Yesterday I had to explain to my startled children why their dad just about jumped out of his seat with joy when Pete Seeger showed up on stage. To those not of a particular generation and of a particular swipe through that generation, it is indeed a mystery…

I was born in 1950 to parents who agreed more about politics than anything else. My father was a WWII vet and a graduate of Harvard Law who, rather than going into private practice, went to work as a lawyer for the New York State Labor Relations Board. He believed working people needed the power of unions to fight exploitation. And he was right.

My mother was a folksinger — she taught guitar but did not have enough confidence, or I imagine, my father’s support, to perform — starting in the early 1950s, before the the pop acculturation of that form. Folk music back then was a mix of art, anthropology and politics. During an era of smooth, mass market, commercial singers — think of a Perry Como Christmas Hour — the folklorists were out in the fields, preserving the raw, bottom-up songs of the least among us. Folk music stood in the fields against the great lawn mower of commercial entertainment.

A labor lawyer and a folksinger. My parents were the very definition of what others called “commie symps” (communist sympathizers). Pink, not red. They had no love for Russia, but they also saw America’s sins for what they were: Racist, misogynist (my mother but not my father was something like an early feminist), crass, bullying, and sexually obsessed with atomic bombs. They believed in America’s stated principles and promise, and had the ACLU membership cards to prove it. But they had also lived through a time when lynchings went unpunished, and Joseph McCarthy had twisted the legislature around his accusatory finger.

Pete Seeger was of my parents’ generation. In our household, he was the example of what a patriot looks like. A man of the people. Someone who had suffered for his political views in the McCarthy years. A hero who had stayed true to his ideals. A person who felt connected to the worst off, who appreciated their culture and who worked for their aspirations. A quiet person who never boasted. A character who never bowed to fashion or the expectations of others. A singer happiest in a small circle of like souls. Someone whose life and songs celebrated the greatest of America’s democratic ideals: The ineffable value of the ordinary person.

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So, when Pete Seeger came out on stage in his rainbow Smurf hat, to sing before our new president, our new black president, I lost it. What my parents would have thought. What Pete Seeger must be thinking. But most of all, the proof of how steeply history can arc.

Pete Seeger: American patriot.

[Note: This post is also up at Huffington. Feel free to comment there.]

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND
words and music by Woody Guthrie

[Note the second-to-last verse, the one that begins “As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there.” It’s a lot of people’s favorite — dw]

Chorus:
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me

As I was walking a ribbon of highway
I saw above me an endless skyway
I saw below me a golden valley
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

I’ve roamed and rambled and I’ve followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
And all around me a voice was sounding

This land was made for you and me

Chorus

The sun comes shining as I was strolling
The wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
The fog was lifting a voice come chanting
This land was made for you and me

Chorus

As I was walkin’ – I saw a sign there
And that sign said – no tress passin’
But on the other side …. it didn’t say nothin!
Now that side was made for you and me!

Chorus

In the squares of the city – In the shadow of the steeple
Near the relief office – I see my people
And some are grumblin’ and some are wonderin’
If this land’s still made for you and me.

[Tags: obama pete_seeger inauguration inaug09 barack_obama patriotism folksongs ]

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Obama’s letter to his daughters in Parade Magazine this morning wasn’t particularly well done. But I choked up. I’m watching Bruce Springsteen at the concert right now. I’ve never particularly liked him, and I’m not knocked out by this. But I’m on the verge of tears again. Jon goddamn Bonjovi just made me cry.

I’m in a bad way.

I don’t need any reminders about the troubles we face or Obama’s flaws and weaknesses. I know he’s just a guy with two legs and an empty pair of pants when he wakes up. Really I do.

But for months I’ve felt, well, a surge. I can’t even tell you what the feeling is. All I know for sure is that it makes my throat tight and my cheeks wet. And it’s too much to be attributed to one skinny young guy. And certainly it’s not all directed at him.

But don’t you feel it too? It’s as if we’ve been given permission, let go, released. Let’s not say from what. Not today.

Into what? Not sure. But it’s been there all along, waiting.

At least, that’s what it feels like to me.

[Tags: obama inauguration hope ]

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I hope someday an historian writes a book called The Interregnum that looks at the period between the election and inauguration of Barack Obama. Not since the Cuban Missile Crisis had us huddled waiting for events to resolve have I had such a palpable sense of history. But now, instead of parsing every car horn as the start of a nuclear siren, I am ready for hope.

The stew of emotions is rich.

Hope itself is encompassing. It isn’t even an emotion. It’s a full-body experience, including cognition, anticipation, dedication, and spirit. In this case, hope is social. It’s not me trusting looking into the eyes of my Maker. It’s us relying on us.

Then there’s patriotism. I’ve always been more interested in the reasons that justify patriotism than in patriotism itself. But now I’m proud of how we are responding to this person we improbably elected.

There’s fear. I want my children to have the same opportunities I’ve been privileged to have. That is far from guaranteed. It isn’t even likely.

But The Interregnum will make for compelling reading most of all because it is the story of two people who could not be more different as people and as leaders.

Although I’ve been furious at President Bush for years, I had no idea I’ve actually been holding some back. I didn’t think I had any more to give. But then George Bush began his round of farewells.

Whatever someone says s/he is is exactly what that person is not. If your boss says, “I’m all about honesty,” then your boss is a liar. “For me, accountability is the main thing” means your boss is a swindler.

Bush told us he is all about compassion.

