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A Media Parable for 'the Center'
It's been 16 years since a Democrat moved into the White House. Now, the fog of memory and the spin of media are teaming up to explain that Barack Obama must hew to "the center" if he knows what's good for his presidency.
"Many political observers," the San Francisco Chronicle reported days ago, say that Obama "must tack toward the political mainstream to avoid miscalculations made by President Bill Clinton, who veered left and fired up the 1994 Republican backlash." This storyline provides a kind of political morality play: The new president tried to govern from the left, and Democrats lost control of Congress just two years later.
But, if facts matter, the narrative is a real head-scratcher.
During the 1992 election year, Clinton had campaigned for the White House under the mantra "Putting People First." But as economic analyst Doug Henwood was to comment, President-elect Clinton swiftly morphed into the champion of an austerity plan that could have been called "Putting Bondholders First."
From the outset, President Clinton made clear his commitments to the corporate centers of economic power by choosing such officials as Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, trade representative Mickey Kantor and Secretary of State Warren Christopher.
Soon after becoming president, Clinton abandoned his few initial stances that might qualify as "left." He quickly deserted his brief position for gay rights in the military. Under fire for his nomination of progressive law professor Lani Guinier to be assistant attorney general for civil rights, Clinton tossed her overboard.
In sharp contrast, the new president fought like hell for the corporate-beloved trade agreement known as NAFTA. And he spread his wings as a deficit hawk, while his campaign's pledges of "public investment" fell to earth with paltry line items. Less than five months into his presidency, Newsweek lauded Clinton's "shift to the right" and urged him to show "the backbone" to stay there.
But none of that has stopped the media's clucking about the Clinton administration's early "lurch to the left." The myth never died, though it was quickly ripe for debunking.
In real time, one of the most astute debunkers was Barbara Ehrenreich. As the only writer from the left with a regular column in a major U.S. newsmagazine (she later got the boot), Ehrenreich wrote a Time piece in mid-June 1993 that directly addressed the nascent mythology. The incoming president's leftward lurch was "a neat parable," she noted, "but it never happened."
Ehrenreich added: "The lurch to the left is like the 'stab in the back' invented by right-wing Germans after World War One: an instant myth designed to discredit all one's political enemies in one fell swoop. ... Maybe it's been so long that we've forgotten what 'left' is and how to tell it from right. At the simplest, most ecumenical level, to be on the left means to take the side of the underdog, whoever that may be: the meek, the poor and, generally speaking, the 'least among us,' as a well-known representative of the left position put it a couple of millenniums ago."
More than 15 years after Barbara Ehrenreich wrote those words, the tall tale of President Clinton's lurch to the left is still in the air. Warning Democratic politicians against being "liberal" or moving "left" remains a time-honored -- even compulsive -- media ritual. But as Barack Obama fills key economic posts in his administration, the left-leery and corporate-friendly press is likely to be quite content.
- Posted in
47 Comments so far
Show AllTo the extent Clinton stepped to the left at all, it was on a social issue -- gays in the military. He never took any steps to the left on economic or foreign policy issues, and yet Obama is being cautioned now not to take any leftward steps on those economic and foreign policy issues or else he will encounter calamity as Clinton did. That tells me the current advice to stick to the center on economic and foreign policy issues is disingenuous. How surprising.
He's moving right of center without any help from the media.
Solomon sez: "... the fog of memory and the spin of media are teaming up to explain that Barack Obama must hew to 'the center' if he knows what's good for his presidency."
***
Actually, it would be nice if he would move to the centre at this point. Of course, he'd have to go left to get there. A long way to the left, in fact.
Word.
--
Eric Patton
Cincinnati, OH
ebpatton@yahoo.com
http://www.new.facebook.com/people/Eric_Patton/663783881
More wisdom from Solomon.
It is absurd to speak of any president of either party lurching, shuffling, scampering, or veering "to the left" since FDR. And in that instance it was only after all else failed miserably.
