Liveblogging the State of the Union

Some blogs had "liveblogging" updates during the State of the Union. I find these speeches painfully boring, in part because they are constantly broken up by partisan applause. So I wondered what unique take I could offer on the SOTU...and what else besides tracking the (often cheesy) history references. So, here goes.

9:05: PBS Commentator Mark Shields suggests that having the new governor of Virginia give the response to the SOTU from the VA State House is like a "State of the Confederacy." Jim Lehrer is not sure how to handle this.
9:11: Obama opens with history of SOTU; "it's tempting to look back on these moments and assume our progress was inevitable." I am very disappointed to hear that America's greatness was not preordained.
9:12: references Bull Run, Civil Rights Marches, the landing at Normandy
9:13: "we must answer history's call" (Somehow it seems like nobody can agree how to pick up the phone to answer that call).
9:18: has a president ever laughed during the SOTU?
9:21: wow another joke? this may be historic.
9:27: "From the first railroads, to the interstate highway system, our nation has always been built to compete." The Smithsonian has that story covered.
9:34: "We made the largest research investment in history." John Quincy Adams would be proud; people thought he was nuts when he proposed that the govt support research in the 1820s.
9:49: points out that in 2000, we had a massive budget surplus. That does seem like ancient history.
9:51: announces no new spending for the next 3 years. Oh well, so much for Keynesian economics or learning from the Depression.
9:58: "the Supreme Court reversed a century of law" with the campaign finance decision. The camera pans to the justices and they stare foreword blankly.
10:00: the debates between parties are 200 years old and are "the essence of our democracy." Hoftstadter would love that.
10:03: "through-out our history, no issue has united our country so much as national security." Hmm, not sure about that. See Alien and Sedition Act backlash and then almost every national security move since.
10:09: on nuclear power--"I've embraced the strategy of John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan." I'm confused. I think he just wanted to make sure to get their names in somewhere.
10:14: "It's our ideals, our values, that built America, values that allowed us to forge a nation made up of immigrants from every quarter of the globe. Values that drive us still." These values: the American dream of immigrants...and the nativism of Americans.
10:18: "The only reason we are here is that generations of Americans were unafraid to do what was hard."
10:20: "The spirit that has sustained this nation for 200 years lives on in you." Nice line.
10:28: Mark Shields says Obama was Reaganesque; "He invoked the country's past to give a sense of confidence about where we are now. And nobody did that better than Ronald Reagan."

Image: George Washington's State of the Union address--the first ever--on January 21, 1790

Teaching the Great Depression during the Great Recession

The timing could not have been better--or harder--to teach the Great Depression than this week. Better, because it was easy for my students to engage with the material and relate to the fear of economic downturn and the confusion of the how to fix it. Harder, because it's hard to talk about that crisis without talking about this one, and I am no expert on the economy. Better and harder still given that the stock market reached a 12 year low and unemployment numbers a 26-year high this week, and Obama delivered an address to Congress explaining how he planned to fix things. I spent a lot of time reading historians' perspectives and learning about the present problems to feel ready to take on this teaching challenge.

There's always disparaging talk among historians about presentism--looking at the past through the lens of today. To a certain extent, it's impossible to avoid: people are most interested in historical topics that strike a chord with events in their own lives. I've always thought historians were too quick to condemn comparisons between past and present; if we don't study history to better understand ourselves and our world, what are we doing?

I approached comparisons between the Great Depression and today's crisis delicately in my teaching. I created a table with stats and other economic factors comparing and contrasting the two crises, which I only shared after asking the students to first explain what caused the Great Depression and then what they understand about today's crisis. Finally we discussed whether it's a fair comparison to make and what's at stake.

The nuance of their answers really impressed me. As several pointed out, today's employment numbers are counted differently from the numbers in the 30s, so it's hard to know just how they compare. Another student asked how you can compare or quantify human suffering. Several worried that if we compared today's crisis with the Depression, people would be so afraid they'd stop spending and worsen things. Others wondered whether looking to the New Deal for solutions was a good idea or a bad one.

