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When Barack Obama became president I wondered whether he would have the courage and integrity to bring long absent progressive politics back to the fore in America. Unhappily, that question has now more or less been answered, though of course anything can happen in the remaining three-and-a-half or seven-and-a-half years of his presidency.
Here's what I didn't
wonder about: whether his administration would be competent, and
whether he would be skilled at the using the most powerful and important
tool at a president's disposal, mass communications and the bully pulpit.
Turns out I shoulda,
as Obama so far has failed on both fronts. This presidency is
centrist in every respect, except on those occasions when it is as regressive
as George W. Bush's. That's a huge disappointment, but not a shocker
by any means. Far more surprising, however, is the ineptness of
the administration, particularly concerning its communications strategy.
This should never have happened. Obama is rightly considered one of the most eloquent and moving speakers in American political history. I came to that conclusion with some skepticism, too, having seen him campaign in person, and having watched his 2004 convention speech that everyone thought was so spiffy. I was unimpressed with both. But since then, Obama has astonished me on a couple of occasions, beginning with his race speech in Philadelphia, and perhaps most recently with his talk in Cairo. Importantly, it is not the delivery of these addresses - which is actually fairly muted, as political speeches go - but rather their content that shines. It's been so long since an American politician spoke to the public with this degree of honesty, and demanded as much maturity from listeners, that I couldn't help but be struck by these powerful orations.
Otherwise, however, I would rate the communications ability of this White House at just slightly above catastrophic. These failures were on full display last week with the healthcare press conference disaster, but, in fact, they have been in the making right from the beginning.
In fact, they began in
the very first minutes of the administration. Remember the Lincolnesque
eloquence and profundity of the inaugural address? Yeah, me neither.
That speech was an unbelievably blown opportunity to give a forceful,
game-changing oration that could have brought along tens of millions
of people through the majesty and power of the occasion. All the
elements were there: the massive crowds, the global attention,
the momentous development of our first black president, the much promised
“change”, the many crises warranting it, and the overwhelming public
desire to turn away from a disastrously failed prior regime.
But instead of a majestic
oration charting a new course and calling upon us to be the change we
need, Obama gave a short and not at all sweet speech to his planetary
audience. It was a talk that was most notable for not being notable.
Do you remember anything from it? Any of the amazing turns-of-phrase
that marked Lincoln's or Kennedy's inaugural prose? Any of the
courageous willingness to call out the economic predators who are destroying
the country, as FDR did, or that's president's courage-inducing language,
giving hope to a despondent nation? I don't. In fact, I
don't remember a single word or theme from Obama's inaugural speech.
Oh well. I figure everyone's entitled to a dropped ball now and then, though it would be preferable to have that happen some time other than at the most watched political moment of the decade.
The problem is, of course, that this wasn't just a one-off screw-up. The essential theme of the last six months is simply this: Barack Obama has not taken control of the political agenda in America.
He waited far too long
in his new presidency to give a major speech on what ails the country
and how we ought to proceed, and when he finally addressed a joint session
of Congress for this purpose, he was only somewhat better than at his
inaugural address. Again, does anyone remember anything memorable
from that event? Can anyone list his topics, without making obvious
retrospective guesses (it's the economy, stupid)? Can anyone identify
from that virtual state of the union address one call to action, one
bold assertion, one controversial claim for which the president was
willing to spend political capital? I honestly cannot.
Since then, Obama has
given a couple of pretty memorable speeches, like the Cairo address,
the Arizona State commencement, or the Notre Dame abortion speech.
But even these are deficient, because they smack of lofty verbiage unsupported
by serious policy - sort of one-off flights of rhetorical fancy.
For example, in Cairo Obama somewhat forcefully (or as forceful as,
pathetically, these things go) told the Israelis to stop expanding their
West Bank settlements. Leave aside for the moment that this is
about the least that could or should be demanded concerning these incredibly
unhelpful actions exacerbating already illegal developments which, by
the way, do absolutely nothing for Israeli security. Nevertheless,
now that Israel has essentially told the president where he can stick
his pretty words, do you expect Obama to act? Will he throw any
carrots or sticks toward Jerusalem to get what he wants from an ally
for whom the US has done so much? I'd be plenty surprised if he
were to actually back even this minuscule demand with action.
