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Seeking Obama's Center
Whatever one's feelings about our new president, there was something thrilling about being at the the Huffington Post/Atlantic Philanthropies pre-inauguration bash at the Newseum in Washington with 1,500 journalists and pols, all of whom seemed to be celebrating and exulting in Obama's coming to power.
One had the same feeling earlier in the evening at the home of Myra MacPherson, Izzy Stone's biographer, where left-liberal journalists predominated.
And the next day, as I listened to his inaugural address, although I think I harbored no illusions about the difficult task ahead, I still felt that I was swimming in the same sea of happiness, as I heard him gently but firmly declare the country's liberation from the past (and reject "as false" the Bush administration's notion that national security was incompatible with constitutional liberty, that it is not a question of choosing "between our safety and our ideals"); and then simultaneously rejecting the Clinton administration's notion that the era of big government was over ("The question we ask today is not whether government is too big or too small but whether it works").
Therefore, there was something off-putting the next morning when I turned on my TV only to see pundit after pundit--be it Pat Buchanan on the right, "Morning Joe" Scarborough on the center-right or Mike Barnicle in the center--all praising him as a "centrist."
I had three problems with that:
First, as our friend and backer Paul Newman used to remind us, The Nation was valuable because it helps define where the center is. The center can shift. When Obama added to his ritualistic description of America as "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus" a new category--"nonbelievers"--it was almost unbelievable, as he quickly helped redefine where the center was.
Second, based on what we know about Obama--his books, his initial intuitive stand against the war in Iraq, his Senate voting record, his campaign, his inaugural speech--I don't believe it. At most, he seems to me a liberal wolf in centrist sheep's clothing.
And finally, faced with the ever-more-dire economic crisis, his commitment to a Keynes-based economic stimulus and renewed regulatory rigor (see his inaugural reference to not letting the market "spin out of control") suggests that, at a minimum, he flunked Centrism 101.
Rather, I prefer to believe that his reach across the aisle, his cabinet appointments and his opening to the renegade Joe Lieberman and his erstwhile opponent John McCain himself are part of his pragmatic plan to advance an agenda that goes beyond anything the so-called center might contain. Whether or not it will work, that is the question.
67 Comments so far
Show AllThe true spirit of the time that we stumble after, exhulantly presides in a position that our current intellect rarely grasps. President Obama cannot take a postion in the old political landscape and satisfy the higher laws for which he speaks. We who support and enact change will only trap our own intentions to the erstwhile chains that may still try to bind us, if we attempt to delegate our goal in the old divisive language that served the means of yesterday.
Let those who will put President Obama's intentions in a position that serves their self-interest. For those of us picking back up the torch of truth, we will need to look deep below self-interest and high above the political landscape as many would have us see it.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
So what exactly is your meaning of "center"?
My point is that the center as a political tool serves only the intentions of those who use it. I would not have a center in politics to which others were expected to migrate to serve the two sides it divides. I would eliminate the center and just circulate, seeing all as equal to work for the greatest good.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
dupe
The "old divisive" language is absolutely crucial to being a decent ethical human being, going along to get along sells out the thousands of Afghanis who will be painfully burned to death when Obama escalates the war in Afghanistan. Being too nicey nice, can actually cause people to die in unspeakable agony in refusing to fight and resist wrong doing, I for one intend to FIGHT Obama's most regressive qualities with every fiber of my being. Call me divisive if you will I for one am proud of FIGHTING the good fight.
What on earth are you talking about? I cannot make any sense out of this post.
What are the "higher laws"?
What are "our own intentions"?
What are the "erstwhile chains"?
Huh? Please translate.
Higher laws would be laws in tune with natural laws or universal laws, laws that it seems if we can honor here at the mundane level, can help us achieve a greater good for all.
Our own intentions is the intention we each have as individuals and collectively create the social super structure or fabric that we live in.
Earstwhile chains are the old limits from the past that we can't apply to today's need to change for the better. These chains can be individual or collective.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
burt shachter
I basically agree that Obama is a smart politician whose heart is left of center.He knew how to beat Hillary and McCain-Palin. He is determined to get us out of Iraq in 16 months. He has pledged to close Gitmo and respect the Geneva Convention.
He is not perfect. There are structural problems with Milton Friedman's free market capitalism that will not get resolved easily.But Barack Obama may be the best we can get among those who are electable.Let us help him succeed.
"Centrist" reminds me of the very unhappy capitulation of the Clinton era that saw Robert Reich as Labor Secretary. Remember, Arkansas and Georgia consider(ed?) themselves "right to work" states. Another unhappy divide and conquer by the insidious Capitalists that employ the American Military and its associated Police/Prison Industrial Complex.
