Pushing Obama's Second Term Agenda

By Biko Agozino

Tavis Smiley and Cornel West made compelling arguments in their Democracy Now Interview:

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/11/9/tavis_smiley_cornel_west_on_the

35 out of 36 in child poverty among industrialized countries, only better than Rumania, is a hard statistic to digest with reference to the 'richest country on earth.' I have read The Rich and The Rest of Us and found it hard to see a specific proposal that brothers Tavis and Cornel would like brother Obama to pursue. They say that he should talk more about the problem of poverty and call a White House conference on poverty and they are convening a conference on poverty before the inauguration. All well and good but talk is cheap without strategic proposals.

As a scholar-activist, I have drafted policy proposals for black associations of scholars in the past to address this problem but only Cornel West individually endorsed the proposals and only the African Criminology and Justice Association endorsed them and issued them as press releases. Visit the African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies online to read those press releases or visit my blog for the relevant posts:

1. http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/search?q=against+the+war+on+african+americans
2. http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/search?q=press+release+on+unemployment
3. http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/search?q=born+free
The first item has been prophetically validated by the votes in Washington and Colorado states to legalize marijuana. President Obama should ignore the chicken hawks who are egging him on to continue the failed drugs war against poor Americans. He should issue an executive order ending the war on drugs on day one of his second term the way Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation without waiting for a do-nothing congress. That is what it means to be an executive president.

The second item outlines a policy for tackling unemployment and poverty and the third item analyzed the presidential campaign themes with a prediction of an Obama win back in September but with emphasis on the agenda for the second term - jobs, ending the war on drugs, abolition of the death penalty, and reparations for people of African descent.

I agree that we should push bro Obama or any president to get anything significant done but we must be pushing with concrete proposals.