These speeches, much as I admire them at one level - and I really do - are also narrowly focused and essentially athematic. That can be okay, up to a point. Certain problems exist in relatively contained isolation, and can be addressed, to some real degree, apart from others. Yet, there are also many good reasons for an administration to tell the American people a grand story or two, and to root their more specific policies and actions within the context of those larger themes. George Bush, for example, told us the tale of the war on terrorism, and he got tremendous legislative mileage and popular support from that unifying theme.
It was almost entirely deceitful, of course, and it caused horrific damage here and abroad. But that is no reason necessarily to throw out the communications approach, any more than we should dispense with having presidents because Bush was such a bad one. In fact, there are good and true and real unifying, thematic stories Obama could be telling, and they would benefit the country enormously. Imagine, for example, if there was a war on greed, instead of a phony and destructive war on terrorism. Imagine how far that might go toward framing solutions to so many of our problems, from the economic crisis, to healthcare, to foreign policy militarism, to global warming.
Of course, the absence of such a recurrent motif - that one in particular - has everything to do with Obama's bigger problems, his utter lack of progressive principle, and the concomitant political courage needed to drive them home. But what is more astonishing about this administration is the degree to which they can't even get the little stuff right - the things that don't cost you anything, but determine your fate, not least including your chance of getting a second term.
For instance, Obama has now given something like four or five prime-time press conferences as the primary vehicle to sell his agenda (assuming anyone can figure out what that is - but more on that question in another piece). Forget for a moment all questions of content and courage. This approach is just plain strategically stupid, no matter what you're trying to sell.
It's catastrophically dumb, for at least two reasons. The lesser of these is that, while Obama seems relatively comfortable in these sessions, they are absolutely not his best communications element. Nor, likely, would they be anybody's. What will be a stronger, more forceful argument to the public - on any subject - a precisely tailored and carefully delivered address to the nation, or a semi-spontaneous two-minute response to a reporter's question? And that assumes, of course, that you're capable of a two-minute response, which Obama evidently is not. His long, passionless, academic disquisitions, riddled with hesitations, ums, ahs and uhs, sell no one on nothing.
There actually was, remarkably, a take-away from his press conference last week, but unfortunately, it had almost nothing to do with the intended content of the press conference. Viewers - especially those who are smart enough not to devote their lives to being political junkies and policy wonks - got nothing from the investment of their time, save perhaps a reluctance to listen to this guy next time around. They got no healthcare plan from the White House, they got no clarification as to who are the white hats and who are the black hats on this issue, they got no meta-story about responsibility, sacrifice and greed, and they got no rallying call to action.
What they did get was a presidential cock-up of the first order. This was the take-away alluded to above, it was as big a digression as is imaginable, and it succeeded in completely undoing everything the press conference was meant to achieve. This, of course, was the president's foolish commentary on the Henry Louis Gates debacle. Why he needed to wade into the waters of the particulars of a minor league arrest by a small-town police department (as opposed to, say, a discussion of racial profiling in the abstract) is beyond me, as is why he employed the inflammatory language that he did, especially since he noted then and has conceded in his subsequent apology that part of the problem may have been inappropriate behavior on the part of Gates, not just the cop who (yes, stupidly) arrested him.
But even had Obama not
erred so egregiously, there is a broader strategic question here, which
underpins the circumstance leading to this ignominious scene.
And that question is, why - even beyond the fact that Obama's performance
is usually only okay at press conferences - why in the world would the
White House be using press conferences to sell their agenda???
The very nature of the forum is built around the concept that the audience
in the room controls the event. The press not only control what
themes get asked about (what if Obama had gotten questions on Iraq,
Afghanistan, the Gates affair, or global warming - and none about healthcare?),
but they also choose what specific questions to ask, and how to frame
those questions. Maybe the president wanted to talk about getting
universal coverage for the public, but the press asked instead about
the party politics of the legislation on Capitol Hill. Maybe Obama
wanted to exert leadership on the topic, but the press asked questions
that made him out to have lost control of the issue's agenda.