How ironic, and how sad, that the "southland" voted so strongly for McCain and the "Party of Lincoln" whereas the "liberal" North and West went for the Party of Jefferson (Davis?)...
I include Davis, because a big reason that the so-called "Civil War" (How the heck can a war be civil?) was because of the oppression of the agrarian south by the Merchant and Capitalist interests of the Northeast and to a lesser extent the North. Hell, the Westerners were just about finishing up their genocide of the indigenous peoples and doing some real fighting over Labor conditions and issues. Maybe, the latter is why we, out west tend to vote "blue".
Remember, however, that Jackson was President and Davis, Secretary of War, when the genocide of Manifest Destiny had its final solution completion of the folks who were here first. That is not to single out Jackson and Davis in the long line of barbaric hypocrites that "founded" and "grew" our nation.
Just a little perspective.
I love the people of the world and I love the earth. With respect to the latter, bet you can't find a better one. Don't encourage them, some of those Science for the sake of Science idiots might keep trying!
I'm a Work kin for peace and cooperation.
With much love and care,
Mike Morin
Mike Morin
www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com
The south has been voting solidly for the party of Lincoln ever since 1964 for the most part. The north on the other hand is somewhat mixed in the last 5 elections. Kansas voted for the party of Lincoln although Illinois didn't.
Mike Morin
I'd suggest you get your history from someone other than the Ward Churchills of the world.
I really don't know what it would take for Mr. Navasky and his Nation colleagues to give up their "liberal at heart" understanding of Obama, someone who has only donned "centrists' sheep" clothing to disguise his liberal inclination. "Clothes make the man" and the "pundit after pundit" who described Obama by the exteriors of his actions rather than the flowing rhetoric of his words may indeed be closer to "the man" than is Mr. Navsky and all the other "Progressives for Obama" who have maintained this conceit throughout the campaign and now threaten to extend the same thinking through his administration. Time will "tell," but when it does I'm not sure we can depend on our "liberal" journalists to tell us truthfully what time has told about Obama's "real" position on the political spectrum.
Leea: From below -- Please define exactly what is "the torch of truth"?
Wow, put on the spot! :)
I'd say that to me the torch of truth is the fire that burns in all of us that fuels our desire for a good life, a good day, and that what we do brings the same to future generations.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
Please. That is not the torch of truth. That is a desire, wish, hope, perhaps calling. We shouldn't use lofty language and Nuage inspired rhetoric. It is mumbo-jumbo. Perhaps, that is why we, as a nations, as so scientifically illiterate. We use words and terms without knowing their specific definitions. The alternative medicine (oxymoron) cult is especially prone to this.
binban it is my torch of truth. I did not imagine I was speakiing for you. What is the torch of truth to you?
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
I don't use the term. It is meaningless to me. You used it, so you define it.
Very impressive indeed binban. don't ever stop with such wisdom, it will help us all.
What happens when snowflakes stick together?...............friends come together and have snow ball fights. :)
Leea
The conservatives have been successful at defining "centrist" and the DLC was nothing more than a conservative plant set up to prevent the Democratic Party from being a firm progressive/liberal party. The same can be said of the Republicans but any Republican who dares to be a centrist by moving even slightly to the left immediately faces eternal hell. We need to redefine centrism and even take back the true meaning of liberalism or it's all a lose-lose no matter who's in control in Washington.
dupe
dupe
Centrism has always been a meaningless bit of vacuous verbiage IMO. For starters center relative to what? Does moral relativism really help us?
Screw a term that makes a virtue of moderation, as Jim Hightower said the only rthing in the middle of the road is dead Armadilos.
Fence sitting cuts off criculation to the balls (apologies in advance to any wymin, women, girls, grrls, or ladies offended by such : )).
Middle of the road is "rubbish" the home of bad pop music and worse hair. :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLNe5BZMG9I
Right you are, Hootowl.
The "Center" is defined by the media, which is to say by the corporate elite.
For example, we all KNOW that Dennis Kucinich is on the left end of the Democratic Party, right? Everybody knows that. Except for one little inconvenient truth. When Democrats were polled during the primary campaign, it turned out that more Democrats agreed with Kucinich's POLICIES than with those of any other Democratic candidate. Policies like withdrawal from Iraq in three months, single payer health care, tax the rich, etc. That's right. All those "left wing" positions were supported by the largest segment of Democrats. Fortunately, however, we had the corporate media to tell us what was centrist and what and who was left wing fringe.
