President Barack Obama July 13, 2009
The White House
Washington DC
Dear President Obama,
On August 3rd, 2009, over 140 of us will be returning from Cuba-without a government license-in defiance of the travel restrictions and economic embargo that our government has imposed on that nation for close to 50 years.
We are traveling to Cuba in order to denounce a failed and inhumane policy towards Cuba, and to express our solidarity with the Cuban people and their struggles. We are aware that we face repercussions for our act of civil disobedience, but are strengthened by Martin Luther King Jr.’s conviction that “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws”.
For the past half-century, the United States has pursued a policy implemented with the explicit purpose of making the Cuban people suffer to such an extent that they-out of misery and poverty-overthrow their government. The Cuban people can no longer be collateral damage for an outdated foreign policy. We reject such hostilities, and call for your administration to realize its own pledges for a more diplomatic and humane U.S. that respects the sovereignty of other nations. We strongly urge you to take meaningful steps towards ending the economic embargo and lifting all travel restrictions to Cuba for all U.S. citizens and residents.
Many of us identify with the philosophical principle that you were elected on-a platform of change-and that is our incentive towards contacting you. At this historical moment, your administration has the opportunity to start that new beginning you mentioned the U.S. was seeking. We agree and call for more engagement.
We are students, teachers, medical personnel, autoworkers, social workers, artists, professors, lawyers and community organizers, among other occupations. We are an intergenerational group of different races, ethnicities, sexes, and sexual orientations, and are traveling from throughout the U.S. We will be doing volunteer work (in the past 40 years, this has varied from sugar cane harvests to painting neighborhood hospitals to renovating schools) and meeting with Cubans throughout the island (from rappers to hurricane relief workers to those fighting for LGBT equality to the Federation of Cuban Women); opening up engagement and dialogue among both people while exercising our constitutional right to travel.
This is what unites us: our affirmation of our constitutional right to travel, solidarity with the Cuban people, and an absolute condemnation of a foreign policy that has used the Cuban people’s suffering as a political pawn, blocking off engagement between both countries.
The time for rectifying U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba is past due.
Your administration has recently taken steps towards dialogue with Cuba. There is bipartisan support in both houses of Congress for further opening. The majority of the U.S. population-including Cuban Americans-is in favor of these measures. In addition, congressional momentum towards easing the embargo has been in line with the expansion of internet-based technologies within Cuba, as well as economic benefits for the U.S., particularly for the agricultural industry and small, minority- and women-owned businesses. Furthermore, the very constitutionality of the travel restrictions, a means of enforcing the embargo, will soon be challenged in our federal courts.
In Cuba, the highest-ranking leadership has repeatedly expressed its willingness to discuss any topic-even offering to release all individuals the U.S. considers political prisoners. In just the past few years, there have been new, developing social and cultural spaces where political critiques are being expressed-independently-by Cubans themselves. These have been accompanied by several deregulatory measures by the new President there.
Internationally, U.S. foreign policy towards Cuba is overwhelmingly denounced. From the U.N General Assembly condemning the embargo for 17 consecutive years to the Organization of American States (OAS) recently deciding to rectify the act of excluding Cuba, the international community has clearly called for a multilateral approach that includes-not isolates-Cuba.
Thus, the question is not why we should lift the embargo-with the travel restrictions as part of their enforcement-but why is it still in place? Such a justification is inconsistent with our constitutional rights, your electoral pledge for foreign relations based on respect and equality and the most decent, humanitarian sentiments of the U.S. people. Such sentiments require an opening of exchange, an end to the embargo and all other acts against Cuba, including the incarceration of the 5 Cuban patriots-sent here to cooperate with the U.S. government against terrorism-whom you can, and should free through a presidential pardon.
Therefore, we ask that you-with your authority as President-transcend the old, stalled politics of yesterday. We urge you to support lifting the travel restrictions for all U.S. citizens and residents, and take serious steps towards ending the economic embargo on Cuba. Only then can a new beginning begin, where the U.S. and Cuba lay the foundation for a relationship based on friendship and mutual respect.
Until then, we will travel to Cuba as the 40th contingent of the Venceremos Brigade, demanding a U.S. foreign policy that respects our rights and our sentiments towards the Cuban people.
Sincerely,
Diego Iniguez-Lopez
(Tel 201-294-0941)
Bonnie Massey
(Tel 917-607-2264)
On behalf of the Venceremos Brigade, 40th contingent
Venceremos Brigade
PO Box 5202
Englewood, NJ 07631-5202
email: vbrigade@yahoo.com
voicemail: 212-560-4360
website: www.venceremosbrigade.org
"...one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws"
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Barack Obama. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Is Obama Making Whites Nervous?