I think--or hope--that I got the point across that we can't make historical comparisons blithely and without consequences. I closed the class by reminding them of what they learned about people who were left out of the New Deal. Who might be left out in relief efforts today? They looked stunned when I told them feminists were worried that Obama's stimulus plans didn't help women. If learning history is opening their eyes about the present, I consider mine a job well done.

"Let it be told to the future world..."

The past and the future came together in Obama's inauguration this week. Among the many changes he is making, Obama is setting a very different tone down to the way he uses history. While his predecessor, President Bush, referred most often to history as that field which would vindicate him in the future, Obama is looking to the past to learn its lessons. That turn backward often leads to Philadelphia.

The inaugural weekend began with a train trip from Philadelphia to Washington, echoing the trip Abraham Lincoln made at his inaugural. Obama's new home street is so named because it connects the capitol and the White House, and Pennsylvania is where the Constitution (establishing these branches of government) was written. When he took his oath of office, he read words written in Philadelphia by the founders. Finally, he closed his speech with a rather strange choice of quotes: a writing by Thomas Paine, published in Philadelphia and read to the troops at Trenton during the American Revolution under George Washington's orders.

Paine, a radical revolutionary who is rarely quoted today, wrote a book called The American Crisis in the freezing winter of 1776 to boost the morale of the troops. Opening with the phrase, "These are the times that try men’s souls," Paine continued on with the words Obama quoted:
"Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]." Just as Obama emphasized the need for all Americans to take action and effect change, Paine continued, "throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but 'show your faith by your works.'"

I have a hard time imagining that what Obama calls "this winter of our hardship" is as desperate and daunting as the prospect before most American in the winter of 1776. Indeed, Obama's speech today was unusually grave. Will today be the start of a revolution? As I suggested before, I think it will be a peaceful revolution, more centered on how we live and think than how we govern ourselves. I hope it will be told to the future world that we succeeded in creating a new and better era in America.

The Intelligentsia Goes to Washington

"You know how Obama always said, 'This is our moment; this is our time?' " Yale law professor Dan Kahan told the Washington Post. "Well, academics and smart people think, 'Hey, when he says this is our time, he's talking about us.' "

As both supporters and naysayers agree, president-elect Obama is bringing a new intellectualism to Washington, a natural aristocracy that would warm Thomas Jefferson's heart. The Post's article notes the staggering numbers of Obama's appointments thus far that went to the nation's top universities. There is some debate, despite the debacle of the leadership of eight years of an unintellectual president and his cronies (most of whom, the Post notes, didn't go to great schools), over whether staffing the administration with the intelligentsia is a great idea. As one libertarian law professor noted, "These degrees confer knowledge but not judgment. Their heads are on grander themes . . . and they'll trip on obstacles on the ground."

As a "leftist academic" in training, I am puzzled by the idea that higher education teaches knowledge rather than judgment. In the humanities, our goal as PhD students is to learn how to think and where to access information, not to memorize all there is to know. We learn to evaluate claims and the best ways to prove an argument. These logical reasoning abilities, which are similar to those taught in law schools, should equip people well to serve in government. As for the idea that academics have their heads in the clouds, it is true that some academics deal with the theoretical rather than the realities on the ground, but these don't tend to be the people that enter public service. Even so, having some visionaries in the mix could help policy makers see the bigger picture and the implications of their decisions--things to which this administration has been obscenely blind.

The question all of this leaves me with, actually, is whether this is my time, too. Legal, economic, and policy scholars are obvious players in politics, but what is the historian's role? This circles back to my perennial question about the usefulness of studying history. Here are a few places I'd like to see historians put to work:

• Department of Education: the analytical skills that history teaches should be better integrated into teaching; studies have shown consistently low levels of historical knowledge among American schoolchildren, leaving them ignorant of where we've been and how this can help guide where we're going
• State Department: the cultural diplomacy efforts coming out of State have been dismal and academic guidance about how to speak to people in different parts of the world is needed; foreign policy makers could also benefit from historical perspective
• Department of the Interior: since this department deals with Native Americans and arbitrates their claims--but has done so quite poorly--more historians are needed here as researchers and advisor
• Supreme Court: in a court where precedent is so important, why not appoint a legal historian (a person with a JD and a PhD) to the bench?
  