The point is that, even if Obama was especially skilled at press conferences, like Jack Kennedy was, this is absolutely the wrong forum for the purpose of rallying support around an issue critical to both the nation and the fate of his presidency. Instead, you give a televised address from the Oval Office, or a high profile speech somewhere appropriate. By doing so, you control the content, you think out ahead of time precisely what you want to say, you pick the emotional pitch of the delivery, you design the setting to maximize the impact of whatever message you're trying to get across, you get the bonus of presidential gravitas inherent to the setting, and you stage manage everything about the presentation to align with the communications goals for it that you pre-establish before the first word of the speech is even composed. Alternatively, if you utilize the press conference format instead, you lose every single one of these benefits, in part or in whole.
The second most astonishing thing about the failure of the Obama people to get this is that presidents have understood these principles at least since FDR gave his fireside chats. Moreover, ever since Michael Deaver and Ronald Reagan brought Hollywood methods (and values) to the presidency, political pros have not only understood these principles, but have mastered them to enormous effect (and often enormously pernicious effect - a la Reagan, or Bush with the bullhorn on the World Trade Center pile). How is it possible, in 2009, that the Obama people don't know how to do the same? I mean, picking the appropriate medium for the message you're trying to convey is Presidential Communications 101.
Which brings us to the
first most astonishing aspect of this failure. Are these really
the same people - including Obama himself - who brought this guy out
of nowhere and got him to the White House?!?! Are these really
the same folks who ran a strategically brilliant, highly disciplined
and nearly flawless campaign, one that no one saw coming, and one in
which a relative unknown whose national experience consisted of one
big speech and two years time in the Senate managed to topple a shoe-in
heir-apparent and vanquish a highly regarded war hero?!?! Really?
I don't even recognize
these people anymore. It's disappointing enough that their politics
are so dismal (why bother toppling Hillary, only to reprise Bill, who's
hardly any different than George?). But could they really be so
incompetent and anemic at the basics of governing as well?
Of course, the two questions are not unrelated.
Indeed, it may well be that the Obama administration is so weak at marketing precisely because it realizes that a strong marketing campaign would instantly reveal that they actually have almost nothing to sell.
78 Comments so far
Show Allfrom July 22's http://apocalypse-blues.typepad.com/: Barack Obama deserves to be analyzed on his own merits. He deserves the best chance possible. And it seems as though he is fully capable of playing multidimensional chess with all of the world’s problems and then having the solution come to light near the end, like when all the pieces in disarray in a rubric’s cube “magically” come into place at the hands of a master. Or in a “CSI” or “The Mentalist” episode, when the crime is solved in the last five minutes.
But more than one or two championship traits are needed in major league baseball. If the Yankees have great hitting and starting pitching, but lack defense or middle relief pitching, they will not be champions. If Mr. Obama—at this tipping point in world history—has great speaking skills and a near genius IQ, but lacks the uncanny ability of FDR to time his fireside chats both in pace and per crisis or lacks the personality traits of an LBJ to play all of his chips—put his foot down, his career on the line—at the right time, he loses—not only a second term, but the lives of hundreds of millions of people worldwide because of the coming climate change crisis and “life as we know it,” as termed by one of the foremost scientists, James Hanson of NASA, who has been predicting climate catastrophe since 1988.
For all of his coolness under pressure and knowledge of the problems at hand, Mr. Obama may be another Herbert Hoover, who, believe it or not—given his infamy as a buffoon—was elected by people who wanted to “let genius have its chance.” Hoover understood the problems of the Great Depression that began early in his term, in October 1929. Nearly all the programs or solutions tried between the Crash of ’29 and FDR’s first term, which didn’t begin until 1932 were copied by Roosevelt, but implemented better and harder. Hoover’s measured IQ likely exceeded that of FDR, but FDR had a sixth sense of how the general populace felt, what the political parties could take, when to use his bully pulpit—which should be Obama’s most potent weapon, and when to get down and dirty behind the scenes.