Though I am not and have never been a supporter of President Barack Obama because I do not agree with him on many issues and believe his record is that of a political opportunist, I was thoroughly impressed with his management of last night's press conference. It was his first public press conference as President of the United States, and I sincerely hope that it is not his last.
I can only imagine how some other white people are feeling at the moment. Even a white person wholly incapable of holding his brethren to the same standards as he holds black people could see that Mr. Obama was able to put together a longer string of intelligible words in one press conference than the former president did in a year. And this discovery would come after a bitter presidential campaign between the sharp, calculating Obama and the dull, crude McCain. As I hope you recall, Mr. McCain devoted almost the entire tail of his campaign to personal attacks, many of which were false of misleading. This was not a sign of strength and power, but of weakness and impotency. Sarah Palin's late-game entrance, despite its sparkle, only further revealed the campaign's primitive nature. The strategy seemed to be: If we can't beat 'im, just compare 'im to a terrorist (whom everyone hates). Most Americans, including many white Americans, saw how feeble these desperation tactics were and voted accordingly.
Of course there were other, mostly older white Americans who stayed with McCain to the bitter end largely because of his white skin (albeit desiccated), and I can imagine these same folks cursing the television whenever Obama brilliantly sidesteps a tough question from Helen Thomas or drives a softball question out of the park. He truly represents "change" in the sense that he gives dignity to blacks in this country who are often assumed to be dimwitted, thuggish or inarticulate before they even have a chance to open their mouths. Obama may not be Dr. King or Malcolm X, but he is a strong, confident black man (albeit half-black) who has already shown that he can easily match wits with the best of his Anglo-American presidential predecessors. I just hope my white brothers and sisters throughout this country can finally accept what they have deemed so unacceptable for so many years. I know it can be hard to step out of the box of denial, but it is truly liberating.
I can only imagine how some other white people are feeling at the moment. Even a white person wholly incapable of holding his brethren to the same standards as he holds black people could see that Mr. Obama was able to put together a longer string of intelligible words in one press conference than the former president did in a year. And this discovery would come after a bitter presidential campaign between the sharp, calculating Obama and the dull, crude McCain. As I hope you recall, Mr. McCain devoted almost the entire tail of his campaign to personal attacks, many of which were false of misleading. This was not a sign of strength and power, but of weakness and impotency. Sarah Palin's late-game entrance, despite its sparkle, only further revealed the campaign's primitive nature. The strategy seemed to be: If we can't beat 'im, just compare 'im to a terrorist (whom everyone hates). Most Americans, including many white Americans, saw how feeble these desperation tactics were and voted accordingly.
Of course there were other, mostly older white Americans who stayed with McCain to the bitter end largely because of his white skin (albeit desiccated), and I can imagine these same folks cursing the television whenever Obama brilliantly sidesteps a tough question from Helen Thomas or drives a softball question out of the park. He truly represents "change" in the sense that he gives dignity to blacks in this country who are often assumed to be dimwitted, thuggish or inarticulate before they even have a chance to open their mouths. Obama may not be Dr. King or Malcolm X, but he is a strong, confident black man (albeit half-black) who has already shown that he can easily match wits with the best of his Anglo-American presidential predecessors. I just hope my white brothers and sisters throughout this country can finally accept what they have deemed so unacceptable for so many years. I know it can be hard to step out of the box of denial, but it is truly liberating.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Obama from a Nuanced Perspective
What Peace Activists Can Achieve in the Age of Obama
by Thad Williamson
Reading the collected literary works of Barack Hussein Obama in the days since November 4 has been an interesting experience. Like many in the Richmond peace community, I volunteered for Obama in the fall, and had paid close attention to his speeches and debate performances since his stunning win in the Iowa caucuses last January. Still, I hadn't actually read his two quite substantial books (Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope).
Reading through those pages now leaves one with three distinct impressions. Dreams of My Father leaves one stunned and amazed that a person with this set of life experiences and this degree of social justice consciousness has actually been elected president. The Audacity of Hope leaves one impressed by not only the author's familiarity and relatively subtle approaches to a range of policy issues but with his ability to link a wide range of concerns within a coherent interpretive frame.
