If politics is the art of saying nothing, then Barack Obama is sure blowing it, isn’t he?His latest “gaffe,” to proclaim at a private fundraiser in San Francisco (of all places) that small-town Americans are bitter and cling to guns and God in lieu of financial security - these words purveyed to the American public by way of a scratchy, Osama-quality recording - triggered such heartfelt hypocrisy from his opponents.
“It is hard to imagine,” said John McCain, “someone running for president who is more out of touch with average Americans.”
I almost agree with this. Obama is definitely out of touch with something. However, it isn’t “average Americans” — who, it turns out, really are bitter in large numbers — so much as what I would call “the tacit covenant of presidential politics.”
Serious presidential candidates aren’t supposed to go there, see. That’s what makes them “serious” — their understanding that American politics is settled, a done deal. The deal is this: While real Republicans can drift, unchecked, to the dark side of empire and neofascism, Democrats are supposed to campaign and govern as moderate, “responsible” Republicans.
We live, in other words, in a corporate state, the basic terms of which are no longer open to debate. The “class struggle” is over. What about this do you not understand, Candidate Obama?
All hail the (invisible) corporate state and its sacred fetishes: God, guns, flag. All hail the cliché that is America, with its hard-working little people who get the job done. All hail the McWorkers of the new economy, who roll up their sleeves and vote for one smiling liar or another on their way to their second job. All hail the dearth of health care, the children left behind, the endless billions for war and most of all the fact that these matters are not — I repeat, NOT — open for discussion in this presidential election year or, God willing, the next one or the next.
Well, hmm.
Obama, as a serious presidential candidate, has given plenty of indication along the way that he is indeed in touch with the tacit covenant of presidential politics and has compromised himself accordingly. Skeptical progressives have any number of examples of this they can point to in his record: his voting to renew the PATRIOT Act; his tutelage under and campaign work for out-of-the-closet darksider Joe Lieberman; his support for increasing the size of the U.S. military.
The signals Candidate Obama has sent out are sufficiently mixed that we should certainly temper our Obamamania with a side order of reality. But I nonetheless confess that I find myself among those getting drawn in, warily, to be sure, by the sense of “hope” his campaign is generating. I say this as someone who pretty much thinks hope is for suckers, especially if it’s part of a campaign slogan. But here’s the thing. We’re not going to get anywhere without it.
Those of us who feel shut out of the corporate state, who fear the direction it’s headed and the damage it will do, need more than just our anger and our ideological purity. We need an ally in the corridors of power — more than an ally, really. What we need is an instrument of history, on the order of FDR or Lincoln.
While Obama may certainly turn out to be somewhat less than that, he gives evidence of representing not just change but maybe greatness as well. What’s indisputable is that, if elected, he would be the first African-American U.S. president, and this in and of itself is a remarkable sort of change for a country whose roots in racism go deep. He doesn’t need to “promise” this, just as Hillary doesn’t need to promise us she would be the first female president.
What I’m getting at is that rational hope for political change must be based on something other than campaign promises. We all know how much those are worth. And so just as Obama is unalterably African-American, it may be — so his predilection for what the media can only call gaffes because they aren’t perceptive enough to know the difference between shards of truth and verbal slips on the banana peel — he is also unalterably . . . on our side.
I know this much. He’s not courting the “Reagan Democrats” in the manner of three decades of Democratic candidates, and in the manner of Hillary, by jettisoning the values of his party and trying to lure them back with pathetic Republican-lite verbiage that doesn’t fool anyone.
My hope is that Obama continues to stand up to history and speak with impolitic courage — on race, on economic justice, on war and peace — where others have tried to wriggle off the hook. My hope is that he challenges the historically left-out and ignored to shed their bitterness and help him undo the done deal of American politics.
Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.
(c) 2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.
bitter? that’s it? obama said bitter and clinging. got that, obama said clinging………i can not vote for someone who uses language like this……..
my god!! bitter. clinging. what will he say next?