In our case, all else will fail miserably. William Greider has an article in The Nation online in which he echoes what I've heard said by other economists who are not MSM brown noses or possessors of a large wardrobe of the emperor's new clothes; i.e., America's banking system is, in fact, insolvent and there isn't enough money in the whole world to bail out the planet's economic system. People like Henry Paulson are just flim flammers and thieves stealing what they can before the boatload of shit finally hits the fan at Mach 4. The rest of them are fighting the last war because they simply don't know what else to do.
Sioux Rose
MORDECHAI: I, too, have read long articles explaining how deep the ($) rot goes, and how due to the leveraging against bets against hedgefunds against bad loans, it's TRULY a casino where what counted for worth was only the echoed semblance of a thing, it's presumed value after a string of loans upon loans traded hands. One reason the depth of this crisis is not being discussed (in any remotely mainline publication) is that IF the larger public not only in America, but elsewhere, understood what's going on, they'd bail out whatever assets they thought they still owned. The only helfpul (if it is?) thought here is that ultimately the US has operated on a deficit for quite some time, and with money dearly departed from the gold standard and left to the private little club known as the FED, it is ALL illusion anyway. In certain respects if the illusion held then, it might continue to hold, as they "just" add on zeroes to all the old numbers and their related profit-loss esoteric coding.
If Obama's cabinet choices are any indication, he's already taken the advice from corporate media pundits to hew to the "center" (read, right) and forsake forever all progressive or liberal pipe dreams. See Scahill's piece from yesterday. He's surrounding himself with the worst of the worst, with the possible exception of Holder as AG, and even he is problematic. Obama will be the overseer president of America's wholesale economic and social meltdown, because he won't veer one degree left on anything. He'll still be taking instruction from Paul Volcker and Robert Rubin while China and India pauperize us all. But at least no one will be accusing him of tacking "left," pure political suicide in the clueless USA.
I believe Obama knows full well that if he tacks left it would be suicide -- the literal kind. How easy would it be for the real power players to use the "usual suspects", e.g. the CIA, FBI, etc..., while framing the racist skinheads, to give Obama his "just deserts" for not following orders?
We know the US is going down the toilet regardless of whether Obama is a progressive or not and regardless of whether he tries to implement any progressive policies. The only question is whether the US is going to take the rest of the world down with it. The appointment of Hillary as SOS would lead to the conclusion that the answer is in the affirmative.
Thanks for a valuable history lesson, Norm. In reality, of course, Clinton turned out to be pretty much of a Republican, and lost Congress to the real ones because of it.
Slick Willy's the reason I became a Green. If you watched at all closely, it became obvious all his real passion and skill were for Republican initiatives like, especially, the "free trade" treaties: NAFTA and the WTO. His fraudulent attempts at gay rights in the military and universal healthcare were icing on the cake. A very inedible cake.
This is history that matters, and it's still being lied about.
It's also still being repeated, but that's another issue.
Oregoncharles
I'm another Green who Clinton helped convince of the total bankrupcy of the Democrats. Lest we forget, Clinton's "don't ask don't tell" policy pretty much tagged him as a moral camelian. His abandonment of his pledge that any health care system be universal really clinched it.
Some of his other Republican accomplishments were: cutting taxes for the rich, ending the right to welfare, overturning the New Deal-era Glass-Stegall Act helping to lead the way to the financial fiasco we're in today, renditions, sanctions in Iraq that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children.
I think some could be excused for voting for the guy in 1992 with a Vice President, Al Gore, who had just written "Earth in Balance." But as VP, Gore did nothing I can remember for the environment, being too busy "reinventing government", that is, cutting useful government programs. The Clinton/Gore record stunk so bad that the archdruid of the environment, David Brower, supported Ralph Nader in 1996.
But I see Clinton's greatest crime as not seizing the initiative after the fall of the Soviet Union to create a more peaceful world. Instead, I think his administration illustrates the criminal, militaristic nature of the US elite, be they Democrats, Republicans, or Goths.