Finally, one cannot help but be impressed by the degree to which the campaign Obama waged and won was consistent with the vision of politics he lays out in his books. The basics of that vision can be summarized as follows: America is a seriously flawed place, but the basic instincts of its people are good. Our history has often been awful and brutal, but we as a people have the capacity for change. Ordinary people can be the agents driving that change, but that can only happen if we recover a faith in public life-that is, in politics. But that, in turn, can only happen if we reconnect politics to moral values in a clear way.
Obama's vision has already re-made history and opened up new possibilities for America's future political development. But now that his presidency is upon us, it's worth taking a hard look at just what Obama's world view is, and the trajectory it suggests for the next four years and beyond. While Obama repeatedly articulates a small-r republican faith in ordinary people's capacity to shape the future, it will be Obama himself calling the shots and shaping the agenda. Indeed, contrary to the hopes of many progressive activists calling for sustained mobilization and pressure to push Obama in a progressive direction, the evidence of The Audacity of Hope in particular suggests that Obama is not someone likely to bow to pressures of any kind unless or until he himself is persuaded of the wisdom of a given course of action.
So what then is Obama's world view? I will focus here on questions of war, peace, and international relations. The Audacity of Hope reveals Obama to be what might be called a progressive realist.
The "realist" part comes in Obama's acceptance of the basic framework of international politics in the 21st century. That framework is highlighted most obviously by the disproportionate power of the United States, backed by a massive military. Obama thinks the U.S. must play a lead role in world affairs, both to protect American interests and to help solve common problems, and that sometimes that lead role requires use of military force (as in Afghanistan).
Obama's realism is likely to make many peace activists uncomfortable. He does not think war is always wrong, and he does not think that American hegemony is necessarily a bad thing.
But Obama's form of realism is very different from the Bush-Cheney belief that America is both all-powerful and infallible. Obama recognizes that the U.S. historically has often played a destructive role overseas (he cites Vietnam and support for dictators, including in Indonesia as examples). He thinks that the "war on terror" (a phrase hopefully soon to be retired) cannot be won in Iraq or other military misadventures, but only by a more complex strategy in which military force plays a subordinate role. He does not call for cuts in the military budget, but does call for spending less on expensive weapons system and more on personnel and training. And he calls for paying attention to and devoting resources to the dire problems of the developing world, including Africa, for both humanitarian and practical reasons.
Obama's brand of realism is reminiscent of that of the mid-twentieth century Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr was deeply interested in social justice both domestically and internationally, but also very clear that we human beings are deeply motivated by our own self-interest and that justice, reason, and even love itself can never fully tame our tendency to act selfishly, especially when we act as a group via the nation-state. Niebuhr's understanding of the human condition led him away from pacifism; instead he embraced the military fight against Nazism and fascism in World War II. Yet at the same time, Niebuhr wrote favorably of the possibilities for using nonviolent civil disobedience to advance social change, particularly with respect to civil rights, in the process helping inspire Martin Luther King, Jr.
In a world governed by power, Niebuhr believed, those who hoped to advance justice and democracy needed to be willing to use power-hence his endorsement of the basic Cold War framework (one which Obama writes admiringly about). But Niebuhr also warned of the hubris that comes with believing that our own motives are pure and that our power is limitless (just as Obama criticizes many of the side consequences of the Cold War, such as our involvement in coups abroad and the rise of the military-industrial complex at home).
What Obama hopes to do is to craft a broad new national security strategy with the same coherence as the Cold War containment strategy, but without the associated hubris. Such a strategy gives up on the idea we can spread democracy by force, but aggressively seeks to confront real security threats (such as loose nuclear weapons), using force when necessary. Importantly, Obama also recognizes the need to pay attention as well to "promoting peace," a goal which centrally must include raising the standards of living of the one-half of the world's population living on less than two dollars a day.
Overall Obama's vision, if realized, would certainly represent a historic shift of orientation, and his presidency promises a welcome return of the idea that sensible foreign policy must take seriously the perspectives of other countries and their peoples. What role might the peace community play in helping take advantage of the opportunity this presidency represents?
As noted above, I do not think it is realistic to suppose that activist pressure can alter Obama's basic framework, including his commitment to periodic use of force. Obama has made it very clear he intends to send more troops into Afghanistan (even while pursuing a withdrawal from Iraq), and I don't think public pressure can stop that particular train.
Where public pressure might pay real dividends is in ensuring that the "progressive" aspect of Obama's realist outlook is not left on the shelf. For instance, Obama is well aware of the problems of world poverty and the role the IMF, World Bank and global debt have played in accentuating such poverty. Relatively early in his campaign, he called for a doubling of foreign aid. Yet in the vice-presidential debate Joe Biden suggested increasing foreign aid might be one of the items to fall by the wayside as a result of the economic crisis.