Whenever the "center" of public opinion strays too far away from the corporate consensus, they are ready to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to set us straight. For example, in '93 and '94, the insurance companies and friends spent about $300 million for lobbying and a media blitz (remember "Harry and Louise?") to defeat the Clinton health care package; which was MORE MONEY than had been spent by both sides in the Presidential election of '92. The "center" was thereby restored to its proper place. You can't allow government to destroy the "freedom" which has been granted to us by health insurance companies.
Nevertheless, public opinion does learn from experience. Nevasky is right about that. The "Harry and Louise" ads wouldn't work today.
And by the way, the original Hightower quote was: "There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but YELLOW STRIPES and Dead Armadillos." I googled it.
"There's Nothing in the Middle of the Road but YELLOW STRIPES and Dead Armadillos." I googled it."
Damn I should have done that. :) Good post.
If more Democrats agreed with Kucinich's positions than Obama’s and the media was able to sway their votes by labeling him a left wing fringe then what does that say about the intelligence of the average Democrat? Not much.
I on the other hand I am not convinced that Democrats are really flaming leftists that get duped by the media into voting for centrist Democrats which are actually Republican-lites. I think most Democrats are more conservative than those polls show and they feel a desperate need to jump on the perceived winner's bandwagon.
The reason I say that is because it's hard to fathom people being soooooo stupid that would actually vote against what they want based on media malipulation.
Nah....you are probably right. They probably are that stupid. Nevermind.
Rather than thrashing about over labels, I think the key is the degree to which Obama governs in the style of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. On some issues (Jim Crow segregation, for instance), FDR was a very cautious centrist. On other issues (the rights of labor unions, New Deal public works projects, progressive taxation at least after the outbreak of World War II), Roosevelt enraged the rich and powerful and was a genuine populist.
I think we will all know by summertime whether Barack Obama will govern in the manner of FDR - with some substantive balance that strengthens progressive grassroots movements - or whether he will become an habitual triangulator in practice. If it tragically proves to be the latter, then the continuing wars abroad and repeated economic crises on the domestic front as the chickens keep flying home to roost, will insure he's a one termer.
Bill from Saginaw
I suspect and indeed hope that he will try to do what Reagan has done, albeit the other way round. Reagan pushed America's center so much to the right that the entire country, including most of the Democrats, were right-wing in the end, at least as perceived by us Europeans.
Obama will, that's my guess, try to push that center to the left. This will make it easier for anyone running for an office not to have to pay homage to right-wing causes any more in order to win any election. See that inane row about the lapel-pin et al. Or certain things everyone all of a sudden had to proclaim they loved in order not to be called "Un-American".
I think that for the past 20 years or more, America was one long protracted "Committee on Un-American Activities". If many outside the US can discern this development, Obama surely can.
Some of the offhand remarks Obama was criticized for during the election campaign - the one about people in the Midwest clinging to their bibles and their guns for example - tell me and give me hope that he knows how right-wing brainwashed the majority of America is right now.
If Obama manages to push the consensus to the left again, the US will stop looking like a lite version of the Fourth Reich, which is what they to an alarming degree were beginning to resemble more and more, including citizens' attitudes.
Yes, one can turn it around. I wish him good luck.
Sioux Rose
ARAQUIN: Thank you for sharing some significant insights on how this nation is seen from the outside in.
Araquin
"the US will stop looking like a lite version of the Fourth Reich"
A disappointing statement from a usually good poster.
I think it's pretty accurate though Thomas including Vietnam the U.S. has been responsible for 5 million + dead people in the last 40 years, we have torture camps, and 700 military bases around the world, and imprison a larger percentage of our population than any country in the world that is disproportionately people of color. True domestically things aren't as bad as under the Nazis, but Muslims are the new Jews, and now IS he critical juncture where we either turn around or slip into full on fascism IMO.
What's the word on the domestic prison camps under construction by Halliburton? What's the word on the progress of domestic tracking and surveillance? What's the word on Obama's and Emanuel's plan for a National Domestic Security Force?
About on a par with the reports that there was some new army command putting armed troops in our streets. But keep swinging!
By the way, if you want to see some real public surveillance you should go to Europe. You trip over cameras under your table.
Do you have any information on the questions which I brought up, or is this just more of your lame and apparently ignorant pooh-poohing? What I brought up are just a few of the apparatuses instituted by the outgoing fascist regime and how will they be dealt with in the new regime. The Stasi-like militarization of our society is still a threat.