When Franklin Roosevelt took office, he was only 51, not that much older than Obama. But he had a gravitas to his voice, especially on radio, and a patrician’s air. He manipulated the media, not the corporations. Obama cannot manipulate the corporate media but does have a good command of the Internet. But there is a disconnect. No family sits around its computer to listen to one of Obama’s talks, like they used to when FDR gave a talk on the radio. When that happened, the streets were empty; everyone was listening to Roosevelt and was comforted and inspired by him. I’m sure the topic of his talk was discussed at water coolers the next day. Nothing of the sort is happening with Obama’s many Internet-propelled speeches to the nation. No one knows when they are scheduled. No families await his words. No one speaks of his talk at the coffee machine these days.
And that’s what is needed, if it’s not too late already. Obama has to make HIS speeches as highly watched or listened to as those of Roosevelt. It IS a different time altogether. But Obama’s message got through during the election process. He has to USE his bully pulpit and eloquent words. Or none of us, especially Obama in 2012, will be able to live life as we’ve luxuriated in it since 1980.
Your assessment of Obama matches mine to a tee. I never bought his lofty rhetoric - it always sounded a bit canned to me.
I was wowed by his race speech however, mostly because he made me work to understand, putting into words analysis I had tried to get to, but not reached. I thought he had it, and was really a progressive. I also have to add that I believed Michelle would also light a fire under him, and she seems very authentic.
Being a gen-xer, his behavior reminds me of my generation - hesitant with a lack of courage, a lack of conviction, good at dressing things up, but drifty. It's really amazing how much he reminds me of defects in myself, especially since he became president, but then again, the presidency is a prize as well as a job. We expect politicians to be 99.9% sell-outs, but look for that leader who remembers the trenches and fights. I think Obama remembers the trenches, but he's smart enough to know what he's up against, and he doesnt see its his resposibility to fight, and he may be right. Maybe America needs to lead itself. Of course, this is also preposterous, but why does he need to go down for our sinking ship? Of course, why then be president? Look to LBJ for christs sake. There's a guy who could force
a bowling ball down his enemies throat.
I dont think its fair for libs to expect Obama to fight on his own. I think his strategy of putting Congress at the center of health care is a smart move that keeps him above the fray, and with someone to blame if it blows up or goes wrong. Its also brought the blue-dogs out in the open, identifying each one by name. These pols were invisible to the masses before now. DC is so dirty with money, and Obama gets along but also tells his comrades, do you want change or not? Plus the people need to stay on it as well. WE need to throw more repubs and blue dogs out in the next election, and scare some long-term dems like Reid, Feinstein, etc.
When the race question came up, I was rooting for Obama not to pussyfoot, and he didnt. I'm not black, but cops in America are out of control, not because of who they are, but because of the wars against terror and drugs that have given them too much power and leeway, and sidetracked them from pursuing worthless psycopaths towards repeating the same mistakes of prohibition.
He also was not in any position to take on Wall St right out of the gate. He's given Bernanke and Geithner and Goldman Sachs rope to hang themselves. If it doesnt work, he can say I tried it Wall Street's way, but they're cheaters, and here come my ideas.
I agree that these press conferences are asinine. He should use the bully pulpit more, and act like a president, not some casual cool guy, although there were some good things in those press conferences regarding shame on Wall Street, but health care was a wonkish mirage. I cant believe the admin aren't emulating the Republican damn-the-torpedos approach and just say there's a mandate for what we're doing, but guess what - its AGAINST the elites, not WITH them. On certain issues it might not work, but it would push the bluedogs into submission, where they now rule the entire process. This administration can overplay its hand, but it can also underplay to the point where noone respects or fears them. Coming from Chicago, I cant believe Obama doesnt get this, but Obama knows he's green, and he's looking for allies and building.
Of course, this is my hopeful scenario. I see signs of life in his wit and sarcasm, and ability to compromise that I think will serve him well. I do not appreciate his tendency to compromise without a fight, almost because he's analyzed the situation and given up, but for christ's sake, this is politics - bluff some, make the other guy sweat. This is basic stuff. If your opponents insult you, take them down with some of that slim swagger and sarcasm.