As Bush has put forward his self-explanation and justification in this past week, it’s become clear how incapable he is of seeing things from someone else’s point of view. With millions of refugees created in Iraq, he says his mistake was in posing in front of that “Mission Accomplished” sign. In the face of Katrina’s refugees, Bush thinks his mistake was not arriving on scene for his photo opp earlier. As Jon Stewart said, “You have no idea why people are angry at you, do you?”

I don’t think this is due to narcissism on Bush’s part. I think it’s part and parcel of his lack of intellectual curiosity. He’s a tiny man on a vast stage who simply can’t think past himself and what he sees at the moment. It doesn’t matter how large the stage becomes, his tiny circle of light never expands.

Bush provides us with the final and perfect exemplar of how our American idea of leadership, in politics and business, has gone wrong. We’ve taken leadership as a personality trait. Bush thinks he’s a leader because he made unpopular decisions and stuck by them. Leadership to him is a matter of character. If that’s all leadership is, then we’re better off without leaders — people empty of anything except a random resolve to do something and then keep doing it.

What’s missing is the idea that leaders need to be responsive to the reality of the world, the reality of the conflicting needs of the led, and the reality of suffering. Leaders may sometimes need to draw a clear line, but they must always recognize that the simplicity some decisions require masks an awful complexity.

In the interregnum, Bush has revealed himself as a buffoon blind to the tragedy he has hosted, while Obama has been showing us what leadership is about by bringing us to what is best in ourselves — as individuals, and, most of all, together.

I am ready for release from the shame and anger of the Bush years. I am so ready for the interregnum to end. [Tags: bush george_bush obama barack_obama leadership leaders politics governance ]

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I had a vivid dream last night. It was George Bush’s day off and for some reason that the dream didn’t care about enough to explain, I was the buddy accompanying him. We did this and that, and then visited a tourist attraction in a local mall. It was apparently based on Madurodam in the Netherlands, which is a miniature version of the country that you can walk through, with little replicas of the various landmarks. Almost immediately, George stumbled on Mount Rushmore, knocking over the Statue of Liberty, which set fire to New York, causing George to fall backwards, crushing the Grand Canyon, and so on, leaving the place a disaster. It was totally a Homer moment.

It was so obvious how the media were going to spin this that I actually felt bad for him. In the dream.

[Tags: george_bush dreams obama ]

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As 2008 amazingly still finds ways to get worse and worse right up until the ball drops, I pick up my spirits by setting aside a moment every day to think about what it would be like if we were facing the inauguration of John McCain and Sarah Palin.

Ahhhh. Doesn’t that make you feel better?

[Tags: obama ]

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The Obama transition site has started up a second round of “Open for Questions,” in which anyone can pose a question, we get to vote on our favorites, and the transition team responds.

Here’s the first round.

I like the symbolism of this. It signals not only an interest in open government, but a trust in citizens, a willingness to experiment, and a desire to put technology to use. But, I hope this time they answer more of the questions.

[Tags: obama egov change.gov ]

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Like every New Yorker reader, I am perpetually behind. But I’ve been greatly enjoying reading issues from before the election. Knowing how it turns out relieves all the stress.

It also deepens the joy. Thomas Mallon has a terrific article (book review, actually) in the Oct. 13 issue, about how our view of Lincoln has changed over the years. For example, when the Lincoln Memorial was first opened, in 1922, Lincoln was celebrated as the Great Unifier, not the Great Emancipator. Here’s how the article concludes:

In 1909, the Reverend L. H. Magee, the pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Springfield, Illinois, voiced his disgust at the exclusion of blacks from the town’s centennial dinner, but he imagined that by the time of the bicentennial, in 2009, racial prejudice would be “relegated to the dark days of ‘Salem witchcraft.’ ” Next year’s Lincoln commemorations in Washington will include the reopening of Ford’s Theatre, restored for performances for the second time since 1893, when its interior collapsed, killing twenty-two people. Congress will convene in a joint session on February 12th, and on May 30th the still new President will rededicate the Lincoln Memorial. The look and the emphasis of the occasion will have changed—measurably, for certain; astoundingly, perhaps—in the fourscore and seven years since 1922.

[Tags: lincoln slavery racism obama hope good_writing ]

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Joe Trippi is doing a chat at FireDogLake. Here’s one of his responses:

I think we are about to see the first “Connected” presidency. JFK was the first Television president — Obama will be first “connected” president — and congress is going to be the big loser in all this — because I think we are going to see a President directly connected to more Americans than any other President in history — and when 25 members of Congress are standing in the way of health care reform — they are going to find themselves standing between Barack and a hard place — between the President and millions of Americans organizing to pass his agenda. On the other hand the Obama administration is the Wright Brothers now — no one has ever done this before and there is a lot they could get wrong — being too careful and listening too much to the Washington establishment.

[Tags: politics e-democracy e-government joe_trippi obama ]

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In the wake of yesterday’s repudiatathon of the WSJ.com’s misleading, inaccurate, biased, and wrong article on Net neutrality, the NY Times weighs in with a crisp, clear, and right-headed editorial.

[Tags: net_neutrality wsj policy nyt obama ]

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What really thrills me about the new question tool the Obama administration has posted at Change.gov is not the tool itself — although I like it very much — but the webby way it was introduced: Put it up, see what happens, adjust it as necessary. Imagine this approach applied by the federal government off the Web when appropriate.

I also like that the explanatory text for the “Skip question” button is “meh.”

[Tags: obama egov ]

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