When you refer to "some new army command putting armed troops in our streets", I assume you are alluding to the 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade returned from Iraq and assigned to Northcom for use in domestic crises. Is Posse Commitatus in or is Posse Commitatus out? Northcom is a jewel in the belt of the military industrial complex and its shadow government. Will martial law remain on the table? Just Google articles concerning Northcom and the 1st Brigade. One example is a Sept. 24, 2008 article at Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald, "Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the 'Homeland'?"
Instead of blowing smoke about cameras under the table in Europe (although that trend continues here as well, go to another thread on CD and read Jules Boykoff's article, "Obama Must Rein in 'Terrorist' Databases", Jan. 22, to get a more accurate idea of the "tracking and surveillence" I was referring to.
I know you don't give credence to my concerns about such stuff as this, including what really happened on 9-11, but the record of Obama and the Democrat party requires that I "keep swinging", as you say.
Well Hoot....I don't believe any comparison to the German Reich holds water.
Muslims are the new Jews? in what way?
1.5 million or there abouts I'm familiar with from Viet Nam. Where did the other 3.5 come from? Lets allow 600,000 for Iraq....
Torture camps? Not even close to the SS and Gestapo's tactics. Not even in the same universe. And not that many abused. But abused they were....but Reichs don't correct their mistakes like that.
700 military bases around the world has nothing to do with it at all. Especially when quite a number of them are kept open at the insistence of the host country.
"Imprison a larger percentage of our population than any country in the world that is disproportionately people of color"
Can't see it. Too many in prison yes, especially on drug charges like the disparity of powder and crack + many that with proper representation could have gotten lighter sentences or probation. Of color....you won't like this but the bald truth is that people of color as you call them commit a disproportunate number of the crimes. And specifically black on black crimes. No spin can change that. Its not because more are prosecuted because of color, though undoubtedly in some areas they are.
I believe we are turning around...undoubtedly....with or without Obama, but a Reich we have never been or even close.
P.S. That was one of Jim's better quotes! He is a hoot! (no pun intended)
Muslims are the new Jews in the sense that many people are overtly hateful towards Muslims and few people even blink, it's just like the water fish swim that they don't notice. In the last 20 years the U.S. has killed almost 2 million Iraqis counting Clinton's viscous sanctions, and the number killed by the 2 Bushes in overt wars.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/14/3839
http://www.commondreams.org/views/070700-103.htm
http://www.globalissues.org/article/105/effects-of-sanctions#UnitedNationsreportsonmassivedeathtollfromsanctions
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2520/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War#Casualties
That's a third of the Jewish Holocaust right there and yet hatred of Muslims is so ingrained in our culture that fewer than 1% of the U.S. population is outraged by this fact. U.S. citizens are very much good Germans when it comes to being quiet about the terrible toll of hating on Muslims.
Most of the PEOPLE in the countries that host U.S. military bases don't want them there, of course the people are NEVER asked and we have to take the word of fearful toady governments that people want U.S, military bases there. People in Japan for example are sick of having their little girls raped by U.S. Marines. :(
The U.S. does imprison the most people per capita in the world Thomas:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/28/AR2008022801704.html?hpid=topnews
All this in my mind leads to the conclusion that the U.S. is fascism lite, of course not an exact duplicate of the Nazis or Soviets, or Pol Pot but with enough parallels to make any thinking person incredibly depressed. And just because we are free to impotently whine about doesn't mean that it's not terrible or mass suffering. :(
"The U.S. does imprison the most people per capita in the world Thomas:"
Never in dispute. And a silly situation we need to correct. I believe mandatory sentencing is responsible for a good deal of it, that would be a good place to start.
"People in Japan for example are sick of having their little girls raped by U.S. Marines"
I believe that was in Guam unless there were two incidents. I don't believe you can indict us based on that. Personally I'd be delighted to close most of our bases. You'd find I believe a loud outcry from the very people you are talking about because they would have to pick up the tab for their own defense and the revenue loss would also hurt them, especially in Europe.
I still don't see a million Iraqi deaths by us. Though the number is we will agree irrelevant to say the least. Their first and our first were too many.
Lets not forget the other 5.5 million people from the Holocaust. Wasn't just Jews you know. Though they like to present it that way.
I simply don't see the hatred of Muslims you do. Hatred of the Muslim terrorists and their fellow travelers, absolutely. A small minority of real haters.
But unless the Muslim community speaks up more, disavows these bastards, suspicion could grow. Silence denotes consent.
Also I believe when Khaled Mashaal says things he might mean them.
.Okinawa, Thomas...which is Japan.