He continues to allow the repubs and their media to implode, because they are bating idiots. I hope he is lying in wait to strike, but he hasn't exercised power forcefully enough when he does to convince his enemies that he can drive the people, but so much of the problem is media coverage and tone!
Sometimes, there's almost this feeling of uh-oh, what's the slacker gonna do wrong, like at the inauguration. Another president far from perfection. He's still young. He needs to improve quickly, mostly at his political poker skills. Amazingly, he also seems to need to decide whether he wants to keep the job. However, having been a community organizer, he may be just bringing parties to the table, making them work it out. It's a worthy experiment and different enough from our dictatorial predecessors that just maybe it might work out, and make us better people as well.
Maybe not fighting and losing at anything is a thought-out strategy. It seems that a zero-risk approach makes no sense, but at least its different. It seems that not fighting for anything seriously emboldens your enemies, but these enemies are already so outrageous that it also exposes and weakens them, because the public still wants the same things, and will hopefully hold their own pols and not Obama responsible. However, he has to be seen to be fighting, and with the media clearly turning against him, he needs to up the volume.
esolesek July 30th, 2009 7:12 am.........This is a critical time for leadership, not politics; integrity, not strategy; boldness, not compromise; risk, not safety; action, not rhetoric; and justice, not acceptance of criminality. Obama needs to accept his role as president and put the responsibility where it belongs. The last eight years have usurped the people of their options and put control of the MSM in the hands of fewer corporatists than ever before in our history. AND HE KNOWS IT.
If dear leader can't lead us then what will become of us?
People, people, people!
Obama does not write his speeches - he has staff for that.
He reads them well, like the skilled narrator/voice-over he is.
The purpose and effect of Obama's speeches are not to inform but to tranquilize, to soothe, to comfort, to defuse, to make his listeners feel that they heard something of substance, to offer what they want to hear, to pacify them long enough so he can sell them out.
"Centrist"? He's about as "centrist" (whatever the hell that is) as Bush. He's just smoother, slicker, glibber - the consummate con.
He's a tantalizer with great style.
Our crisis, Their gain. It's all here:
http://www.counterpunch.org/ginsburg07292009.html
Without singling out anyone in particular,
may I say that many of the comments here
display an amazing amount of naivete.
So many are so disappointed by the fact
that Obama's actions so often serve the
interests of the nation's wealthy owners --
instead of the interests of us commoners.
How could it possibly be otherwise?
Obama may have a streak of goodness in
him, but he is merely a puppet for the
people who have all the money and power.
America's owners call the shots here.
Those who pay the piper call the tunes.
He who has the gold, rules.
It is rumored that the Fed, and Bernanke,
and Geithner, all represent the interests
of certain international banking families.
It is rumored that those banksters run the world.
And that they also run the U.S.
And its presidents.
The sooner we verify the truth of this,
the sooner we can try to figure out whether
anything can be done about it ...
... instead of whining about the fact that
Obama is being revealed to be just one more
in a long line of Presidents who've been
put in place to serve their very wealthy,
very powerful masters.
***********************************************
"But they that will be rich
fall into temptation and a snare,
and into many foolish and hurtful lusts,
which drown men in destruction and perdition.
"For the love of money
is the root of all evil ...."
--- 1 Timothy 6:9, 6:10
***********************************************
You win the annual cliche festival gold medal.
Agreed. Anyone surprised is not paying attention.
One of the most noticeable and troubling things about Obama, to me, has always been his very evident lack of passion. He strikes me as a front man for technocrats, as blandly centrist as any politician can be. He indeed has nothing to sell, as Green concludes in saying, so why should he go to all the dramatic trouble Green advises when all he has in his bag of tricks is standard issue Washington D.C. bullshit? When the centerpiece of his administration, health care reform, is finally revealed for the fraud it certainly will be, and no one can tell the difference between then and now, even his "progressive" defenders will have no excuses and no explanations. By then, Clinton will be redefined as a real progressive, and Nixon will seem like a socialist.
