{"id":7081,"date":"2020-08-19T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/?p=7081"},"modified":"2020-08-19T16:15:17","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T16:15:17","slug":"your-campaign-theme-courtesy-of-allen-toussaint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/19\/your-campaign-theme-courtesy-of-allen-toussaint\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Campaign Theme, Courtesy of Allen Toussaint"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"525\" height=\"295\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kGjV9Jefnws?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2008, I watched the Democratic Convention from the lounge of the hospital NICU unit that was my newborn son&#8217;s home for the first month of his life. (He was born 8 weeks early; he is and has been perfectly healthy.)<\/p>\n<p>Back then, we were all poised for an election that we hoped would signal the birth of a new moment in this country.<\/p>\n<p>And back then, I was worried about whether New Orleans\u2014the birthplace of Allen Toussaint (who wrote this tune), and the focus of my work at that time\u2014would survive.<\/p>\n<p>I remember that feeling.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I remember wondering why Obama&#8217;s team didn&#8217;t keep in that last &#8220;can&#8221; with their campaign slogan.<\/p>\n<p>Now, I feel like we&#8217;re aiming for the end of an extended, painful and dangerous moment, and I&#8217;m worried if any of us will survive.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.truthdig.com\/articles\/yes-we-can-can\/\">Here<\/a>&#8216;s what I wrote at the time for the Truthdig site\u2014about Obama, Toussaint and the rhythms of our democratic process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2008, I watched the Democratic Convention from the lounge of the hospital NICU unit that was my newborn son&#8217;s home for the first month of his life. (He was born 8 weeks early; he is and has been perfectly healthy.) Back then, we were all poised for an election that we hoped would signal &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2020\/08\/19\/your-campaign-theme-courtesy-of-allen-toussaint\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Your Campaign Theme, Courtesy of Allen Toussaint&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7081"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7083,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7081\/revisions\/7083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}