Obama won't move at all unless he is pushed. That's how you play the game in D.C. And as a professional politician, he's on top of his game. It's too bad because we don't need another player in the game, we need a Statesman to guide the country. The window is open and the platform is there for a true Statesman to climb upon and turn this country around. The majority of Americans and governments of most countries in the world would be the base for change. Instead it looks like we are getting yet another politician who is always running for office.
Hoa binh
MYTHS that have yet to be squashed by the unsuspecting public
Obama represents change
Clinton went to the 'left'
That the press (New York Times, Washington Post) supports the left
That Nader's reason for running is ego
That the 'progressives' have a chance of influencing Obama away from policies that support the corporate elite
That next election will still require to vote for the lesser of two evils because it is necessary
"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity."
—Harlan Ellison (1934 - )
Sioux Rose
Obama's moves seem to fall so closely into synch with the established furrows, as if each politician, like some kind of small mammal, must follow THE track already laid. As some of our more astute contributors to this forum related, sometimes with painstaking detail, the ACTUAL policy differences between the pre-selected candidates were far too close for comfort. The idea of the democrats (I borrow this analogy from the much missed Rich M) being the B-team, who come in as the clean-up crew after a Republican abuses the treasury. Reshaping policies a few crumbs are thrown back at the workers/anyone not upper upper middle class, and then the dance reverses and a conservative/Republican re-enters to do the damage. The basic direction of the team A/team B undulating dance has been to the right, but the gross irony is that with so much resources seeking to balance at the top of the global fiscal pyramid (trickle down economics in its geometric depiction) the weight is imploding the entire pyramid. Because it's plain out UNNATURAL... it is against nature for so few to lay claim to so much, an embarasment of yachts and riches when SO MANY starve, are literally being murdered for the pursuit of these profits.
Watching gas prices hit the $2 mark again knowing a million or so died, were in a sense martyred over the oil wars, adds a dark ironic twist to the whole tragedy. Why is it the prices fell? Here we see ample proof it IS Wall St driving the prices, not so much demand. With stocks so low, and so much $ changing hands in the new temple that Mammon built, what passes for terms and conditions of wealth increasingly resemble crap shots (and oh, my my the stakes here in other peoples lives! Way past the "pursuit of happiness" clause) in this high stakes casino. Gambling, trafficking in weapons, the latest most efficient gadgets for torture... what kind of economy is this nation running?
As I said once before, a whole new take on crime: Why ROB the banks when you can JUST BECOME THEM!
Another insightful, well put comment, Sioux Rose. Thank you for all of your beautiful yet sobering comments.
So much money changing hands right now and so little the average person can do about it.
Sioux Rose
OUTSIDE THE BOX: Much appreciated! Sometimes "The spirit" hits me!
The prices fell in mid July and after mainly due to this being election season just like 2004 and 2006. As for Rich M, I miss him too but I'll get him for you if you wish. Let me know.
You go Mrs. Rose!!!!! Best post I've ever read from you.
Sioux Rose
Gracias. It's Ms. Rose though, okay?
Okay, Ms. Rose.
I consider Bill Clinton to the Right of Stephen Harper , policy wise, and Stephen Harper is too far to the right for my liking.
pk
"I consider Bill Clinton to the Right of Stephen Harper , policy wise, and Stephen Harper is too far to the right for my liking."
Clinton would have been considered a mainstream conservative Republican at any other point in history. The right had gone so far to the right when he came along that he was vilified as a socialist, while actually governing in a more conservative manner than George Bush Sr., his Republican predecessor.
I've written about it this evening, even throwing in an old piece I wrote back in 1996 refuting this "conventional wisdom" about Clinton:
http://claslib2.tripod.com/pow/
classicliberal2 sez: "Clinton would have been considered a mainstream conservative Republican at any other point in history."
***
Ayuh.
And Eisenhower would be a flaming pinko at THIS point in history, shunned by the big boys and reduced to exchanging notes with Kucinich in the back corner of a caucus meeting. But this has been the common trajectory of crumbling empires throughout history.