"I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views."
- Barack Obama, The Audacity of Hope
Good Post
"Obama is rightly considered one of the most eloquent and moving speakers in American political history. "
Oh yes! David Michael Green is correct.
Here is Obama's absolutely beatific speech at AIPAC in 2008. It is a symphony of "eloquence". This must have been what he was referring to.
"There is no greater threat to Israel — or to the peace and stability of the region — than Iran. Now this audience is made up of both Republicans and Democrats, and the enemies of Israel should have no doubt that, regardless of party, Americans stand shoulder to shoulder in our commitment to Israel's security."
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91150432
So moving!
Well-- it's nice to see that my partner in prolixity is at last beginning to shake off the cobwebs. But Professor Green devoted insufficient attention to a detail that really pushed my buttons:
Ever since Obama emerged onto the national stage to run for President, he was sold and perceived as a welcome contrast to Bush; unlike the aphasic and doltish incumbent, Obama was a real "intellectual"-- golden academic credentials, thoughtful, and of course superbly articulate. No need to detail the seeming irreconcilable differences between Obama and Bush!
But there are many little indications that refute this seemingly ironclad presumption. Apart from Obama's typical blurt-out-then-waffle-'n walk-back comments on the Gates episode, my Crap Detectors just lit up at Obama's invitation to "Skip" Gates and the cop who hassled him to come to the White House, and sit down and clear the air over a beer.
I suppose admirers credit this bright idea as another flash of Obama's alleged "community organizer" genius for conflict-resolution, consensus-building, etc.
OK, I admit that I'm not a beer-drinker. But I would feel the same if Obama had invited the men over to smoke a bowl.
The "beer" reference naturally reminded me of the Corporate Media cliché used with such success by the previous maladministration: the supposed Amerikan preference for a non-elitist head of state that the Average (beer-drinking, of course) Citizen would love to "have a beer" with.
Hoisting a brewski-- a liquid Flag Pin, as Amerikan as the Pledge of Allegiance!
Certainly Obama has enough on his plate to worry about without immersing himself too deeply in what is essentially a passing incident. It's not as if I hoped he would do a reverse "Jeremiah Wright" and militantly rally to Gates' side.
But I find offensive his patently phony tactic of "defusing" the situation by reducing the controversial and important issues revealed in this episode to the level of a fender-bender that triggered some unfortunate road rage on both sides.
Worst of all is Obama's manipulative low-key implication that this is at bottom a Guy Thing best "solved" by the Manly Men settling down over a brew and hashing things out-- face-to-face, man-to-man.
Sounds like something Garrison Keillor would write-- that's how they solved the race problem in Lake Wobegon, instead of drowning in a tempest in a teapot, dontcha know...
Make no mistake: Obama is no less a contemptible phony than his predecessor. And countering this conclusion with the "pragmatic" argument that contemptible phoniness is a prerequisite for a political career is as vacuous as a Cheney "So what?"
· Yr Obd't Servant
Yep. The president of the United States has not been in the people's corner on ANYTHING for decades.
Madame Defarge is coming.
Brilliant post...!
Oh, for crying out loud. Is there anything in 0's comportment since election to contradict the notion that he was a plant even way back when he was working as a community organizer?
This administration has malice aforethought all over it.
Great title, though.
"to sell his agenda (assuming anyone can figure out what that is - but more on that question in another piece)"
Speeches, words,words, words. Did any of you morons during the primary ever bother to look at Obama's key votes, his source of funding, the glowing coverage he received form the MSM, not to mention the bogosity of his speeches and the adoring crowds of teenagers?
The fact is you hippies helped Wall Street install the best PR man for the present moment. "Come here Uncle John's band do do do de do de do do ..." Come on, do the hippie dance!
Ah! Now we know!
The Hippie--Wall Street cabal is responsible for this sinking ship!
Usually I don't get into the back-and-forth exchanges that go on in these posts, but what the heck. I'm home with a mild case of swine flu (I'm told older people are getting mild cases because we were exposed when it first went through during the Ford administration.
