Looking forward to the President’s State of the Union address tonight. Remembering January 2009 and the massive gathering on the National Mall for the Inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Here’s a look at the scene by Susan Walsh, a photographer from the Associated Press (web photo courtesy of boston.com)
With Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. being remembered tomorrow in a special way across the nation, I went back to a prose poem written after a family visit to Washington, D.C., in the early summer of 2004, another presidential election year. We were months away from seeing Barack Obama make news with a speech at the Democratic Party’s convention in Boston, and the extraordinary memorial for Dr. King was yet to be installed on the National Mall. — PM
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Checking the Property
My nine-year-old son says, “I’m going to read the ‘Gettysburg Address’”—on the other side is the lesser-known second inaugural speech. What’s the Lincoln shorthand? Freed the slaves; saved the union. People crowd the marble steps at dusk. A sign asks for silence. When he sees my wife lining up a snapshot, a guy in a straw cowboy hat offers to take a picture of my brother’s family, my wife, son, and me in the glow of the civic temple. Climbing the steps, I caught sight of the figure set behind the columns, and then lost him because of the steep ascent, only to come upon the sculpture again near the top, where visitors gaze at the huge seated president, whose massive square-toed boot juts out, looking as if it could kick Jeff Davis’ football the length of the Reflecting Pool and onto the white spike of the Washington Monument, which, in the after-supper hour reflects sun along its narrow western face, a mighty glo-stik on the national common, a staunch obelisk, a big white numeral standing for the first president, who set the constitutional republic in motion, the stone blocks a different shade on the top half, marking a stop in work and resumption, the monument telling its own story, one in which protesters rolled cut stones into the drink, foreshadowing later protests and rallies and comings together, like the 1963 March on Washington that brought Martin Luther King to these same steps to declare his dream of a nation at last free for all, the same steps where Joan Baez and Bob Dylan sang for justice and where Dylan returned to sing for Bill Clinton’s booming inaugural, the same steps movie-land Vietnam vet Forrest Gump spoke from and from which he spotted his life-long love and source of ache splashing toward him, the same pool in which the spaceship crashed in the Planet of the Apes remake, this electric stretch of public land without timber or copper, a wide open space in which to make a verb of America—to recall and celebrate and to do democratic research and development in this red clay-lined lab, bordered and crowded with evidence of the ongoing experiment, and bearing key formulas and equations inscribed in stone.
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—Paul Marion (c) 2004
Culture, Election 2012, History, Lowell, Poetry | 
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CNN analyst and Kennedy School big-wig David Gergen offers his latest take on the President’s prospect for re-election. Like many other commentators, Gergen feels that he must throw in a side whack at the Washington DC Democrats for balance as he makes the case about GOP failings on national and campaign affairs. Sometimes a foul is a foul no matter how much the penalized team’s coach complains. The ref’s job is to make the call. I guess that’s why CNN is CNN and not MSNBC or Fox. They like the middle road. Here’s the Gergen piece.
Lowell National Historical Park Supt. Michael Creasey and Asst. Supt. Peter Aucella have both called attention to the President Obama’s announcement of the newest National Park at Fort Monroe in Virginia, which mentions the historic decision by Lowell’s own General Benjamin F. Butler to declare Southern slaves as contraband of war and “served as a forerunner of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863.”—PM
THE WHITE HOUSE, Office of the Press Secretary: For Immediate Release November 1, 2011
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE FORT MONROE NATIONAL MONUMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Known first as “The Gibraltar of the Chesapeake” and later as “Freedom’s Fortress,” Fort Monroe on Old Point Comfort in Virginia has a storied history in the defense of our Nation and the struggle for freedom. Fort Monroe, designed by Simon Bernard and built of stone and brick betweenm1819 and 1834 in part by enslaved labor, is the largest of the Third System of fortifications in the United States. It has been a bastion of defense of the Chesapeake Bay, a stronghold of the Union Army surrounded by the Confederacy, a place of freedom for the enslaved, and the imprisonment site of Chief Blackhawk and the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis. It served as the U.S. Army’s Coastal Defense Artillery School during the 19th and 20th centuries, and most recently, as headquarters of the U.S. Army’s Training and Doctrine Command.
Old Point Comfort in present day Hampton, Virginia, was originally named “Pointe Comfort” by Captain John Smith in 1607 when them first English colonists came to America. It was here that the settlers of Jamestown established Fort Algernon in 1609. After Fort Algernon’s destruction by fire in 1612, successive English fortifications were built, testifying to the location’s continuing strategic value. The first enslaved Africans in England’s colonies in America were brought to this peninsula on a ship flying the Dutch flag in 1619, beginning a long ignoble period of slavery in the colonies and, later, this Nation. Two hundred and forty-two yearslater, Fort Monroe became a place of refuge for those later generations escaping enslavement.
During the Civil War, Fort Monroe stood as a foremost Union outpost in the midst of the Confederacy and remained under Union Army control during the entire conflict. The Fort was the site of General Benjamin Butler’s “Contraband Decision” in 1861, which provided a pathway to freedom for thousands of enslaved people during the Civil War and served as a forerunner of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Thus, Old Point Comfort marks both the beginning and end of slavery in our Nation. The Fort played critical roles as the springboard for General George B. McClellan’s Peninsula Campaign in 1862 and as a crucial supply base for the siege of Petersburg by Union forces under General Ulysses S. Grant in 1864 and 1865. After the surrender of the Confederacy, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was transferred to Fort Monroe and remained imprisoned there for 2 years.
