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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24-May-2019:
Stop Fighting and Start Fixing
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I listened to Joe Biden's official campaign launch speech from Philadelphia on May 18, 2019, and the more I listened the more I liked it.
He took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and promised, “You will not hear me speak ill of another Democrat.”
When the crowd started booing a heckler he said, “Other campaigns do it this way. We don't do it this way.”
For me the key line of the speech was “Let's stop fighting and start fixing.” In seeming contradiction, Biden also says, “I know there are times when only a bare-knuckle fight will do.” He also reminds us that Trump deliberately tries to divide people and fill them with fear.
I think the point Joe is trying to make with all these statements is that we DO need to fight about politics, because we have real disagreements, but we also have to STOP attacking and demonizing our fellow Americans.
The current president is dividing us. Biden wants to unite us again. Other candidates are talking about policy details, and that is important. But Biden is talking about something even more important, he's talking about the kind of country we need to be, and how we can't get there until we get a new president.
As a moderate Democrat I am happy to see Joe running, and I believe he deserves to be in the top tier for 2020.
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The "Hearing the Falconer" Library
Books for Independent Thinkers
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Truman
Moderates: The Vital Center of American Politics, from the Founding to Today
The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It
Unapologetically Moderate: My Search for the Rational Center in American Politics
The Deliberate Moderate: Influencing From the Middle
Eisenhower: The White House Years
The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison
Lincoln
Reflections of a Radical Moderate
Washington: A Life
The Reluctant Republican: My Fight for the Moderate Majority
Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, From Eisenhower to the Tea Party
Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life
Theodore Roosevelt: A Life
The Three Languages of Politics: Talking Across the Political Divides
Beyond Red and Blue: How Twelve Political Philosophies Shape American Debates
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Copyright © 2019 by Joseph Wayne Gadway
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