I like Norman Solomon's article(s). Doug Henwood has a regular show, weekly on WBAI 99.5FFM in NYC (a Pacifica Network station);shows are archived for 90 days, free online at www.wbai.org. Henwood is also from www.leftbusinessobserver.com
Could you please check back @ http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/20-6
Thomas More:I did. I can't do that link copy/edit "thing" yet. Glad I understood what you were asking. Answered, chuckle. Feels like the yellow brick road. I am familiar with some of your comments. So I read yours.
I've been battling this "conventional wisdom" about Clinton for years. It began before Clinton's first term had even ended, and the fact that it's outright fiction doesn't seem to have made a dent in it. I've posted an old piece I wrote on the subject way back in 1996, before Clinton had ever been reelected. It's here:
http://claslib2.tripod.com/lh/liberalclinton.html
I've linked it through my blog, so if anyone would like to make any comments about it there, here it is:
http://claslib2.tripod.com/pow/
The reason why I didn't vote for Clinton in the primary the first time around was because he was out on the stump, running for president as a Democrat and pimping for the Republican North American Free Trade Agreement.
He ended up being exactly the kind of Republicrat President I was afraid he would be -- he didn't do a noteworthy thing for working people the entire time he was in the White House.
Thanks for the link. I despised the man. I think Bush I was more liberal than Clinton. I read a book a few years ago about Robert Kennedy that called Bush I the last of the Stimsonian liberals. Webster Tarpley in his biography of Bush I says that the Bush family used to make fun of little George Sr. because of his willingness to share as a child. They nicknamed him "half-mine". Reagan's number one budget expenditure was always the defense department whereas Bush I immediately made health and human services his highest expenditure. Bush I also kept the war on drugs spending at $15 billion a year what it was in Reagan's last year whereas Clinton immediately raised it to where it was over $25 billion/year at the end of his presidency. My strongest opinion of Bush I and Reagan were that they were nazis. And this was before I learned of Prescott Bush's ties to nazi germany. It took a scumbag like Clinton to make think better of Bush I, just like it took someone so lousy as Bush II to make me think anything good about Clinton.
Something led me to believe Clinton changed the way the federal government does it's budget calculations but I can't seem to find any information about exactly what was done. During his regime it seemed like Clinton made Social Security payments part of the federal income whereas previously it was always set aside in a trust and not included as federal income in budget calculations. I wish someone could set me straight on this. If what I said is true Clinton's so called surpluses are probably nothing but an accounting trick that makes it hard to compare any of his budgets to previous presidents.
I wonder if I'll ever vote for a democrat again because of clinton. I wanted Jerry Brown or Paul Tsongas to win the nomination in 1992. I voted for Jerry Brown. That's the last time I actually voted FOR a democrat. I voted against republicans a few times since then but never actually voted for a democrat since.
"During his regime it seemed like Clinton made Social Security payments part of the federal income whereas previously it was always set aside in a trust and not included as federal income in budget calculations. I wish someone could set me straight on this. If what I said is true Clinton's so called surpluses are probably nothing but an accounting trick that makes it hard to compare any of his budgets to previous presidents."
Actually, it was Reagan who did that. In the early '80s, The Reagan gang trumped up a SS "crisis." It was no more an actual crisis than the one about which we're constantly hearing now, but it acted as rationale to create the SS surplus (Previously, SS only took in what it paid out). The purported purpose of this was to create a fund to deal with those upcoming retirees who were going to "bankrupt the system." The real purpose was to shift the tax burden. SS taxes are regressive. With the administration slashing taxes on the well-to-do, SS was used to shift the tax burden to everyone else--taxes for SS were raised 7 of Reagan's 8 years, and the "surplus" money in the fund then borrowed by the federal government. The tax burden is shifted, and the size of deficits are masked. Every subsequent president has followed this damnable practice, but it was Reagan who began it.
