Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world....
from The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats, 1919
The middle of the road is all of the usable surface.
The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
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17-June-2019:
Kamala Harris's Announcement Speech
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Kamala Harris's announcement speech seems to move through several themes as it progresses from section to section.
In the first section she talks about her career as a prosecutor and the theme is “No one should be left to fight alone.”
She talks about bankers who caused great economic harm as having an “arrogance of power.” She says she helped to pass one of the strongest anti-foreclosure laws in the country in California.
In the second section of the speech Kamala talks about the question “Who are we as Americans?” and her answer is “We are better than this!”
In this section she opposes some of the positions the current administration has taken such as:
- bullying the free press,
- separating children from their parents at the border,
- attacking public schools,
- working against universal healthcare,
- and blaming immigrants for all our problems.
In the third section of the speech, Kamala focuses on the theme of truth. She says, “Seek truth, speak truth, fight for the truth.”
In this section she makes the very important point that we need unity, but we cannot use the word “unity” as a code word for stopping oppressed minorities from demanding their rights.
She makes the point that when we help people who have been held back, we are really helping everyone. In her most dramatic statement of this principle she says, “When we lift up the women of our country, we lift up the children of our country, we lift up the families of our country, and the whole of society benefits.”
Kamala calls for Medicare for all because healthcare is a fundamental right and also calls for debt-free college because education is a fundamental right. As a moderate Democrat I think this goes a little too far. We should aim for affordable healthcare and affordable college because that will benefit society. I don't think we should try to guarantee healthcare and college as fundamental rights, but we should try to make them affordable and help people who need help getting ahead.
Harris closes her speech with a couple of simple statements: “I will treat all people with dignity and respect” and “I will speak the truth.” It is a powerful testament to the dysfunctional times in which we live that these relatively bland promises come off sounding like a call for revolution!
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Washington: A Life
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