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Would Obama’s Mother Be Amazed?
Would Barack Obama's mother be amazed that her son is president of the United States? I knew his mother, and oddly enough, I don't think she would be.
As we honor mothers all over the world on Mother's Day, I got to thinking about Ann Soetoro, Obama's mother. Ann died of cancer in 1995, just when Barack was entering Illinois state politics. So we can only guess what her reaction might be to her son's improbably successful political career and to his ambitious agenda for the country.
I knew Ann in the mid-80s when we both worked for the Ford Foundation in Jakarta, Indonesia. One of Ann's remarkable characteristics was her willingness to believe in the improbable.
Her work focused on poor women at a time when few aid agencies were interested. Poor women in Indonesia had a lot of strikes against them. They lived in a male-dominated culture; they had little education; and they had few resources to draw on in a very crowded country. Yet Ann believed these women had the power to make their lives better and developed programs in entrepreneurship, micro-finance, and women's rights that did just that. Improbable, yes; impossible, no.
When Barack was 10 years old, Ann made a decision that would be wrenching for any mother. She sent her son off to live with his grandparents in Hawaii, while she stayed in Indonesia. Why? Because she felt this bright, biracial, multicultural kid would have a good chance to make something of himself in America. She carried a deep belief both in the capabilities of her son and in the opportunities America could provide a man like him.
If someone had challenged her faith in the country by asking her "So-do you think your son could become the president of the United States?" I can't be sure of her answer, but I can make an educated guess. Ann had an unflappably calm manner-much like what we see in her son as he faces one crisis after another. While she was often sardonic, she was never flippant. So I can imagine her pausing to reflect and then answering in a serious tone, "Yes, I think that would be possible. I think he could be elected president of the United States, and he might even get his act together enough to run." Improbable, yes; impossible, no.
Her son now demonstrates that same readiness to take on the improbable. Can we actually buck the insurance industry and provide a public option for health insurance? Can we turn Iran from an enemy into an ally? Can we shift the U.S. economy over to clean energy? Can we close the corporate tax loopholes that drive U.S. jobs overseas and undercut our tax base? Obama is willing to place his bets on all these improbable happenings, plus a whole lot more.
So when I think about the source of Obama's calm in the face of crisis and his audacity in taking on the improbable, I'm reminded of his mother's unflagging belief that the improbable is possible and worth trying. It's a belief that lives on in her son and-with the help of a whole lot of us-just may transform this country.
Fran Korten is the publisher of YES! Magazine. She previously worked as a grantmaker for the Ford Foundation in the Manila, Jakarta, and New York offices.
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25 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
Sure.
Ditto. I take it you're being facetious with that one word.
Sioux Rose
Mordechai: Absolutely! Seems his mother really did care about people. She'd be shocked to see what her son did with that moral legacy.
"Mom, look at me, I'm it! The president now! Did you think this nation would ever countenance a Black man in the oval office? Did you imagine it would be me!"
"Son, I want to be proud of you; but show me that you will stand firm on worthy principles, and turn America away from a course of destruction. Remember what Dr. King said? That a nation that spends more on armaments that social uplift for its citizens approaches spiritual death. Be the resurrection, son, bring back the ideals that have been drowned in the torture chambers. It's up to you."
(I am not sure the president has as much power as we were taught to believe he did from grade school.)
"Her son now demonstrates that same readiness to take on the improbable."
_________________________________
The author seems like a really nice person, so I won't express my harsh opinion of this fatuous and fantastic comment and the examples given to justify it.
· Yr Obd't Servant
It is not Obama's mother who is at fault for his bad decision making. Obama chose to sell his soul to the devils on Wall Street and my husband and I are even more aggrieved that we voted for this fool.
Obama never bothered to take care of his mother but allowed her to expire and still not realize that had the US implemented and enforced single payer, she would have seen him win the election. I forgive you for your vote. Our electorate has been used to brainwashing others into partisan voting or just plain voting between the two major evils at whim. I still cannot believe that Michelle Obama isn't snapping her hubby out of his falling into the rightwing traps.
Update: Never mind. I confused that with his latter mother. Sorry.
Two points in reference to this article: single-payer health care has reportedly been "taken off the table" by Obama. Clean energy as defined by his administration includes nuclear and coal.
Progressive health care advocates want single-payer to be included as an option. Environmental policy advocates recognize the harm posed by both nuclear AND coal and do not consider these options to be "clean."
Fran Korten and Yes! Magazine are in the "Postive Futures" business; so please forgive them and Common Dreams for this piece of Mother's Day pablum.
Happy mothers day...
The populist struggle to End oppression, violence, and war continues...
Despite what corporate America has done to neuter it's original meaning...
While I don't have much respect for the Ford Foundation and other corporate tax havens that maruade as humanitarian ...
I have great respect for the individuals that bring empowerment to folks in other parts of the world...
