Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope
by David
I read Barack Obama’s new book, The Audacity of Hope, last week. I found Obama incredibly likable, and I agree with many of his views (especially with regards to social issues; fiscally — we probably differ more).
The book itself is readable but not exactly a page-turner. He spends a lot of time just recapping basic American history, which is fine (who doesn’t love America?) but, frankly, boring. Obama’s stories are the real meat of the book — growing up in Indonesia, meeting his wife during a law school internship, raising his family, and describing his experiences as a state legislator and U.S. Senator. Good stuff.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
[On those who disagree with his views] The best I can do in the face of our [nation's] history is remind myself that it has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty. The hard, cold facts remind me that it was unbending idealists like William Lloyd Garrison, who first dounded the clarion call for justice; that it was slaves and former slaves, men like Denmark Vesey and Frederick FDouglass and women like Harriet Tubman, who recognized power would concede nothing without a fight. It was the wild-eyed prophecies of John Brown, his willingness to spill blood and not just words on behalf of his visions, that helped force the issue of a nation half slave and half free. I’m reminded that deliberations and the constitutional order may sometimes be the luxury of the powerful, and that it has sometimes been the cranks, the zealots, the prophets, the agitators, and the unreasonable—in other words, the absolutists—that have fought for a new order. Knowing this, I can’t summarily dismiss those possessed of similar certainty today—the antiabortion activist who picket my town hall meeting, or the animal rights activist who raids a laboratory—no matter how deeply I disagree with their views. I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty—for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute.
[quoting John F. Kennedy] To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
[recounting a 2002 speech] I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.