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Books by
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
Trouble the Water
(1997) /
Black Southern Voices (1992) /
The Richard Wright Encyclopedia (2008) /
The Katrina Papers
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Books by
Barack
Obama
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
/
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
American Dream
Obama's Greatest Speeches (CD set) /
Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
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Open Note to
President Barack Obama
By
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
26 November 2010
Dear President Obama:
Because I have
great respect for you, I urge you to read and digest a
brief passage from Chapter 15 of
Niccolo Machiavelli’s
The
Prince (1513). I quote
Daniel Donno’s translation:
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Many men have imagined
republics and principalities that never
really existed at all. Yet the way men live
is so far removed from the way they ought to
live that anyone who abandons what is for
what should be pursues his downfall rather
than his preservation; for a man who strives
after goodness in all his acts is sure to
come to ruin, since there are so many men
who are not good. (Bantam Books edition,
1981, page 56) |
Your tragic flaw,
Mr. President, is your steadfast belief in the goodness
of human beings. To put Machiavelli’s truism into a
contemporary context, recall how very influential the
thinking of the political philosopher
Leo
Strauss is in elite universities, in daily
government, and in conference rooms where decisions
regarding the world’s economy are made. In its more
vulgar forms, Strauss’s ideas have been twisted and
trimmed to fit nicely into our national discourses about
a future for the United States of America.
You have given the
best of yourself to your country within the past two
years, and I am confident you will continue to do so
until late 2012. Let the future praise you for audacity
of sacrifice, but do not seek a second term as
President. Retire into private life and write
good, wise books. Do not taint your noble character
with complicity in the devolving of the United States
into
fascism. Unfortunately, such a death-trap
enterprise seems to be the
telos of America in the new world order of the
twenty-first century. I would pray that my intuitions
about this state of affairs were “out to lunch,” but I
do fear they are “coming to dinner.”
Sincerely yours,
Jerry W. Ward, Jr.
posted 3 December 2010
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Noble lies and
deadly truths—Leo
Strauss noted that thinkers of the first rank, going
back to
Plato, had raised the problem of whether good
politicians could be completely truthful and still
achieve the necessary ends of their society. In
The City and Man, Strauss discusses the myths
outlined in
Plato's
Republic that are required for all governments.
These include a belief that the state's land belongs to
it even though it was likely acquired illegitimately and
that citizenship is rooted in something more than the
accidents of birth. The journalist
Seymour Hersh opined that Strauss endorsed "noble
lies": myths used by political leaders seeking to
maintain a cohesive society.
According to
Strauss,
Karl Popper's
The Open Society and Its Enemies had mistaken
the city-in-speech described in
Plato's Republic for a blueprint for regime
reform. Strauss quotes
Cicero, "The Republic does not bring to light the
best possible regime but rather the nature of political
things—the nature of the city." Strauss argued that the
city-in-speech was unnatural, precisely because "it is
rendered possible by the abstraction from eros."
The city-in-speech abstracted from eros, or
bodily needs, and therefore could never guide politics
in the manner Popper claimed. Though skeptical of
"progress," Strauss was equally skeptical about
political agendas of "return" (which is the term he used
in contrast to progress). In fact, he was consistently
suspicious of anything claiming to be a solution to an
old political or philosophical problem. He spoke of the
danger in trying to finally resolve the debate between
rationalism and
traditionalism in politics. In particular, along
with many in the pre-World
War II German Right, he feared people trying to
force a
world state to come into being in the future,
thinking that it would inevitably become a
tyranny.—Wikipedia
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Left’s pressure
moves Pelosi toward clashes with Obama—By Russell
Berman—22 November 2010—When President Obama meets
with House Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi next year, he may face a lot more
resistance than he’s used to from his longtime ally.The
shift from Speaker to opposition leader will undoubtedly
change Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) relationship with the White
House, and may force her away from a president she has
rarely abandoned in the past two years. . . . “We’re
going to have to really push the White House and the
Senate,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said. “I think the
greatest failing in this Congress was that the House …
enabled the White House, and the White House was not
always right. “We’ve got to push them harder from our
position,” he added, “to do what Democrats need and
what’s expected by Democrats.”