I think the Yes! Magazine editors are wonderful people, eternally optimistic...
and project their innate goodness upon others...
The unintended irony of the author's statement that "her son now demonstrates the same readiness to take on the improbable" is being written on Mother's Day. This is because Obama is displaying very little desire to not wage war on a day that was created by its founder, Julia Ward Howe, to help raise awareness by American mothers that war is not the way to solve problems. Julia Ward Howe had lived through the horror of the Civil War and had resolved that she would do all that she could to make Americans aware, through Mother's Day, that their sons were so precious that they should not be lost through the stupidity of war. If only Barack Obama could come to the same epiphany as Julia Ward Howe.
surely you meant to ask: "would Obama's mother be amazed to hear that her son had authorized the use of white phosporous to burn Afghan babies?" -
no apologies for ruining YOUR Mother's Day, how many mothers' days have you - the US - ruined since 2001?
Ekajanabi
I find your comment to be both bizarre and ill informed. You seem to be implying that because I am against Onbama sending more soldiers to their unjustifiable deaths that I am somehow condoning the wanton slaughter of Afghan civilians by 500 lb. American bombs. I think not. If at all possible, try to make the attempt of writing more with your head instead of leaping to an irrational conclusion.
I don't think Ekajanabi's comment was in reply to yours; rather it was a response to the author of the article.
Hopefully his mother would protest on the White House lawn, because her son has become a promising young Hitler with a dazzling smile and a joke or two for the press, while his policies kill thousands in Afghanistan, displace hundreds of thousands in Pakistan and kill many there as well. And that's just this weekend. On the domestic front, Obama has dared to .. enrich the insurance companies, hedge funds, and banks!! What bravery he's displayed!
Like most of you, I think Obama's mother would be profoundly saddened and disgusted that her son has become the most powerful man in the world and used that power to enrich the corrupt rich, ruthlessly slaughter innocent people, run a gulag with scant regard for human rights, praise and protect torturers and murderers, take only cosmetic measures in the face of environmental catastrophe, run a secretive and heavy-handed government and unlawfully spy on citizens.
Obama has the power to change the world for good or for ill, and thus far the balance is heavily tilted in favor of the latter. Mercifully, his mother and grandmother didn't live to see what he has become.
Sioux Rose
DR BRIAN: Or maybe he really doesn't have all that power, maybe the U.S. government is being run like a corporation where he's merely the front man and had better follow orders, protocols, and preconceived plans or see his family endangered. I do NOT think he was a starry-eyed visionary who finally got hold of the "seat of power." I think he was groomed for this position, and his background from Chicago in proximity to "The Chicago School" that spawned the ideology of Milton Friedman's economics that almost ruined a number of nations (Naomi Klein did the research on all of that as related in "The Shock Doctrine") is not an accident. If he was not complicit in furthering damaging policies prior to passing the tests to become pre-selected for candidacy, then he sure was won over quickly. That means had he integrity or any true vision of greatness for himself, his legacy, and the greater good, he sold it out for ambition and for his name to be written on stone monuments. He's glib and chameleon-like, so everyone can project their own interpretation onto the things he says. As if the nation can afford this nonsense with so much gone wrong. Given that he's gone along with the vast majority of policies engineered by Bush (and a few by Clinton), it becomes painfully clear that ANY who get close to the Oval Office know the masters they will be serving, and know how they must please them. The public be damned, and apparently, so, too, whatever nation is chosen for the war du jour.
Souix Rose,
Yes, it's probably something close to that. With our system of campaign financing, only those who will prostitute themselves to the highest bidder stand a real chance. So our elections are really about choosing different bottles of the same old bitter, toxic wine.
Pablum is a good word for this article. I read some of the husbands works and was impressed especially with his desire to return to a more sensible economic world as he ended one book about living in NYC and walking to everything. Seemed like a sensible guy. But then I noticed he lived on Bainbridge island, WA in my area of the woods.
After looking into his home which cost $788,000 (now worth $586,000) I realized what he and his wife were up to. No wonder he wants a better economic nation and his spouse writes articles, and not the first instance, of claiming to know someone important.
Be careful of folks that say they are just "one of the people" and out for the good of mankind. I do not get that sense from their life style and words in between the lines.
gikady
You cannot judge the Kortens for living in a $ 3/4 million home...
Since you live in the Seattle area, you know full well that the real estate bubble has been artificially high in the greater Seattle area for over 20 years, due to the perpetual influx of microsoft & Boeing employees, while the population of king county has doubled during that time...
Home prices rose and rose as property values soared, especially in bedroom/commuter communities like Bainbridge...
Eventually, even public school teachers were unable to afford to buy a three bedroom home in north seattle... Homes built in the fifties that sold for $150,000 fifteen years ago were selling for over $500 K before the bubble burst...
While I think home mortgages are a scam and I have no personal interest in owning real property...