The president-elect at independence mall

I was surprised to learn on the evening news last night that president-elect Obama and most of the nation's governors were in Philadelphia yesterday. It appears to have been more gimmick than substance, but the illustrious group met in Congress Hall for an address from Obama. What struck me most when I saw the video of the governors sitting upright on the straight-backed wooden benches was, of all things, the light.

(Photo: Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Despite the film crews, the room was lit mostly by natural light, just as it would have been when a much earlier band of political leaders met in this room. Accustomed to the fluorescent glare of the senate and house chambers, I suddenly saw these politicians as people, not television stars. They were people who looked slightly ill at ease sharing the stiff seats in a room where the American republic took shape and whose predecessors left them a legacy that is becoming harder and harder to fulfill.

What Obama's Victory Means to Me

"Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution"--FDR

Yesterday was the latest stage in that peaceful revolution. From Jefferson to Jackson to FDR to Reagan, the election of a new president has often ushered in a new era. For me, it is a privilege to be a part of President-elect Obama's revolution. There are moments in history which are only seen as pivotal in retrospect, and other moments that the historical actors know will have resounding importance. The election of Barack Obama is certainly one of the latter moments; the celebrations in the streets around the country and the world attest to that.

I had only a minor role in this peaceful revolution: a few hours here and there volunteering to help get out the vote during the primaries, register new voters, and arranging rides to the polls on election day. The funny thing about this revolution is that the thresh hold for participation seemed to be as simple as believing in Obama. Everybody I heard on their cell phones yesterday--including friends who weren't from the U.S. and couldn't vote here--was announcing, "We did it!"

We. The power of Us. Of the many, rather than the few. Of the hopeful, not the cynical. That is the source of Obama's power and why we expressed collective jubilation in the streets last night. He made us believe that we could make a difference, not just in individual lives but in the way we govern ourselves, the way we discuss politics, the way we conceive of race. That's why his victory is not just his own, or even African-Americans'.

This is only my second time voting for president, and I did not grow up in a time or a place where race or gender were obvious barriers to success. I grew up hearing that "anybody could be president," and it never disturbed me that all of our presidents had been white males. It was only a matter of time, I always felt. Yet I was surprised at the elation I felt yesterday after I pressed the button to vote for our first African-American president. I always knew the day would come, but the reality of it made me so happy I practically skipped down the street as I left the polls. I had voted for a man who might not have even been able to vote, much less run for president, when my parents were growing up.

This victory does not just mean that anybody can become president. It means that even in a country where there is still bigotry and hate, in a world riven by divisions of class and ethnicity and religion, there is space to halt and change paths. Where that path is going to lead we can't be sure. But for the first time I am more than just wishing for a change--I have seen that change and I have been part of it.

In violent revolutions, there is anger; in peaceful revolutions, there is hope. I cried tears of joy last night, and this morning I awoke to a new America.

Rallying together

"I didn't want to have to tell my kids, twenty years from now, that there was this amazing movement that drew thousands of people to rallies across the country--and I never went to one," I told my friend as we were leaving yesterday's rally in West Philadelphia. Obama has been to Philly several times in this campaign, and I've somehow missed the chance to see him every time. Until yesterday.

The rally at 52nd and Locust St was Obama's fourth of the day in Philly, scheduled to begin around 1 p.m. I boarded the bus from Center City at 10:15 to head over and get in line. As it turned out, almost everybody on the bus was going to the same place. When we got off of the bus, we joined a stream of people arriving in a neighborhood that usually doesn't draw visitors. As a blogger for The New Republic described it, the block closed off for the rally "could easily be a Hollywood backlot stand-in for any depressed inner-city strip in the country." The street is lined with awnings advertising fried chicken, pizza, and even "Cousin Danny's Erotic Den."