Hopefully that was just another example of Biden putting his foot in his mouth. But the peace community and all those concerned with advancing justice need to make our voices heard and assure that the best promises offered by Obama are not sacrificed on the altar of expediency. The danger is that pledges to do something real to help the world's poor and secure the basis for long-term peace are quietly forgotten while bigger ticket items (Iraq, Afghanistan, the economic crisis) hog the headlines.
That is a danger the peace community can help avert. While we cannot alter Obama's basic framework for engaging with the world, we can insist that the new administration have the courage to live up to its own best principles.
Thad Williamson is assistant professor of leadership studies, University of Richmond
by Thad Williamson
Reading the collected literary works of Barack Hussein Obama in the days since November 4 has been an interesting experience. Like many in the Richmond peace community, I volunteered for Obama in the fall, and had paid close attention to his speeches and debate performances since his stunning win in the Iowa caucuses last January. Still, I hadn't actually read his two quite substantial books (Dreams of My Father and The Audacity of Hope).
Reading through those pages now leaves one with three distinct impressions. Dreams of My Father leaves one stunned and amazed that a person with this set of life experiences and this degree of social justice consciousness has actually been elected president. The Audacity of Hope leaves one impressed by not only the author's familiarity and relatively subtle approaches to a range of policy issues but with his ability to link a wide range of concerns within a coherent interpretive frame.
Finally, one cannot help but be impressed by the degree to which the campaign Obama waged and won was consistent with the vision of politics he lays out in his books. The basics of that vision can be summarized as follows: America is a seriously flawed place, but the basic instincts of its people are good. Our history has often been awful and brutal, but we as a people have the capacity for change. Ordinary people can be the agents driving that change, but that can only happen if we recover a faith in public life-that is, in politics. But that, in turn, can only happen if we reconnect politics to moral values in a clear way.
Obama's vision has already re-made history and opened up new possibilities for America's future political development. But now that his presidency is upon us, it's worth taking a hard look at just what Obama's world view is, and the trajectory it suggests for the next four years and beyond. While Obama repeatedly articulates a small-r republican faith in ordinary people's capacity to shape the future, it will be Obama himself calling the shots and shaping the agenda. Indeed, contrary to the hopes of many progressive activists calling for sustained mobilization and pressure to push Obama in a progressive direction, the evidence of The Audacity of Hope in particular suggests that Obama is not someone likely to bow to pressures of any kind unless or until he himself is persuaded of the wisdom of a given course of action.
So what then is Obama's world view? I will focus here on questions of war, peace, and international relations. The Audacity of Hope reveals Obama to be what might be called a progressive realist.
The "realist" part comes in Obama's acceptance of the basic framework of international politics in the 21st century. That framework is highlighted most obviously by the disproportionate power of the United States, backed by a massive military. Obama thinks the U.S. must play a lead role in world affairs, both to protect American interests and to help solve common problems, and that sometimes that lead role requires use of military force (as in Afghanistan).
Obama's realism is likely to make many peace activists uncomfortable. He does not think war is always wrong, and he does not think that American hegemony is necessarily a bad thing.
But Obama's form of realism is very different from the Bush-Cheney belief that America is both all-powerful and infallible. Obama recognizes that the U.S. historically has often played a destructive role overseas (he cites Vietnam and support for dictators, including in Indonesia as examples). He thinks that the "war on terror" (a phrase hopefully soon to be retired) cannot be won in Iraq or other military misadventures, but only by a more complex strategy in which military force plays a subordinate role. He does not call for cuts in the military budget, but does call for spending less on expensive weapons system and more on personnel and training. And he calls for paying attention to and devoting resources to the dire problems of the developing world, including Africa, for both humanitarian and practical reasons.
Obama's brand of realism is reminiscent of that of the mid-twentieth century Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr was deeply interested in social justice both domestically and internationally, but also very clear that we human beings are deeply motivated by our own self-interest and that justice, reason, and even love itself can never fully tame our tendency to act selfishly, especially when we act as a group via the nation-state. Niebuhr's understanding of the human condition led him away from pacifism; instead he embraced the military fight against Nazism and fascism in World War II. Yet at the same time, Niebuhr wrote favorably of the possibilities for using nonviolent civil disobedience to advance social change, particularly with respect to civil rights, in the process helping inspire Martin Luther King, Jr.