Koehler has captured my view perfectly. Complete with skeptical support for Obama.
Koehler has come close to capturing my view. I won’t support Obama, because he’s compromised himself far too much for that. I don’t believe any bourgeois politician can fix what ails America, & would rather see the Democratic Party suffer a richly-deserved collapse, than see it gain a new lease on life through the emergence of what Koehler calls “an instrument of history.”
But anyone who doesn’t see that Obama is vastly more worthy of respect than Hillary has a very fundamental perception problem. Hillary is much more similar to a Karl Rove, than to an Obama. The flak that Obama caught about this “Bitter” bullshit (not to mention the /Rev Wright/Bill Ayers/flag pin bullshit) has only arisen because he came too near a sensitive truth. (Rev Wright was exactly right, as well. As some have pointed out, Wright’s quote was not that different from MLK’s 1967 Out of Vietnam speech at Riverside Church.)
As Joe Bageant put it in Counterpunch the other day, Obama’s “bitter” remarks were, “(w)hile not precisely correct, … a good enough generalization for an American audience not really listening anyway.” Hillary, on the other hand, would have to improve greatly, simply to get up to the level of “shameless liar.
Amen. Although I personally perceive him to be the lesser of three evils, there is a possibility he will actually be at least somewhat on “our side.” That’s far more than I can say for Hillary or John McNothing.
I don’t believe there is any evidence at all that Obama will turn out “somewhat less than” FDR or Lincoln as “an instrument of history”. He has all the promise to be as great a president as our society will allow him to be. And our American ship needs to be turned in a BIG way, making this an important moment.
First, we must have the courage to elect him. Then, we must get him a like-minded and cooperative Congress. Then, we must be willing to DEMAND A PROGRESSIVE AGENDA from these newly empowered officials. If we make great demands on Obama and give him legislative tools he needs, it is reasonable to believe we will get good results. If we elect Obama, but shirk the CITIZEN PROGRESSIVE DEMAND part–merely being satisfied to give them all over to the corporate lobbyists once elected, then the liklihood of “greatness” is somewhat diminished, maybe markedly diminished. Someone else said this here the other day:
“Obama will be a great president to the extent we work harder to become a great people. We must grow together.”
no elected official, current or future, within the american national system will recommend or institute the only change that really matters…countrywide\worldwide deindustrialization…they are prevented by prevailing political\corporate powers…if we do not, as an entire species, deindustrialize, we are henceforth simply living in denial while waiting to die, either at the hands of our own fascist government, or someone else’s…either directly, via attack or treachery, or indirectly, via rampant toxicity in or sufficient exhaustion of our air, water and food…we must, as individuals, stop participating in the industrial (resource\product\waste) economy…
imagine a day when the whole world began reversing industrialization…what would that day look like? what can we do now to get there? is anyone willing?
will we ever be able to discuss NOT owning property?
this issue trumps race, religion, sex, everything…
it is driven by individual consumption, and only change at that level will work…individuals alone will not be effective…it will require individuals changing and sacrificing together for good, in large numbers, all over the world…is denial preferable?
Charles Barkley said it better than anyone last night on Leno:
“America is supposed to be the best at everything. Period.”
God help the person who dares to poke that asinine fantasy bubble… whether you’re Rev. White, or Nader, or McKinney, or Kucinich, or Paul… or Wellstone, or King, or X, or Lennon, or Ali, or…
Koehler is dead on in his take.
What I like about Obama is that he does not talk in meaningless cliches. He actually uses complete thoughts. I suspect he actually HAS complete thoughts.
The idea that oppressed people will clutch at religion (or gun ownership, or some other “opiate of the masses”) is not all that original. It is a measure of the anti-intellectualism of America that an idea like that can be taken as a “gaffe”, instead of as a shorthand description of a reality that has been discussed among sociologists and philosophers for decades (centuries?)
