RL: And you have compared Sergio Vieira de Mello and Sen. Barack Obama.
SP: Sergio and Barack have an unusual combination of empirical and pragmatic rigor, and a deep and abiding compassion for people who are voiceless and invisible and not as empowered in their societies as they should be. I know a lot of people with intellectual and academic and analytic rigor, and I know a lot of compassionate people, but it's the combination of that rigor and that passion that make both of them giants. Sergio because of 34 years of experience in violent places, and Barack because of his globalized being or his intellect, they both have a modern sense of the connectedness of all of us and the importance of standing up and embracing the challenge of what the twenty-first century is yielding.
It's a complex world with a set of problems that we haven't faced before individually or collectively, and that doesn't scare Obama, and Sergio gravitated to it like a moth to the flame. Obama views it as exactly why it's his time to be president. To deal with twenty-first century unconventional challenges you have to have an unconventional way of thinking. You can't be bound to the way Washington has always done things. That's not an advantage. It's a liability. It blinds you to fresh eyes that you need to bring to fresh problems.
Comments
Oh Please, I am going to be sick. Are these people for real? A Globalized Being? For that matter, exactly what problems do we face that are different from other times? Maybe a history book is in order? Are things really different or is the left so self absorbed they cannot imagine a time before them?
Posted by: DaveT | May 17, 2008 12:01 PM
Don't know much about Sergio Viera de Mello? Read this and remember how Powers likens him to Obama: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/03/15/bopow115.xml
Posted by: Wendy Sandy | May 17, 2008 12:03 PM
The problems we face today are different in scale from historical parallels. This includes a difference in scale regarding perception of those problems brought on by global indoctrination into post-modern philosophy. Being a marxist, and trained as a child to be at the very least apologetic to islam, B Hussein Obama is part of the perception problem. In that sense he is a "globalized being". However, he is not part of the solutions to our problems.
Posted by: james | May 17, 2008 12:51 PM
"globalized being" sounds like a phrase one would utter while tripping out on LSD.
Posted by: Jeanne T. | May 17, 2008 08:57 PM
Say, about those people who are "voiceless and invisible and not as empowered in their societies as they should be" - weren't the Iraqi people just like that before George W. Bush invade Iraq in 2003? Oh, and just what does Samantha Powers have to say about Bush's intervention in Iraq? Do we really need to actually ask?
Posted by: RH | May 18, 2008 10:32 AM
It seems the commentators to the blog have already made up their mind, already. I don't think Obama is a Marxist, and I don't think the views of Power are entirely without merit.
Posted by: Walls | May 27, 2008 12:19 PM