Fort Monroe is the third oldest United States Army post in continuous active service. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960 and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It provides an excellent opportunity for the public to observe and understand Chesapeake Bay and Civil War history. At the northern end of the North Beach area lies the only undeveloped shoreline remaining on Old Point Comfort, providing modern-day visitors a sense of what earlier people saw when they arrived in the New World. The North Beach area also includes coastal defensive batteries, including Batteries DeRussy and Church, which were used from the 19th Century to World War II.
WHEREAS section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431) (the “Antiquities Act”), authorizes the President, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management of the objects to be protected; . . . NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by section 2 of the Antiquities Act, hereby proclaim that all lands and interests in lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States within the boundaries described on the accompanying map, which is attached to and forms a part of this proclamation, are hereby set apart and reserved as the Fort Monroe National Monument (monument) for the purpose of protecting the objects identified above. . . .
All Federal lands and interests in lands within the boundaries of this monument are hereby appropriated and withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection, sale, leasing, or other disposition under the public land laws, including withdrawal from location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and geothermal leasing. Lands and interests in lands within the monument’s boundaries not owned or controlled by the United States shall be reserved as part of the monument upon acquisition of ownership or control by the United States. . . .
Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation; however, the monument shall be the dominant reservation. Warning is hereby given to all unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure, destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand eleven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-sixth.
BARACK OBAMA
In New York Magazine, political and cultural observer Frank Rich urges President Obama to fight hard for the America he envisions. Read the article here, which I picked up from huffingtonpost.
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Here’s the latest on today’s stock market dive from NYTimes.
Could investors be signalling that it is time for action and that doing nothing is not an option? I heard one analyst on the radio saying that experts and politicians claimed they were caught by surprise in 2008 when Wall Street came apart—but that they have no excuse this time around.
Meanwhile, today the President was in Ohio drawing attention to a big broken-down bridge that is just the kind of jobs project that he wants Congress to fund. Will Congress, specifically the US House, act on his infrastructure plan and other initiatives that he has put forward?
Current Events, Election 2012, History, Lowell | 1 Comment »
Aside from the particulars of the policy proposals made by the President last night, I was happy to hear his robust defense of the role played by government at the federal level. Our ideal of a representative democracy composed of 50 states is not 300 million maverick independent contractors trying to cut in line to get the best reward. There has to be a fair balance of competition and cooperation. Some things, big things, as he said, are done best when we act together. Some things won’t get done unless we act as a majority. At large in the land is a gathering attack on the idea of governing at the federal level, of national public action funded by tax dollars. I won’t repeat Pres. Obama’s examples and exhortation to get back on the high road of responsibility and vision. I was glad to hear his words on this and his passion. There is a reason that places like Massachusetts chose the word “commonwealth” as a way to describe the organization of the state. The “United” in USA doesn’t mean that certain states share borders like Vermont and New Hampshire. The President talks often of the nation as a work-in-progress making its way to a “more perfect union.” I liked his urgency last night. I liked his faith in Americans to do five things at once. To do big things now and for the future.
In today’s NYTimes, opinion writer David Brooks signs on to President Obama’s jobs surge plan outlined last night in a pumped-up speech to Congress and his fellow Americans. Brooks writes:
There is clearly now a significant risk of a double-dip recession. That would be terrible for America’s workers, fiscal situation and psyche. This prospect is enough to shock even us stimulus skeptics out of our long-term focus. It’s enough to force us to contemplate the possibility of another stimulus package.
Read Brooks’ column here, and get the NYT online or on your porch if you want more.
Current Events, Election 2012, History, Lowell, Politics | No Comments »
In his new column, opinion writer E. J. Dionne, native of Southeastern Mass., urges President Obama to roll out a BIG Plan for jobs and real economic recovery that reaches everyone up and down the socio-economic ladder. Read his column here, which I picked up from the Washington Post, a newspaper I used to like a lot better in the old days of the 1970s.
Current Events, Election 2012, History, Lowell, Politics | 1 Comment »
Here’s the latest POTUS vacation dispatch from the Vineyard by our faithful, far-flung correspondent, Ray LaPorte.
Air Force One flew over Vineyard Haven harbor last evening on a glide path to Otis Air Base. Its shimmering light-blue hull and contrails in the fading sun at 10,000 feet signaled that within the hour an armada of helicopters in military formation would soon fly the First Family to their vacation home here on Paradise Island. And thus would begin Fox News’ endless assault on the propriety of presidential vacations, especially on toney Martha’s Vineyard, when the world is swirling down the drain. This will soon be followed by the family-values crowd chiming in with something nonsensical and hypocritical about him, despite the fact that this President spends lots of vacation time with his children. But I digress.
I had every intention of posting my “Apocalypse Now” video of the low-flying helicopters and their impressive formation and noise and the accompanying speeding Coast Guard cutters while coincidentally aboard my friend’s sailboat participating in our highly competitive weekly Thursday evening club race. However, with a reef in the main and gusts to 20 knots, I had my hands full trimming sheets and jockeying around marks and 15 other boats, so my Blackberry remained in my bag below. My Francis Ford Coppola helicopter scene will have to wait. Suffice to say that I have seen it many times here, and it is still impressive. They sure know how to make a grand entrance laying a heavy carbon footprint.
Unlike the very social Bill and Hillary here a century ago, when they would show up anywhere and at anytime (even at my neighbors’ place once), the Obamas remain very private and out of sight. Their rare and spontaneous public moments are telegraphed only when the advance team in ninja SUV’s descends moments before their arrival. The sad post-9/11 reality is that their free movement options are limited for security reasons, which must be a source frustration especially during the few vacations they take. At least that hideous black tour bus didn’t come with them.
Gotta go, GaGa’s outside!
Hold on. False alarm. It’s the President going to the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore (no kidding, real time)!! Now I’m stuck inside the security perimeter and can’t get lunch. We pray for Labor Day.
—Paparazzi Ray
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