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OBAMA'S FORMULA FOR SUCCESSFUL CHANGE
Barack Obama's formula for successful change is actually a formula that all community organizers use as well as community leaders who want to bring about effective and lasting change. The formula is P=I=C=S and it almost always works: Allen L Roland
Sometimes we are all too close to the fire to see the big picture which is why the foreign press does us an invaluable service by often providing an objective analysis ~ not only of our country but particularly of our leaders.
With that in mind, let me first offer my take on President Obama's formula for successful change which most community organizers, community leaders and even empowering agents, such as myself ( in my work with families and organizations ) successfully use to bring about effective and lasting change.
P = Participation
I = Involvement
C = Commitment
S = Support
First, look at George W Bush and Barack H Obama as world leaders. George W Bush was a emotionally insecure bully and moral coward posing as a world leader ~ who saw himself as the decider and used fear and intimidation to drive his Cheney directed neocon agenda of conquer and divide. There was little sense of participation in his secretive administration, very little real involvement which resulted in a loss of committment and almost total loss of support ~ except for his far right wing conservative Christian base.
Barack H Obama, on the other hand, is a emotionally secure empowerer of people who not only has used participation and involvement to secure the Presidency but will use the same formula to secure the necessary commitment and support to fulfill his campaign promises and very possibly peace in the Middle East as well as eventually world peace. Witness his solitary trip to the hill yesterday to talk directly to the Republican caucus on the merits of his Democratic stimulus plan as an example of participation and involvement.
Don't underestimate the power of this formula or way of governing for it truly enlists and empowers the masses as well as the opposition ~ as the whole world evidenced in this last election.
A top level Wall street executive told me yesterday that long ignored well meaning voices ( voices in the shadows ) are now being heard in Washington and are finally feeling involved in the process of needed change.
Uri Avnery, the sage of Israel and the founder of the Israeli peace movement, Gush Shalom ~ recognizes this moment and calls for the reinvigoration of the peace movement ; " Of all the beautiful phrases in Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, these are the words that stuck in my mind: “You are on the wrong side of history.”
He was talking about the tyrannical regimes of the world. But we, too, should ponder these words. In the last few days I have heard a lot of declarations from Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Olmert. And every time, these eight words came back to haunt me: “You are on the wrong side of history!” Obama was speaking as a man of the 21st century. Our leaders speak the language of the 19th century. They resemble the dinosaurs which once terrorized their neighborhood and were quite unaware of the fact that their time had already passed. "http://www.planetarymovement.org/go/world-news/on-the-wrong-side-by-uri-avnery/
Renaud Girad, Le Figero, Paris, calls it a ' new way of governing ' but note the underlying theme of Participation, Involvement, Commitment and Support.
Excerpt: " The new president's method of government follows an unvarying chronological pattern: reflection, consultation, support, decision, communication. The consultation enriches the reflection; obtaining support from indispensable actors makes political decision possible ~ ~ The communication is only the crowning moment, a normal pedagogical exercise in a democracy, not an end in itself."
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/01/29.html
OBAMA, A NEW WAY OF GOVERNING
By Renaud Girard [Translated from *Le Figaro* (Paris)]
" The new president is keeping to an unvarying chronological pattern: reflection, consultation, support, decision, communication "
Le Figaro (Paris)
January 27, 2009
http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2009/01/28/01003-20090128ARTFIG00037-obama-une-nouvelle-maniere-de-gouverner-.php
" During the presidential campaign, all observers were struck by Obama the candidate's extraordinary degree of organization. The senator from Illinois presided over the building of an enormous and unprecedented campaign organization that relied neither on the Democratic Party's apparatus nor on the unions nor on the Washington lobbies but on an immense network of millions of sympathizers linked together by the Internet. With these exceptional and direct ties to the American electorate, Obama's campaign organization succeeded in attracting the biggest crowds to its rallies, in raising the most money, and in getting the largest number of usually abstentionist voters to cast their ballots.
Barack Obama has brought this talent for organization to the White House. To say that he and his advisers are getting through a lot of work is an understatement. Americans are watching, dumbfounded, a blitzkrieg of action, in which neither improvisation nor hesitation nor hand-wringing nor press leaks have the slightest place. Let's take the single day Mon., Jan. 26, 2009, as an example. Keeping on schedule to the minute, the new president accomplished the amazing feat of launching three very different political grand initiatives, without the slightest slip-up.
The first moment: President Obama signs, in the Oval Office and in front of cameras, a memorandum asking the national Evironmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reconsider its refusal under the Bush administration to a request from California. That state, by itself almost as wealthy as France, wanted to set stricter criteria regarding automotive traffic than those envisaged by Federal legislation: fewer carbon gas emissions and better gas mileage for every vehicle sold in the state. Thirteen other states of the Union have said that they want to follow California's ecological example.
SCHWARZENEGGER HAPPY
It is a rule with Obama to accompany every political decision he makes with a little speech specifying its reach and explaining what it's for. "It will be the policy of my administration to reverse our dependence on foreign oil," he says, unemphatically, but with an air of fixed and calm determination. The president explains that his ultimate goal is twofold: participate in the global fight against climatic warming, and to act in such a way that America is no longer "hostage" to hostile regimes for its energy supplies. In his eyes, United States' billions of dollars wasted on energy overconsumption end up working in part against it, in that they finance "nuclear proliferation" (a clear allusion to Iran) and "terrorism" (allusion to the petromonarchies of the Persian Gulf, which turn a blind eye to the private financing of Islamist movements). Preempting the potential recriminations of the Big Three American automobile manufacturers, the president says that it is in their interest to prepare to produce the clean vehicles of the future (allusion to the advance Japanese manufacturers have in the area of hybrid vehicles). Republican California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's immediate reaction, in front of the cameras: "Let's rejoice, we finally have an ally in Washington!"
Second big moment of the day: Obama goes to the Capitol in order to meet with leaders of the Republican opposition in Congress is order to attempt to convince them to pass his $825bn "stimulus" plan for the economy (a mixture of fiscal incentives, federal aid to states, and great public works infrastructure projects). There, too, a speech in which the president begins by listing the items of bad news of the day, namely the thousands of lay-offs announced by a constellation of big American companies. A pragmatist, Obama never takes refuge in ideological speech, thus avoiding causing pain. Calling a spade a spade, he lays out the reality of the situation and the gravity of the problem and then recommends a solution. To justify his quickness of action, he emphasizes that an exceptional remedy is needed for an exceptional crisis. Leaving the legislators to their reflections, the president announces that he will come back to see them, tomorrow.
Politically, this is astute: Obama proves that his promise to seek first a bipartisan consensus in Congress was sincere. Many Republicans will hesitate before voting against the proposals of a president getting 80% favorable ratings in the polls.
"FOCUSED"
In the White House, the division of labor to win the next legislative battle has, of course, already been worked out: the chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is charged with convincing a House of Representatives that he already knows inside out; the task of winning the Senate falls to Vice President Joe Biden, who held a seat there for more than thirty years.
Obama's third show of the day is devoted to foreign policy. Behind a long table in a room in the White House, where Hillary Clinton is seated on his right and George Mitchell on his left, the president publicly charges the new special American envoy for peace in the Middle East with his mission. In short, the doctrine is repeated (to achieve a Palestinian State living side by side with the Jewish State) and the priorities are laid out (consolidation of the cease-fire in Gaza, reopening of the Rafah crossing point in order to allow goods and persons to pass, but not arms destined for Hamas). Obama announces that everything that Mitchell proposes and says in the future will have the weight of a presidential message. Once the ceremony is over, the special envoy leaves immediately to get on the plane that will take him to the region. It's all clear, clean, and quick.
The least one can say is that Obama has not been dazzled by the planetary media success of his inauguration ceremony. The adjective that best summarizes the president in his work is "focused." On Wed., Jan. 21, his first day of work, Obama began by establishing new ethical rules for his entire team. Then he signed the decree suspending the Guantanamo trials, which his legal counsel, Gregory Craig, had prepared for him. Finally, he got down to the diplomatic emergency of the moment (the Gaza crisis), personally calling all the leaders in the region. It would doubtless have been more comfortable to have answered the congratulations of friendly leaders, like Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Angela Merkel. He only did that later, while having substantive conversations on issues of moment.
Obama is a strategist who does not allow emotions to take precedence.
The fact that he doesn't get along with the Saudi king did not prevent him from calling him on Friday. Because he needs the Wahhabi monarch to support an Egypt that has been weakened by the Gaza crisis.
The new president's method of government follows an unvarying chronological pattern: reflection, consultation, support, decision, communication. The consultation enriches the reflection; obtaining support from indispensible actors makes political decision possible.
The communication is only the crowning moment, a normal pedagogical exercise in a democracy, not an end in itself.
NOTHING JUICY
The American press was of considerable help to Obama in his conquest of the summit. But for all that, the president does not intend to share an ounce of his power with journalists. For the constitutionalist, the myth of the fourth branch of government is a dangerous heresy. Obama will not repeat the error of his first press conference as president-elect, on Nov. 7, in a big Chicago hotel.
That morning American journalists almost treated Obama as a comrade, submitting him to an amiable interrogation where he had to have an answer immediately to everything.
Since the inauguration, the complicity and the leaks have come to an end. Now is the time for distance and absolute control. The powerful American "presidential press corps" was outraged that only one photographer and only four reporters were invited when the president repeated his oath before the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (who had made a mistake in the order of words in the official oath at the televised ceremony on Jan. 20). American journalists were mistaken in thinking that the Obama they propelled so high was going to speak to the world while submitting to the filter of their expertise, to the machine-gun fire of their questions. From now on in the White House the curtain only opens long enough for the presidential word, closing immediately afterward. Warned once and for all by their boss, the advisers' lips are sealed. Not the slightest anecdote, not the slightest dispute, not the slightest rivalry is filtering out.
Nothing juicy to dig your teeth into. No "spin doctors," no evening visitors, no grey eminences attributing the merit of such and such a decision at the dinners in town. We're a long way from the amateurism of certain European seraglios. "
Translated by Mark K. Jensen Associate Professor of French Chair, Department of Languages and Literatures Pacific Lutheran University Tacoma, WA 98447-0003 E-mail: jensenmk@plu.edu
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2009/01/29.html
Freelance Online columnist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews and speaking engagements ( allen@allenroland.com )
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
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