TruthOut10
Active Member
- Dec 3, 2012
- 627
- 100
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WASHINGTON He did not utter the words, but President Obama suffused his second Inaugural Address with the spirit of a favorite phrase: the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s call to heed the fierce urgency of now.
This was a president unbound from much of what defined him upon taking office four years ago, a man clearly cognizant of time already running down on his opportunity to make his imprint on the country and on history.
Gone were the vision of a new kind of high-minded politics, the constraint of a future re-election campaign and the weight of unrealistic expectations. In their place was an unapologetic argument that modern liberalism was perfectly consistent with the spirit of the founders and a notice that, with no immediate crisis facing the nation, Mr. Obama intended to use the full powers of his office for progressive values.
We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect, he said.
After spending much of his first term evolving on the question of same-sex marriage and doing too little in the eyes of many African-Americans to address poverty and civil rights, he invoked Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall and cited responsibility for the poor, sick and displaced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/u...-urgent-call-for-progressive-values.html?_r=0
This was a president unbound from much of what defined him upon taking office four years ago, a man clearly cognizant of time already running down on his opportunity to make his imprint on the country and on history.
Gone were the vision of a new kind of high-minded politics, the constraint of a future re-election campaign and the weight of unrealistic expectations. In their place was an unapologetic argument that modern liberalism was perfectly consistent with the spirit of the founders and a notice that, with no immediate crisis facing the nation, Mr. Obama intended to use the full powers of his office for progressive values.
We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect, he said.
After spending much of his first term evolving on the question of same-sex marriage and doing too little in the eyes of many African-Americans to address poverty and civil rights, he invoked Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall and cited responsibility for the poor, sick and displaced.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/u...-urgent-call-for-progressive-values.html?_r=0