It took me a while to find the end of the line--by 11 a.m., when I arrived, there were two lines that each stretched over two blocks. For some reason, I didn't mind standing in line for two hours. Even when the whole system disintegrated and throngs just pushed into the area to watch the speech, I wasn't as annoyed as I would usually be at such unfairness. And when, from almost 2 blocks back from the podium, I could only catch a glimpse of the top of Obama's head--and only when I stood on tip-toes on the police barrier--I wasn't that frustrated. And somehow, it didn't matter that I didn't hear much of what Obama said, or that what I did hear was pretty much the same as what I've heard him say dozens of times before on t.v.

Yesterday's rally wasn't, for me at least, about seeing Obama up-close as much as it was about being part of a movement. While some have questioned or even mocked the optimism of Obama's campaign, I can find only hopefulness in a crowd of 20,000 people of widely-varying background coming together in an inner-city neighborhood in the spirit of improving their country. It was the most mixed crowd I've ever been a part of--whether by age, gender, class, or race. As the African-American man standing next to me said, "This is just wonderful. It's like a rainbow."

Protesting Palin

The one and only Sarah "Barracuda" Palin graced my neighborhood with her presence on Friday night. We heard on local news in the afternoon that she'd be stopping by a local bar for a fundraiser. It just so happened that our weekly department happy hour was at the bar right next door. So, as crowds began to gather outside and there were signs that the motorcade was about to arrive, we abandoned our drinks to join the Obama supporters/Palin haters outside.

How, exactly, do you protest somebody's mere presence? There were a number of clever signs, ranging from "I'm more qualified to be VP than Palin" to "Sarah Palin? Thanks but no thanks!" Others addressed specific issues relating to Palin, from reproductive choice to banned books.

I often wonder about the purpose of protests, especially small ones like this. For me, at least, being there and chanting with the crowd was a way to release the frustration and anger I've felt since Palin was picked at the republican VP nominee. I can only hope we made her uncomfortable enough in the neighborhood to keep her from a return visit.

Satirizing inspiration

Despite my own tendency to be cynical, I've been alternately surprised, amused, and distressed by the satires of Barack Obama this past week. The only way the media seems able to describe what Obama symbolizes to his enthusiastic (even ecstatic) followers is through satirizing him as the Second Coming. See, for example, this political cartoon or The Daily Show's mock bio. While I think both of these are funny, the comment of one aging white politician to another in the political cartoon is telling--"Ok, this is too much." It's as if the liberal establishment, too, isn't quite sure what to make of the fervor of Obama's followers. These old white men have never drawn the crowds Obama has, and I get the sense that they have never seen it as their role to inspire people or even really to shake things up.

When people are inspired, of course, there's a much greater chance that things will get shaken up. It's a fear of what these inspired crowds might do that I see in David Brook's stinging satire of Obama's acceptance speech. The most scathing line of the column addressed how Brooks sees my generation, which has largely backed Obama:

We meet today to pass the torch to a new generation of Americans, a generation that came of age amidst iced chais and mocha strawberry Frappuccinos®, a generation with a historical memory that doesn’t extend back past Coke Zero.

If my generation could remember what happened in past decades free of fancy caffeinated beverages, Brooks suggests, we might not latch on to Obama. But in fact, any memory of how our nation has changed when spurred by the leadership of inspirational figures does just the opposite.

History remember moments when people have come together in common cause to fight injustices, not through cynical satires, but as turning points. No matter how this election turns out, I hope this movement follows through on the passion of this campaign to effect some desperately-needed change in America.

Pennsylvania Holds a Primary

After working on the Kerry campaign, I swore I wouldn't work on another campaign again. Well, it's the next campaign cycle and I've already broken that promise to myself. Despite the e-mails piling up asking me to volunteer for Obama the past two months, I waited until yesterday to help out. So for this election day, at least, I didn't feel the emotional charge that builds up from investing so much of your time in a campaign.

What I did get to feel, though, was this amazing connection (in grad school speak, an "imagined community," perhaps?) with everybody I saw on the street who was also wearing Obama pins or shirts. Philly was overwhelmingly behind Obama, so everywhere I walked there were people behind the same cause I was fighting for. I didn't talk to most of these people; it was mostly just a smile of acknowledgement that passed between us.