Thanks again for the help. I really appreciate the work you did to produce that article in your posted link. I regularly studied budgets through the reagan and bush I years but gave it up after a couple of years of clinton. Too much hocus pocus for me. It was interesting in the mid 80s that I can quantify the support being given to saddam hussien through the department of agriculture whereas few if any numbers were ever given as to how much support he was getting from the US government.
"taxes for SS were raised 7 of Reagan's 8 years"
That's another example of how republicans do nothing to lower the tax burden for working people. I am appalled and get very angry at times how so many lower and middle class people buy into the republican propaganda of lower taxes. I've never known of any examples where this tax cut bullshit has helped any of the people I've known or worked with.
I want to thank you, Norman Solomon, for being a delegate for Obama in the face of so much criticism. Your coverage of the democratic convention was a breath of fresh air. While some authors could only focus on the negative aspects of the convention (i.e. Amy Goodman), it was you who reminded us that the Obama was our only hope for change. That he represented "a campaign against racism". It was nice to see that Progressives and Democrats can come together and unite for the good of the country. Now that people like yourself, Chomsky, Zinn, etc... have moved back into the folds of the democratic party, maybe we can stop wasting time with third parties, and get back to work!
Before the election you wrote, "We can help the Obama for President effort when we hold him to his good positions -- and move to buck him up when he wavers."
And that's exactly the point, we had no way to leverage him before the election. We had to stop McCain. Now that we've elected him change is possible. We have finally created an environment where grassroots activism can succeed. If he begins to "lurch to the center" then we just hold his feet to the fire until he changes his position. His recent cabinet appointments and decision to free the prisoners of Guantanamo show that our efforts are already succeeding.
"If he begins to "lurch to the center" then we just hold his feet to the fire until he changes his position."
I wish he would "lurch to the center". Then we'd have the most "liberal" president in 40 years.
Why stop with Obama? What about those Blue Dog Democrats from "conservative" districts who vote with the GOP more often than not? Try reforming Congress election after election. I'm sure Obama will get it in gear sometime. Anyway, you people voted for him so shut up and accept it for the next 4 years. Besides, when you could survive 8 years of Dubya, a nice 4 years of Obama can't be too rough. And why not go back and pay attention to you all's local and state level elections for a change? Just Obama. I may have great disappointment in him but even I am willing to admit that he knows a hell of a lot of differences between being a state Senator and being a US Senator. Even if you're in a crimson reddy red "conservative" district, it's not impossible to turn it blue or even green. Rocky Anderson of Salt Lake City is an unapologetic liberal and SLC is no liberal bastion. Maybe if we on the left had more Rocky Andersons on local and state levels across the country, Obama would have no trouble pushing for better in Washington just like he sorta did in IL.
P.S.: I may not feel optimistic about his presidency but I'm willing to chill and give him 4 years to answer.
"At the simplest, most ecumenical level, to be on the left means to take the side of the underdog, whoever that may be: the meek, the poor and, generally speaking, the 'least among us,' as a well-known representative of the left position put it a couple of millenniums ago."
oh please. The left does not own good will nor good acts, nor can they in any meaningful way claim they have Jesus on their side while the right does not.
Anyways, who of any of us knows where these invisible lines are and what actually really creates them. Left, right, center. All this chatter about these positions starts to strike me as insanity. In the end we are all in the same damn spot and need to wake up to that fact and fast.
" who of any of us knows where these invisible lines are and what actually really creates them. Left, right, center. All this chatter about these positions starts to strike me as insanity. In the end we are all in the same damn spot and need to wake up to that fact and fast."
Excellent! I agree with this simple assessment and like the sentiment very much. We must cooperate with each other. Keeping open minds. I think we need to understand that Obama needs to hit the ground running and has to get the best and the brightest and most experienced on board for the first phase of his administration. Like it or not this is the way the world is. Obama has made it clear in his choices-he wants people who have been there so as to concentrate on healing this economy. I am hoping that we are going to see big changes to a more 'progressive' tact for the ship of state as we deal with jobs and health care.