The number of dead Iraqis ,according to a Johns Hopkins study ( they arent exactly slouches or agendized either) is over one million and counting.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Well, Thomas More, I fear that I am not exaggerating. If you view it as an outsider who's been visiting your country regularly for many, many years, the change that occured during the Bush years was getting really frightening - and that of course also includes the humiliating immigration procedure, the likes of which no frequent traveller has experienced anywhere else on this planet. Immigration officers were imitating representatives of dictatorships all of a sudden. The tenor got really nasty. It did indeed feel like entering some really unfree place, and I only endured the ordeal because I really wanted to see my great American friends again, otherwise I would just have let it be, as so many Europeans I know did during the Bush administration.
Having visited conservative parts of the US during the Bush years didn't exactly help either, I admit that much, but one got the general impression of oppression. Things people didn't say openly any more etc.
I did say "lite".
But for the rest, all the the preconditions were in place. And I can assure you that I am not the only foreigner who noticed that.
And that should give any American pause.
More from The Nation?
OK, I get it. I think I can safely assume now that I'm not a "progressive" --at least not an "American" one anyway.
This is mooniepie--signing out.
"based on what we know about Obama--his books, his initial intuitive stand against the war in Iraq, his Senate voting record, his campaign, his inaugural speech--I don't believe it. At most, he seems to me a liberal wolf in centrist sheep's clothing."
Exactly. We already know who Obama is - he is a progressive/liberal. You want hard evidence? Look at his his Senate voting record.
Yeah, well look at the cabinet picks of this progressive/liberal: Hilda Solis and...exactly who else would you call a progressive/liberal?
Right. He voted for telecom immunity, a despicable act.
And he is going farther into that swamp as we type, taking the Bush line on the "right" of the executive branch to establish telecom spying on Americans:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/01/obama-sides-wit.html
.Admit it, Joe, you yourself havent looked at Obama's senate voting record! More votes of "present" than any other senator , and in a shorter time frame too. More missed votes than most as well. Consistently voting to fund the war as well.
Give it a break Joe, you just aint smart enough, and you just dont lie well enough.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Obama's votes of "present" were tactical decisions on the road to the White House. Alienate few and the big prize is easier to get.
Obama's Senate voting record is what raised the red flags in the first place.
Fluffy, air-headed articles like this one praising Obama for being a "liberal", whatever that means to an editor from The Nation, are the reason I cancelled my subscription many years ago. Liberal? Good grief! Just look at his war voting record and FISA for starters. Do these people actually believe what they write?
"The question we ask today is not whether government is too big or too small but whether it works."
-I got a bad feeling on this one. I have a feeling this means scaling back social programs, or our "shared sacrifice", and not only leaving military spending and spying programs untouched, but actually increasing them.
Somehow I don't think he is talking about stealth fighters or aircraft carriers which are useless against the terrorists we help create, oh no, not those government programs that don't work. I think he may mean programs that help people, not the Military Industrial Complex and Big Business Inc. I got a bad feeling he is talking about social security, closing down government offices, less spending for schools, reducing workers pay and benefits? That's what I think he means.
"Therefore, there was something off-putting the next morning when I turned on my TV only to see pundit after pundit--be it Pat Buchanan on the right, "Morning Joe" Scarborough on the center-right or Mike Barnicle in the center--all praising him as a "centrist."
-I'm not sure if Victor Navasky realizes this, but being praised by the likes of Pat Buchanan, Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh isn't a good thing, unless, of course, you are a "liberal" writing for The Nation.
I wouldn't lump Buchanan in with Rush and Rove, he has been VERY outspoken against U.S imperial wars and Israel. See these two web sites for more info:
antiwar.com
amconmag.com
Ironically Buchanan is FAR more anti war than Obama.
I commend his anti-war stance and little else. In this regard Ron Paul is also to be commended for being against the war. I still wouldn't vote for either one.
"Buchanan is a long-standing advocate of extreme right-wing and fascistic views. A fervent admirer of Joseph McCarthy and the anticommunist witch-hunt of the 1950s, he served his political apprenticeship as a speech writer for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. After the collapse of the USSR put an end to the Cold War, he was at the forefront of those within the political establishment seeking a new ideological basis for right-wing politics to replace the global struggle against the Soviet Union.
Over the years Buchanan has made repeated and provocative attacks on blacks, Jews, Hispanics, gays and lesbians and other targets of prejudice. He specializes in the use of code words which make his bigotry apparent to the most backward and fascist-minded elements, while sufficiently preserving appearances to allow him to persue a highly paid media career."
-wsws.org