Why Obama Is Standing by the Syrian Refugees

[loyalsister]

The president isn’t speaking to his opponents—he’s talking to history.

Obama tells the story of American history differently: as America overcoming the evil within itself. In his 2008 Democratic convention speech, he talked about “a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west, a promise that led workers to picket lines and women to reach for the ballot.” The first two references—to immigrants escaping foreign oppression and pioneers overcoming nature’s hardships—are standard political fare. But by twinning them with workers battling exploitation and women battling sexism, Obama suggested that external and physical forces aren’t the only barriers to American progress. Sometimes, the barriers are other Americans.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/obama-syrian-refugees/417222/?utm_source=SFFB

I had never thought of his arguments in these terms, but it's a pretty strong analysis. It points to an honesty regarding US history that is mostly absent in politics. Will exposing the ugliest facets of US politics and culture turn out to be one of Obama's greatest achievements?

[femmedem]

1. Very fine analysis! Thank you for posting this.

The Atlantic has become my favorite magazine over the past few years.

[loyalsister]

8. Same here

I'm really looking forward to reading Obama's own reflections after he leaves office, too.

[alcibiades_mystery]

2. I've seen people, even here, saying Obama's position is "mystifying"

Moral courage is often mystifying to demagogues and cowards.

Stand firm, Mr. President.

[loyalsister]

7. I've trashed a few threads over that

This, along with Ahmed's clock stand out to me as showing a truly unique sense of connectedness to others. His international family relationships must also have a lot of influence. His world view is different from most of us and unprecedented for a POTUS.

[MBS]

3. really good, thanks. n/t

[spanone]

4. K&R...

[ozone_man]

5. Because he realizes that he caused the problem?

This is his CIA sponsored war, complete with funding rebels of all stripes and turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar funding ISIS. It must be painful for him to watch what his actions have yielded.

[msongs]

6. a substantial player to be sure. bush dumped sadaam, obama dumping assad nt

[Historic NY]

9. One former President gave this speech...years before he was in the WH..

"I, in my own mind, have always thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land. It was set here and the price of admission was very simple: the means of selection was very simple as to how this land should be populated. Any place in the world and any person from those places; any person with the courage, with the desire to tear up their roots, to strive for freedom, to attempt and dare to live in a strange and foreign place, to travel halfway across the world was welcome here."

His party now would be unrecognizable to him.




June 1952 -- From a commencement address at Williams Woods College, one of the oldest surviving speeches of Reagan's

[loyalsister]

10. I wonder if he could have made it through the current primary

I bet he would be viewed as having been a member of the communist part after having been a member of a union.