"I am hoping that we are going to see big changes to a more 'progressive' tact for the ship of state as we deal with jobs and health care"
Absolutely, but lets see it by really doing it with meaningful action, and pushing for our civil servants to to it as they have pledged.
"The left does not own good will nor good acts, nor can they in any meaningful way claim they have Jesus on their side while the right does not."
Religion is just misused for sinister purposes. Just ask my father who went to jail for 5 years for abusing my mom and I when I was a kid. Both of us turned atheist when he went to prison. My mom divorced him when he went to jail for domestic abuse but when he came out reformed and very gentlemanly, they remarried and even he gave up religion altogether and went out of his way to make up for all his harm and abuses he did to us.
In contrast, my father's brother is still religious and yet just as gentle along with his soft-hearted wife and they cannot stand it when bigots on both sides abuse religion to no end.
I may be an atheist but my husband is somewhat religious but is getting less religious thanks to the way our poltical leaders abuse it.
"Religion is just misused for sinister purposes."
Don't get me wrong, I know some decent Christians. I know far more I don't consider decent people at all. If you really think about it though religion is sinister take for example if you don't believe in god you condemned to hell. Not only is that a scare tactic to keep you believing in god it's impolite to boot.
It's my belief that religion was invented to explained the unexplainable and evolved into a method for controlling others.
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God?
Epicurus
Rickster
My apologies on that sentence. I meant to say "Sometimes, religion is just misused for sinister purposes."
I used to believe in Jesus when I was a young girl but like I said, my father misused religion to domestically abuse my mother and I and we were chained on the weekends and even forced to wear chastity belts. And again, he misused religion to justify his torture. Luckily, my boyfriend, later my husband when we got married, who I met in 7th grade was the son of one of the cops who rescued my mother just in time. My father tried to crucify her by inventing a lame excuse that she somehow reminds him of Jesus and that somehow crucifying her meant he loved her ! Well, he faced attempted murder charges when the cops busted the door down and made the arrest. We were traumatized for life that we just hated religion altogether and turned to atheism. He got a 15 year sentence but because he surprisingly reformed himself on good behavior, he was released after 5 years. 3 years later upon my graduation from high school, they remarried after he proved to himself and both of us that he really loved us and deeply regretted the way he abused us to the point of having to undergo treatment for depression. He made up for his bad behavior and is in fact still religious but he completely understands our preference for staying atheist and won't interfere. My mother and father rarely discuss religion and even when they do, father often lets the discussion go when he's about to detect a possible argument. I have been a happy girl as an atheist for the most part and even though my husband is somewhat religious, he doesn't bother. I do have friends and family who are religious but we're cool with our difference there also.
P.S.: I lived in Louisiana when I was young but later moved to Northern VA after completing my education.
Leea
Nice post. And on point. Thanks.
The way I see it, we're only moving closer to complete catastrophic meltdown, at which time we can start all over. That's the only way it's going to change for the better.
Rickster
Well, good to see Norm is back and writing somewhat less drivel about Obama than we're used to.
For those unfamiliar with it, Solomon has just written a reiteration of FAIR's (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting's) analysis of the mainstream corporate news media. I agree with FAIR's analysis. Essentially, the corporate media pushes the right-wing corporatist agenda. This is not rocket science.
So while I'm inclined to give Norm plaudits, his misleading stumping for Obama is also to blame for any post-election confusion about Obama. Reading Solomon's "delegate-era" articles, you'd think that Obama is philosophically on the left, but just wants people to push him in that direction.
Unfortunately, this is where Solomon has been intellectually dishonest. Clearly, Obama's advisors, war-escalation pronouncements, FISA vote, Wall Street crooks bailout - all of this pegged Obama as on the political right, or at least you could say that Obama was a corporatist rather than a populist.