Campaign headquarters in Philly the past two days were full of supporters from up and down the mid-Atlantic. People seem to have just driven in to Philly and come straight to the headquarters to see what they could do. I helped one of these people, a woman who had taken the day off of work in D.C., to navigate around Center City and drive elderly people to the polls. I also went door to door earlier in the day, which I must admit, I wouldn't offer to do again.

Even though Obama didn't win today--and really, I don't think anybody expected he would in PA--the day felt like a success for me in other ways. First, with all of the research I've done on politics in Early America, I appreciate the chance to see the process firsthand. Second, I felt in these past two days that, for the first time since I moved here, I actually live in Philly and that I'm part of a community here--one even larger than the campaign. That feeling was well worth losing my voice and getting behind on schoolwork.

Responses to Obama's speech on race

As promised, here are some responses to Obama's speech. Even those who continue to disagree with Obama's association with Wright concluded that the speech was one of the most important in the past 50 years. I think it's unfortunate that the controversy over Wright is interfering with people's ability to engage the real discussion about race Obama tried to begin: most of the t.v. news reports are so stuck on controversy that they can't move on to conversation.

Here are a few links to check out:

One historian offers a history of a tradition of sometimes inflammatory African American criticism of America through Christianity

The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson has the inside scoop

Jon Stewart's take and an attempt at dialogue with Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore

NY Times' Nicholas Kristoff: "What’s happening, I think, is that the Obama campaign has led many white Americans to listen in for the first time to some of the black conversation — and they are thunderstruck."

"A part of our union that we have yet to perfect"

Driven by controversy swirling around his former pastor, Barack Obama made a major speech today about race in America. Speaking across the street from Independence Hall in Philadelphia, he didn't venerate the men who formed the nation, as many speaking in such a setting would. He spoke of the constitution as a document "ultimately unfinished" and "stained by this nation's original sin of slavery."

It was a striking beginning to a speech that was the most frank, open, and intelligent discussion of race I have ever seen by a politician. Certainly, there was some political pandering in the speech. But he acknowledged what so many politicians fail to: complexity.

Here's the transcript. The video is available there, or with slightly better quality on Youtube: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

I'll post again when the press and historians react in the next few days.

A Rhetorical Question

Audacity: n., boldness; fearless daring. This is what Barack Obama invoked in the title of his most recent book, The Audacity of Hope. He acknowledges here that his message of hope is not one that people will accept readily; it takes a sort of determination to go against the tedium of politics to accept his rhetoric, the title suggests. Some people I've talked to would agree--and they just don't feel quite daring enough.

The question to me is not just why they can't summon the audacity, but why we should need it in the first place. I'm not by any means a naive idealist; I'm probably more cynical than most people about politics and the failures of our government. But when a leader takes hold of the zeitgeist of the time and speaks in a way that is compelling, intelligent, even emotionally stirring, this seems to me to be exactly what we ought to embrace.

This, in great part, is what we admire about our greatest leaders, from George Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr. Let me be clear: I am not comparing his leadership abilities (as yet untested) with these leaders', but his rhetoric resonates with the sounds of his predecessors. He has harnessed MLK's intonation, and he speaks of unity, the urgency of action, and the future in ways that great leaders have in the past. Here, for instance, is a bit of Jefferson's first inaugural address:

"Let us, then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things."

and FDR's third inaugural in 1941:
"In the face of great perils never before encountered, our strong purpose is to protect and to perpetuate the integrity of democracy. For this we muster the spirit of America, and the faith of America. We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country, by the will of God."

and MLK's I Have a Dream speech:
"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy...

We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

How, then, are these words of Obama's so very different?
"We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

Because we know what we have seen and what we believe - that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest - Yes. We. Can."

If we know these men made great leaders, that they acted according to the boldness of their words, than why do we assume Obama is all rhetoric? It's a rhetorical question--but one very much on my mind this election.