When Obama gave his “defense of Rev. Wright” speech, he did something extremely rare for an American politician: he refused to abandon his friend for political gain. Instead, he disavowed Wright’s “mistakes” without disavowing the man.
When is the last time an American politician did anything like that? He will get my vote for that, if nothing else.
Actually, I have two other, even more compelling reasons to vote for him: McCain and Clinton. Nuff said?
The election is over people. It took place when congress persons were renominated for the election. What percentage of members of congress did not get nominated to run again? We should know this. What’s the answer? How many new candidates are there? We should know this. i don’t know this. Does anybody?
So when Hillary is anointed at the convention, the Democratic shills will then scream that we owe loyalty to her, even though the Democratic party has given nothing to the Progressives.
At least the shills will be assured of work, as they will have 4 more years of blaming Progressives for their own failures, after the Democratic party sheds enough sick and bitter voters to allow McCain to win.
A united Democratic party right now could stand up to the 2 old men in the White House, stopping the insane rush to more war, possibly even starting impeachment proceedings.
But it’s all about ‘winning’ and ‘losing’, not succeeding, isn’t it? Hillary will ‘win’ and the Obama backers will become ‘losers’.
Instead of uniting so that everybody succeeds, the Dems will continue their insane dividing, dividing, dividing.
I call, once again, for uniting the Democratic party in the face of the greater danger.
AMEN to Koehler! Nicely put.
Daniel David—-very well said, my man. Couldn’t have said it better myself. We have to stop thinking that citizenship ends at the ballot box, the polling place. Voting is just one very small task. Many more will be required if we want to change our country and the world.
And we have to stop always looking UP for answers and start locking arms, joining hands, looking into each other’s eyes and then go to work for change. We are the ones we have been waiting for. We can and must lead those we elect into a better future. If we don’t, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Can anyone answer -lizard’s- questions?
No cheating now, do it off the top of your head without any research.
How about just in your own district?
No? Yes? Maybe?
Ever think that this “primary season” might have been Intended to do this?
Distract everyone with the completely undemocratic “horse-race” campaign for King constantly barraging us with who is “leading in the polls” -meaning the “scientific” TV polls, not of course the actual poll on Election day- while incumbancy, political party position and strait up graft determine the make-up of our Congress?
It certainly seems to Function this way.
Anybody else think its pathetic that even the editors of a “progressive” website are so caught up with this stuff?
I can think of ways that ALL the 426 elections for House seats could be covered, but seeing as how this is a national site, how ’bout just some “highlight” campaigns where a progressive is challenging an establishment candidate? They do exist, y’know.
I avoid TV news because I couldn’t care less about the crap minutae of this insane Imperial Election, but somehow just by reading CommonDreams -I know all about it.
The only question that I have for ANYONE whose name will be on my ballot this fall for the position of King, or who is asking me to write it in is:
“Will you pledge to work with the new Congress to dismantle ALL of the Unconstitutional power grabs of the Bush Administration And previous Presidents that have been allowed by previous Congresses?”
If the candidate’s answer to this is anything short of:
“Absolutely, that will be my first priority, if you elected be tomorrow, I’d have it happening by next week.”
Then I’m not voting for them.
If they are never asked this question then I’m still not voting for them for not bringing it up themselves.
Does this even leave me with Nader, who will likely not even be on the ballot in more than a handful of states?
Godd thing I never thought much of the Idea of electing Kings, or the Idea of a Central Government for the State of the United States of America.
You guys have fun with all that though, okay?
-matti.
Obama’s Change = Chump Change
If anyone really thinks, or “hopes,” that Obama is going to change anything - other than changing the play room at the White House from a bowling alley into a basketball court - is sadly, and truly mistaken. He is as much a member of the political machine as Hillary, as McNutBag, as Bush, as Cheney, as (fill in the blank). No one gets to the level of presidential politics without very careful scrutiny by the party elite and swearing undying allegiance to the “something bigger.” As far as hope for change? It’s over. There will be no change thus no need for hope.
matti sez: “Will you pledge to work with the new Congress to dismantle ALL of the Unconstitutional power grabs of the Bush Administration And previous Presidents that have been allowed by previous Congresses?
