Obama in Kansas

Obama's speech in Kansas last week was so interesting and revealing of us, our history and current American directions in politics that I think it is worth a few comments the next several days.

Mr. Obama spoke at Osawatonie, Kansas several days ago. It was a major, major event as it described and revealed much of Obama's thought process and philosophy. First, it was a political speech; it was so inherently controversial that it could not be considered a presidential speech. Secondly, it was symbolic. The speech in place and content called upon Teddy Roosevelt's New Nationalism speech. Third, it was strange; honest in that it was revealing of Obama's underlying view of problems suited for government intervention but guarded, raising questions--some with distorted imagery--but never offering solutions, never came to a conclusion. This was not an inherently American speech with musings more in the tradition of European Socialism or the modern Asian managed economies. It without doubt asks for a basic change in how America is governed.

Osawatomie was the site of two major events, the famous one the radical speech Teddy Roosevelt made August 31, 1910. In it he attempted to bring the diverging parts of the Republican party together. (It failed and he started a third party.) Roosevelt's speech was influenced by Croly's "Promise of American Life", also controversial. Croly himself later became a socialist with a labor/farmer coalition bent and then a spiritualist.

Below are two excerpts, one from each. They contain a vision that is foreign to many Americans but the explanation will ring familiar to all. It is that mixture of popular anxiety and organizational confidence that typifies the American Left. These two men offered a new vision of America, a vision that Obama seems to share. Both are revealing and eyeopening, well worth the read.

Roosevelt:
"The American people are right in demanding that new Nationalism without which we cannot hope to deal with new problems. The new Nationalism puts the National need before sectional or personal advantage. It is impatient of the utter confusion that results from local legislatures attempting to treat National issues as local issues. It is still more impatient of the impotence which springs from over-division of governmental powers, the impotence which makes it possible for local selfishness or for legal cunning, hired by wealthy special interests, to bring National activities to a deadlock. This new Nationalism regards the executive power as the steward of public welfare. It demands of the judiciary that it shall be interested primarily in human welfare rather than in property, just as it demands that the representative body shall represent all the people rather than any one class or section of the people… . I believe in shaping the ends of government to protect property as well as human welfare. Normally…the ends are the same, but whenever the alternative must be faced I am for men and not for property… ."

Croly: The Promise of American Life:
"They have been promised on American soil comfort, prosperity, and the opportunity for self-improvement; and the lesson of the existing crisis is that such a Promise can never be redeemed by an indiscriminate individual scramble for wealth. The individual competition, even when it starts under fair conditions and rules, results, not only, as it should, in the triumph of the strongest, but in the attempt to perpetuate the victory; and it is this attempt which must be recognized and forestalled in the interest of the American national purpose. The way to realize a purpose is, not to leave it to chance, but to keep it loyally in mind, and adopt means proper to the importance and the difficulty of the task. No voluntary association of individuals, resourceful and disinterested though they be, is competent to assume the responsibility. The problem belongs to the American national democracy, and its solution must be attempted chiefly by means of official national action."

More to come.