We all know that American politicians usually spend huge amount of time speaking about the issues that divide them even though they have many interests in common, says Sen. Barack Obama, whose new book , "The Audacity of Hope: Reclaiming the American Dream," reviews the issues he regards as vital in national politics.
"My basic premise is, on issues of faith or race or foreign policy or the economy ... if we start with recognizing what we have in common that, in fact, we can arrive at a politics that isn’t as partisan and a little more productive," Obama, D-Ill., said in an interview. ... read moreAn 18-page excerpt from his fall book, "The Audacity of Hope: Reclaiming the American Dream," appeared Friday on his Web site, barackobama.com.
Barack Obama was elected to the Senate in year 2004 and is its only black member. Nowaday he is a very popular speaker all over the country and has been mentioned as a future presidential candidate.
He traces the problems with Washington politics to, among other things, highly partisan elections, a news media focused on sound bites and noise, and a nation strongly divided on virtually all the major issues.
"I find it hard to shake the feeling these days that our democracy has gone seriously awry," he writes. "What’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics _ the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working consensus to tackle any big problem."
Using education as an example, Obama writes that it is clear the system needs to be changed from top to bottom, with more teachers, better teaching of math and science, and effective literacy programs. Yet, he adds, the debate is stuck between those who want to dismantle the public school system and those who would defend it.
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