How Obama Might Still Inspire By Bruce Ackerman

 

Huffington Post (September 27, 2012)

How Obama Might Still Inspire

By Bruce Ackerman

at

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bruce-ackerman/how-obama-might-still-ins_b_1916307.html

The presidential campaign has been utterly lacking in new ideas. Both candidates have been offering tired rehashes that fail to inspire commitment. Things could change if President Obama took his acceptance speech at the Convention seriously and put "something called citizenship" at the core of his campaign. Citizenship, he explained, was "a word at the very heart of our founding, a word at the very essence of our democracy."

But when we move from words to reality, the institutions that have fostered American citizenship are dead or dying. Vietnam killed the draft; jury service is rare; the public school is under attack. For lots of people, the most meaningful act of citizenship occurs when they show their passport at the border to gain re-admission to the country. Once they've come back home, it's perfectly possible to live without dealing with others as fellow citizens -- fellow workers or professionals, yes; fellow religionists, yes; but fellow citizens, focusing on our common predicament as Americans?

If the president is serious about citizenship, he needs a new reform agenda to sustain the democratic spirit into the twenty-first century.