I don't judge people who do own a house or have money, as long as they are doing good in the world ...
Yes! magazine and Korten's books are big sellers, and using their salaries and royalties to buy a house in the woods is their own perogative...
I judge only from what the man writes and view his contradiction in how he lives. Somewhat like Gore and his lifestyle. Though I agree with much of what each man states to be so, I will not suspend judgement or questioning just what they are preaching. Only the people who buy into their created fads will defend them
gikady
I agree, folks who preach to others should live by the same standards...
How much did you pay for your house...?
Lived here since 1972...take a guess
gikady
What an obnoxious article! Who selects this pap?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. wtf.
"Can we actually buck the insurance industry and provide a public option for health insurance?"
As stated already above, this is "off the table."
"Can we turn Iran from an enemy into an ally?"
By threatening and coercing them at EVERY OPPORTUNITY, perhaps? I suppose brute force IS one way to convert an enemy into an ally (see Japan), but somehow it strikes me that that wasn't what this, erm, confused author intended to convey.
"Can we shift the U.S. economy over to clean energy?"
O_O; Is this person truly serious? What clean energy does s/he propose? Cold fusion? Ethanol? Happy thoughts? No method of energy production with which I am familiar does not involve massive, brutal, utterly cavalier disregard for the land without which we cannot live. This includes pipedreams like solar and wind (whose components, particularly were they to become primary energy sources, occasion such an orgy of mining it's unreal), or hydroelectric (dams are an excellent way to fuck up an ecosystem, any ecosystem, in short order).
"Can we close the corporate tax loopholes that drive U.S. jobs overseas and undercut our tax base?"
Har har. You want to protect US jobs? Step One: Abolish NAFTA, FTAA, etc. Until this is done, no effort in this area should be taken remotely seriously, and seen only for the corporate shell game it is. Neoliberal free trade is fundamentally incompatible with domestic job security.
Truly, this article wins for Most Absurd of the Day.
Fran and David Korten are very hopeful, intelligent, and spiritual people who are doing great good in this world -- and are not unmindful of the corporatist Empire that may be very desirous of snaring Obama.
Like them, I am hopeful that Obama follows his mother's honest and humane instincts, and does not allow himself to become co-opted as the Mbeki of the globe.
This is what I said to Paul Krugman regarding Obama's recent 'cat got your tongue' silence about the banks' refusal to even consider 'mortgage debt reform':
“You can’t handle the truth”.
From ABC's “This Week” TV (5/3) —– Obama’s video clip, and Krugman’s comment:
OBAMA: “I don’t want to run auto companies,” the president says. “I don’t want to run banks. I have got two wars I gotta run already; I’ve got more than enough to do.”
KRUGMAN: “I can’t predict, but right now, let me tell you, they really don’t want to run banks. They so badly don’t want to run banks, I think it’s actually kind of hamstringing their ability to deal with them. Because they don’t want to go where they just went with Chrysler on the banks. And this is definitely not a socialist-minded administration.”
Any intelligent person, let alone a Nobel economist, reading Naomi Kline’s “Shock Doctrine” detailing the history of the modern global ruling-elite Empire’s economic mechanism for smothering and diverting the inconvenient truths and disruptions that popular democracy represents, could not help but understand that the economic shock induced on 9/15 (08) with the overt decision to intentionally collapse Lehman was clearly the “second shoe dropping” (or more wryly ‘second shoe bomb’) after the 9/11 shock doctrine. As many in the ruling-elite ‘corporate financial Empire’ hiding behind the façade of its two-party ‘Vichy’ sham of democracy slyly acknowledge — “Never waste a crisis”.
And so, Paul, there should be no surprise that Obama did not publicly object to the quiet back-room legal tyranny of the economic Empire any more than the personable, Scotch-drinking Mbeki did not publicly object to the deals made with the ruling-elite economic Empirists of South Africa which collapsed Mandela and the ANC’s ‘Freedom Charter’ from a serious and indivisible political-economic declaration of social/ist democracy into a rancid corporatist tourism “show”.
No, Paul, as Margaret Thatcher infamously said, “TINA” (there is no alternative) to the economics of empire. There will be no endearing call for ‘debt relief’, nor for ‘mortgage relief’, nor for ‘health care reform’, nor for ‘land (nor certainly asset) reform’ — despite the irrefutable truth that the GINI indexes of wealth and income inequality in our shining democracy on the hill are fast approaching those of South Africa, Chile, Russia and all the other success stories of the 'Chicago Boys’ shock therapy for establishing flowering ‘democratic capitalist’ free market states (whatever that oxymoron means).
Like the dutiful Marine Commander that Gen. Smedley Butler was NOT, Obama is just too consumed and dedicated to fighting the wars that Wall Street and big oil started abroad for their Empire to worry about interfering in the domestic tyranny of their very same economic Empire at home.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine