Obama's "idealism" is the new realism

Being progressive means addressing the issues that if kept unsolved will make it impossible to be even a moderate.

Terrorism, climate change and "clashes of uncivilizations" are key tests of the capacity of democracies to address vital challenges.

The threat of terrorism is in itself a brutal attack against the most progressive values of humanity and by provoking a “security backlash” it undermines the space for enlightened discourse and policies.

The destruction of the environment brings back the spectre of bare-knuckled struggle for resources and even, as Robert Kaplan would tell us, the return of barbarism.

The so-called "clash of civilizations" raises the twin dangers of either a descent into intolerance (like Berlusconi's treatment of Romanians and Roms illustrates) or a concession of fundamental freedoms and values.

That is why the unilateralism of the neoconservatives, the jingoism of the Buchanites and the arrogance of the Bush-Cheney administration are so reactionary. By imposing their views on the rest of the world, by refusing to sign the Kyoto protocols or the ICC treaty, by opting out of universal conventions on the laws of war or torture, by confusing alliances with subjection to the whims and wills of a right-wing group that has hijacked the name of America, the Bush administration has weakened the fight for democracy and human rights and made the world (and the US) less safe and less free.

That’s why also Barack Obama’s European trip was progressive. By issuing a strong call for trans-Atlantic cooperation to restore global stability and confront existing and future threats he sent the right message: in this interconnected world, alliances are necessary and essential to the US itself; and these alliances have to strive for a “better world” for us to live in and for our children and grandchildren to inherit.

"Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe", Obama said. No doubt there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice, it is the one way; the only way to protect our common security and advance our common humanity".

Contrary to his critics on the right Obama is not an illusionist or a daydreamer He is much more realist than the Perles and the Rumsfeld and the McCains in his assessment of the risks that are hovering over America and the world.

And he blends two basic aspirations and requirements of democracy: assuring security to the citizens and doing so by appealing to the sense of humanity whereas the Bush acolytes only assumed the worst in men/women and the extreme right wing, both in the US and in Europe, fans insecurity by appealing to inhumanity.