Unfortunately, Solomon's columns leading up to the election have prepared his readers only to think that Obama is a potential progressive, rather than a Goldman Sachs-funded corporatist. Somehow, Solomon had a blind spot and failed to be clear, perhaps out of fear of McCain. Who knows.
Now, there will be little for progressives to do. The third parties got maybe one or two percent. Obama can pay back his corporate backers with little fear of opposition from fawning Democrats, who have bought the story that Obama is some sort of populist JFK (or Martin Luther King) or both. Had alternative parties fared better, Obama might have feared that people would not tolerate his corporatist agenda.
So, beyond dismantling the usual rightward push of the corporate media, people need to see Obama for what he is. I say push, you loyal Dems. And I hope, when Obama doesn't budge, that you won't still be all starry eyed. I hope you will get out into the streets.
What Solomon doesn't say in his article is that loyal Dems never really got it about Bill Clinton. They thought he was on their side even as he pushed on with a heavy right-wing agenda that George HW Bush could only look on in wonder and admiration that Clinton got it done. NAFTA, Glass-Steagall repeal, attack on Yugoslavia, bombing and blockade of Iraq, repeal of welfare - good god, that's a right-wing Republican (neocon) dream.
So, please, Norm. Get the parable right yourself. And since this is your first article here since being an Obama delegate, lay out your plans for the push. There are many Obama admirers here who want to take up your call, if you could only articulate a plan for them.
You did it, Norm. You got corporatist Obama. Now tell us about step 2.
-TIA
Great points.
Why is it that 'progressive' writers Solomon still support and promote centrist and rightist candidates? Or that people still consider the writers 'progressive'?
Solomon has not only been a sellout to the progressive cause, it has deeply caused harm to the progressive movement because it creates a false impression of internal conflict. But in fact, I don't consider Solomon to be progressive, so criticizing him is not creating internal strife.
Solomon, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Common Dreams all will side on the status quo side of issues whenever they are presented an opportunity to actually make a progressive stand. Each and every time they back down.
Solomon's argument was always "lesser of two evils." He argued that progressive criticism of the Democratic party was valid but doesn't look at the Big Picture, which is a dangerous, increasingly reactionary "conservative" movement (represented by the Republican party) that has been steamrolling everything in its path, and desperately needs to be checked.
"Progressives are mostly on board with the Obama campaign, even though -- on paper, with his name removed -- few of his positions deserve the 'progressive' label. We shouldn't deceive ourselves into seeing Obama as someone he's not. Yet an Obama presidency offers the possibilities that persistent organizing and coalition-building at the grassroots could be effective at moving national policy in a progressive direction. In contrast, a McCain presidency offers possibilities that are extremely grim."
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/10/27-3
One can certainly agree or disagree with the logic, there, but there is a logic to it, one that doesn't even remotely earn Solomon the sentence of excommunication you've pronounced upon him. Solomon is right about Obama being an opportunity. The sort of mass-organization Solomon is advocating is exactly what got Obama elected in the first place. Large-scale voter registration efforts, roping in the young and those who hadn't previously become involved--record numbers. The 50-state strategy, that expanded the base from a handful of bigger states. Obama didn't have half-a-dozen corporate benefactors covering all of his expenses--he broke every record in fundraising, and over half of it came in increments of $200 or less. Millions of donors. That sort of thing can work.
Will it happen?
On that, I have my doubts. I think too many will just be content to sit on their cans and bask in the glow of their guy winning, while Obama goes all DLC on them. With Obama, there is a chance, if people take it, whereas there wouldn't have been one with McCain.
On the flipside of that, though, Obama brings back the Clinton Problem. During the Clinton administration, questions of "party loyalty" were perpetually entangled with the question of what was best for the country. People start deciding to mindlessly "stand by their man," instead of making the liberal argument anymore. If McCain had won, the progressives would all stand in opposition to whatever outrages he wished to perpetuate, instead of dividing as I've just described.
It's not a simple question. Solomon is one of the good guys, though, whether he's right or wrong on this one.
Loved this post.