DeFazio and other
House Democrats criticized Obama for spending too much
time and political capital trying to negotiate with
Senate Republicans on bills like the stimulus and
healthcare reform. They say those talks resulted in
watered-down legislation with weak public support.
Complaints with the White House have festered for months
on Capitol Hill, but they resurfaced in the aftermath of
the Democrats’ devastating defeat in the midterm
elections.—TheHill
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Obama the Great
Placator, needs to throw some elbows—By Courtland Milloy—30
November 2010—Watching President Obama walk back to
the White House with a busted lip from a recent
basketball game, I was hoping he would step toward the
TV cameras and show off his scar. Taste the blood in his
mouth, tell us that he'll just have to take it out on
the Republicans or something. Instead, Obama trudged on
by, nursing his wounds, looking like a kid who had just
been sucker-punched in a schoolyard brawl. . . . I don't
mean to pile on with more criticism of Obama as a wimp,
but a White House spin doctor to make him look tough
after a pickup basketball game? Man up, Obama. Let us
see you with blood on your teeth and fire in your eyes.
Or does being the first black president mean you can
never show yourself to be a man in full?
Now he wants a pay
freeze for federal employees, announced just in time for
Christmas - and only two months after proposing to give
them a modest raise. Did the Republican leadership pop
him in the mouth, too?
Obama's decision
will be a devastating blow to the Washington area's
economy, not to mention a betrayal of some of his most
loyal supporters and the nation's most dedicated public
servants. After throwing nearly a trillion dollars to
rescue banks and big business, he turns around and picks
the pocket of everyday working people.
Has there ever been
a president who treated his sworn enemies so much better
than his proven friends? What a milquetoast. . . . Much
of this criticism against Obama has to do with his
resolve, not his race. But I see the president as a
black man first. It's a pride thing. Obama's victory
wasn't just about his progressive platform. It was a
historic, racial barrier-busting victory that was
supposed to make it just a little easier for black boys
to imagine being president.
But Obama is
proving himself to be a most peculiar commander in
chief. Maybe another black boy will someday grow up to
become president, but if he turns out to be like Obama,
it'll be hard to call him a black man.—WashingtonPost
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Open Letter from an African to
the American President Barack Obama on the War in Libya
By Jean-Paul Pougala
translated from French by
Sarli Sardou Nana
Mr. President,
It
is with a heavy heart that I am writing this letter to appeal to
you to take heed to the message that the House of
Representatives sent out to Americans yesterday (24/06/2011) by
rejecting the text authorising U.S. military intervention in
Libya, and to end the on-going attacks against the Libyan people
with the most extravagant excuses like that is to protect them.
Three years ago you ignited an entire continent, the African
continent during the presidential primaries of the Democratic
Party. And when you were elected president, we believed and saw
in you, this son of Africa who had succeeded and could now serve
as reference for a billion Africans. You seemed to be the hero
we have never had, because our heroes have become legends based
on the emotions aroused by their short lives (all killed by the
Europeans). With your election as President of the United States
of America, we thought for a moment that you were that Black
Demi-God that Africa is still searching for after all these
years of shame while in contact with Europe. Yes Mr. President,
we knew that you were voted by Americans to maintain the
interests of your country, but what did you expect?
Did you think you were also our President, that you had our
genes? We had dreams with our eyes wide open that you are also
our black brother. All of us saw you as one of us, as someone
who was able to understand the cries and sufferings of Africans
better than any other person in position of power on earth. We
wore your shirts, we chanted your strapline YES WE CAN, but in
our minds in Africa, we had given it a different meaning. The
explanation was that the fate of a forsaken race had suddenly
taken a new turn for the better, the same process of evolution
of other races. CHANGE! Indeed.—P ougala
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New Call for Letters for sequel to Go, Tell Michelle
By Peggy Brooks-Bertram and Barbara Seals Nevergold
Why White America Perhaps Fears
Michelle More Than Barack
Excerpts from a “Jack & Jill politics” newsletter
Responses to Post-Midterm Elections
Hunger
for a Black President / Biko
Speaks on Africans
/
Introduction I Write What I Like
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Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
By Barack Obama / Illustrated by Loren Long
In this
tender, beautiful letter to his daughters,
President Barack Obama has written a moving
tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans
and the ideals that have shaped our nation.
