous move our president said that the states should decide about gay marriage, but he was for it. And if she doesn’t know what he’s going to say she need only read his old speeches which are endlessly repeated.

jaj48@aol.com

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