… and …
If they are never asked this question then I’m still not voting for them for not bringing it up themselves.”
And here we’ve arrived at the crux of your country’s future. Constitutionally limited democratic republic? Or fascist empire? Of course, it’s only a choice if would-be leaders (congress, as well as king) will adopt matti’s stance. Oh, and if the votes are actually counted.
the only change will lcome when there is an “event”. You know , like a depression , financial that is. The controlled elections will only break down when corporate profits are threatened. So enjoy the ride all the way down
If you listen carefully, you’ll notice Obama has said nothing that challenges the corporate state and the profits they’ve made by making the lives of these small-town people harder and harder.
He was talking to a group of rich people in CA. Obviously this is a fund raising event, as CA voted months ago.
First, that tells you a lot about modern America politics. Money counts a lot more than these small town voters. In the old days, a candidate would actually have been on PA talking to voters in PA before that primary. Instead, today he’s in San Diego talking to rich people. That’s because money counts more than people’s votes these days.
Obama has said nothing to challenge this. Obama might actually acknowledge that people across the country have been screwed over by Wall St and corporate greed. He has to, because he relies on this edgy image of ‘change’.
But look closer, and the people in the room with him and able to talk with him are not the ‘bitter’ small town voters of PA. Its rich people in CA. That’s who’s got his ear. That’s who his is going to represent as President.
Clinton used to do this ‘I feel your pain’ bit too. That was BS to cover the fact that his actions all benefited the rich people who’d paid for his campaigns. Nothing Obama has shown has indicated anything any different. While Obama can do the ‘feel your pain’ bit when he has do, if you listen closely there are no details, no policy proposals that would help these people. As President, Obama’s going to be helpiing the rich people in San Diego, not the small town people in PA.
To Robert Koehler and all contributors to his article,
I value the comments on CommonDreams.org even more than the articles that they respond to here. Without the reasoned and emotional responses the articles seem to be only Diogenesian ravings against the wind.
I appreciated the comments by Daniel David and especially the recognition that we are not going to make any improvements if we for a moment think that we are choosing a political messiah to solve our dilemmas: “Obama will be a great president to the extent we work harder to become a great people. We must grow together.”
orwellWasOptimist’s comment was dead on too. Reading the comments made over the past year on this website has given me a fragile hope that the progressive electorate is coalescing into a viable, guiding, political entity, as I read other writings and review my own growth in understanding of what has been happening to my country as the result of the strategic manipulations by the Republican (and some Democrats) to privatize every element of our country, military, Pentagon, justice department, Congress and even our constitutional government.
For all readers of this web site I highly recommend Naomi Klein’s well-researched book on “Disaster Capitalism” titled -The Shock Doctrine-. Arundhati Roy says that it shoulb be “compulsory reading”. It has helped me understand the inscrutable political, constitutional and economic mess we find ourselves in; for example, before reading it I could not fathom how the Republian party, so long the entrenched fiscal conservatives in our Congress, abandoned fiscal conservatism and became the promoters of “finance war by credit card” spenders. The answer, in short, but you need to read the book, is that the neocons with the help of the Republican party is emplementing “Disaster Capitalism” at home after having exported it for the past thirty years to: Chile, Urguqauy, Bolivia, Argentina, Russia, South Africa and other countries with disasterous consequences to the people and resource controls of those countries as those countries politicos pumped in Milton Friedman economic shock therapy to convert nationalism into globalism at the expense of their lower and middle classes.
Lizard’s trenchant question is quite apt too.
Starofthesea’s reminder that we are the ones that we have been waiting for definitely is “this is the good news and the bad news” all so true statement. I sent Obama $100.00 even though it is difficlut to afford it and I resent that I am participating in “buying” my leadership game. But that is the system I have until there is serious election reform.
Thank you all.