In a world governed by power, Niebuhr believed, those who hoped to advance justice and democracy needed to be willing to use power-hence his endorsement of the basic Cold War framework (one which Obama writes admiringly about). But Niebuhr also warned of the hubris that comes with believing that our own motives are pure and that our power is limitless (just as Obama criticizes many of the side consequences of the Cold War, such as our involvement in coups abroad and the rise of the military-industrial complex at home).
What Obama hopes to do is to craft a broad new national security strategy with the same coherence as the Cold War containment strategy, but without the associated hubris. Such a strategy gives up on the idea we can spread democracy by force, but aggressively seeks to confront real security threats (such as loose nuclear weapons), using force when necessary. Importantly, Obama also recognizes the need to pay attention as well to "promoting peace," a goal which centrally must include raising the standards of living of the one-half of the world's population living on less than two dollars a day.
Overall Obama's vision, if realized, would certainly represent a historic shift of orientation, and his presidency promises a welcome return of the idea that sensible foreign policy must take seriously the perspectives of other countries and their peoples. What role might the peace community play in helping take advantage of the opportunity this presidency represents?
As noted above, I do not think it is realistic to suppose that activist pressure can alter Obama's basic framework, including his commitment to periodic use of force. Obama has made it very clear he intends to send more troops into Afghanistan (even while pursuing a withdrawal from Iraq), and I don't think public pressure can stop that particular train.
Where public pressure might pay real dividends is in ensuring that the "progressive" aspect of Obama's realist outlook is not left on the shelf. For instance, Obama is well aware of the problems of world poverty and the role the IMF, World Bank and global debt have played in accentuating such poverty. Relatively early in his campaign, he called for a doubling of foreign aid. Yet in the vice-presidential debate Joe Biden suggested increasing foreign aid might be one of the items to fall by the wayside as a result of the economic crisis.
Hopefully that was just another example of Biden putting his foot in his mouth. But the peace community and all those concerned with advancing justice need to make our voices heard and assure that the best promises offered by Obama are not sacrificed on the altar of expediency. The danger is that pledges to do something real to help the world's poor and secure the basis for long-term peace are quietly forgotten while bigger ticket items (Iraq, Afghanistan, the economic crisis) hog the headlines.
That is a danger the peace community can help avert. While we cannot alter Obama's basic framework for engaging with the world, we can insist that the new administration have the courage to live up to its own best principles.
Thad Williamson is assistant professor of leadership studies, University of Richmond
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Obama is No King
I think it is important to emphasize that despite the Jan. 20 inauguration's occurring one day after the national celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Barack Obama is not King.
He is also not a king. Therefore, do not decorate his head with a crown of thorns (or gold and jewels). Recognize that he is the elected leader of what is supposed to be a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our Constitution states that he is but a servant of the will of the people. The people must lead him - not the other way around.
Yet this same democracy, conceived with far better intentions than those of its current stewards, has been trampled on by U.S. president after U.S. president for hundreds of years in the form of illegal wars, institutional racism, and crippling poverty.
in the 1960s Dr. King spoke out against the three-headed monster: materialism, racism, and militarism. His work is far from over. The forces he resisted so courageously and selflessly are even more deeply entrenched than they were in his time. His words become more prophetic with each passing day, and I know he would still be marching were he alive. But that's Dr. King, who wore the garment of a preacher and the suit of a civil rights activist. Just as a house cannot stand if divided against itself, President Obama can never successfully confront the three core evils of this imperfect union as its head administrator. He is now the leader of the "world's greatest purveyor of violence." If only we had a new King...
He is also not a king. Therefore, do not decorate his head with a crown of thorns (or gold and jewels). Recognize that he is the elected leader of what is supposed to be a democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our Constitution states that he is but a servant of the will of the people. The people must lead him - not the other way around.
Yet this same democracy, conceived with far better intentions than those of its current stewards, has been trampled on by U.S. president after U.S. president for hundreds of years in the form of illegal wars, institutional racism, and crippling poverty.
in the 1960s Dr. King spoke out against the three-headed monster: materialism, racism, and militarism. His work is far from over. The forces he resisted so courageously and selflessly are even more deeply entrenched than they were in his time. His words become more prophetic with each passing day, and I know he would still be marching were he alive. But that's Dr. King, who wore the garment of a preacher and the suit of a civil rights activist. Just as a house cannot stand if divided against itself, President Obama can never successfully confront the three core evils of this imperfect union as its head administrator. He is now the leader of the "world's greatest purveyor of violence." If only we had a new King...
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