From the artistry of
Georgia O’Keefe to the courage of
Jackie Robinson, from the strength of
Helen Keller to the patriotism of George
Washington, President Obama sees the traits
of these heroes within his own children, and
within all of America’s children. . . .This
beautiful book is about the potential within
each of us to pursue our dreams and forge
our own paths. It celebrates the
characteristics that unite all Americans,
from our nation’s founders to the
generations to come.—Excerpted
from the inside cover |
Of Thee I Sing is
basically a baker’s dozen, brief biographies of
important figures in American history, from Father of
the Country
George Washington up to
Maya Lin,
the artist/architect who, while still an undergraduate
at Yale, designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial located
on the National Mall.
Each subject’s entry is
accompanied by an evocative airbrush portrait by
Loren Long, an
award-winning illustrator who has previously
collaborated with the likes of Madonna and Walt Whitman.
For example, the drawing of
Jackie Robinson’s
captures the late baseball great at bat in his
Brooklyn Dodgers uniform, while that of artist
Georgia O’Keefe
shows her in the midst of painting one of her trademark
flowers in full bloom.
My only quibble with
President Obama’s picks here is with his predecessor
Washington, a
wealthy plantation owner who never emancipated his 300+
slaves at
Mount Vernon, not even upon his death. This opus
conveniently makes no mention of that glaring moral
failing, opting to focus instead on the first
President’s “principles” and on his patently
hypocritical belief “in liberty and justice for all.”
Although I’m willing to
give the author
a Mulligan since he presently has many more pressing
issues on his plate, I was nonetheless pleased by the
inclusion of the likes of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Sitting Bull, and
Albert Einstein. There was a method to Obama’s
madness, here, as each choice is hailed for a prevailing
trait, ranging from creativity to intelligence to
bravery and beyond. The literary equivalent of a “Yes We
Can!” rally led by our charismatic Commander-in-Chief
for the benefit of the Sesame Street set.—Kam Williams
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Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist
at Work
By Edwidge Danticat
Create Dangerously
is an eloquent and moving expression of
Danticat's belief that immigrant artists
are obliged to bear witness when their
countries of origin are suffering from
violence, oppression, poverty, and
tragedy.
In this deeply personal book, the
celebrated Haitian-American writer
Edwidge Danticat reflects on art and
exile, examining what it means to be an
immigrant artist from a country in
crisis. Inspired by Albert Camus'
lecture, "Create Dangerously," and
combining memoir and essay, Danticat
tells the stories of artists, including
herself, who create despite, or because
of, the horrors that drove them from
their homelands and that continue to
haunt them. Danticat eulogizes an aunt
who guarded her family's homestead in
the Haitian countryside, a cousin who
died of AIDS while living in Miami as an
undocumented alien, and a renowned
Haitian radio journalist whose political
assassination shocked the world. |
 |
Danticat writes about the Haitian novelists she
first read as a girl at the Brooklyn Public Library,
a woman mutilated in a machete attack who became a
public witness against torture, and the work of
Jean-Michel Basquiat and other artists of Haitian
descent. Danticat also suggests that the aftermaths
of natural disasters in Haiti and the United States
reveal that the countries are not as different as
many Americans might like to believe..—CaribbeanLiterarySalon
/
Review and Interview by Kam Williams
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To create today
is to create dangerously. Any publication is an act,
and that act exposes one to the passions of an age
that forgives nothing. Hence the question is not to
find out if this is or is not prejudicial to art.
The question, for all those who cannot live without
art and what it signifies, is merely to find out
how, among the police forces of so many ideologies
(how many churches, what solitude!), the strange
liberty of creation is possible. It is not enough to
say in this regard that art is threatened by the
powers of the State. If that were true, the problem
would be simple: the artist fights or capitulates.
The problem is more complex, more serious too, as
soon as it becomes apparent that the battle is waged
within the artist himself. The hatred for art, of
which our society provides such fine examples, is so
effective today only because it is kept alive by
artists themselves.—Create
Dangerously,
A Lecture by Albert Camus,
December 14, 1957
at the University of Uppsala in Sweden |
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