You hostile finger-pointing hippie haters can now say "I told you so, you should have known" and, OK. But the huge numbers who voted for Obama, who bought into the "change we can believe in" rhetoric were hardly all hippies (or ex-hippies, to be more precise; the hippie movement died somewhere along the same time as the Government shot up the Symbionese Liberation Army -- before Gerald Ford, one of the worst actors ever to be president, supposedly saved us from Swine Flu).
Jeer at us for being suckers, OK, if it makes you feel better, but my question remains. What now?
"Jeer at us for being suckers, OK, if it makes you feel better, but my question remains. What now?"
We can spend our time working tirelessly to build a progressive third party. But in less than four years, people like yourself will abandon all support for it when the new Republican boogie man is dispatched to scare you into voting for a (politically identical) democrat.
At best, a third party would allow progressives to pressure democrats into changing their policies, but only if we cost them their elections. Since a third party could not be instantly expected to win elections, this would mean being governed by Republicans while the party is being reformed. Of course, judging by the democratic reaction to the 2000 election, this would create a civil war in the party, and who knows when that would end. But if we support the Dems, then all we are doing is supporting the political equivalent of republicans. That is inexcusable.
So we're screwed. There should be no "hope" for "change" through presidential elections.
I would be overjoyed to see someone create a viable third political party. So far the only person who has even come close is Ross Perot. The Green Party keeps trying but they haven't managed to come up with a charismatic candidate and enough money to compete in the media and, sorry as that situation is, that's what it would take.
I don't think there is any hope through presidential elections, but I would love to pe proved wrong.
I tend to think that if many progressives hadn't abandoned support for the Greens after 2000, and had spent the next 4-8 years building the party, it MIGHT have been able to match the @ 20% Perot got. But the Green Party was poorly organized, unable to get positive media coverage, subject to bitter infighting, always underfunded, and heavily opposed (is sabotaged too strong a word?) by the DNC.
Well, the government's bought, the politicians are bought, the media's bought, and all discourse is monitored to stifle, disrupt and sabatoge any nascent moves to challenge the existing order. So you tell me.
If the political system's not gonna work then where does that leave us? I suppose we'll have to out-sneak these bastards. We're going to have to be very creative because we are very outmatched.
OK, that I can absolutely agree with. Out-sneak, out communicate, out create them. I've been trying to think of ways to do that, and we are indeed overmatched.
Weirdly enough, the only hope I can see is that environmental degradation will become so acute that all this money-grubbing, war-making b.s. will be beside the point. Then the test for us will come. Will we turn on each other trying to survive, or will we figure out how to really work together and save ourselves, or some of ourselves.
One day, as many ideas as we can come up with, at a time.
The health of the planet is in deep shit. We're past the tipping point. Nature can no longer help us restore the balance necessary for human survival. If we had acted responsably ten years ago, the ecosysten would have done its part to turn this mess around. What mess?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/28/species-extinction-hotspots-australia
When we start gettin down to the real nitty gritty in a few years, what we see won't be cooperation among the classes. Its gonna be lock 'n load time. Martial Law and all our worst nightmares come to life. Why would you think this militant mass of stinking greed called the ruling class would care about the rest of us? Do they care now?
Until money is out of politics, words are just that.
with clinton it was slick willie.what is the correct word for obama?we could call him waders obama because with this clown you need a
pair because he can then throw the bs right up to your knees?
wonder how he sleeps and night? he's either up with his
conscience bothering him or more likely trying to figure out
how to get re elected after all the damage he has caused
with his lies and ineptness.i am currently disabled due to
a work related injury and my insurance coverage sucks. i am
beginning to think i might not make it thru his
presidency.
Oily Obama. Instead of FDR we got Oil Can Harry.
tell the truth July 29th, 2009 1:40 pm.....How does he sleep at night?...Likely takes some drug prescribed on the taxpayers dollars.....Lawd knows what Bush snorted...er I mean took!
This morning I was thinking Bush was worse than Reagan and Obama is as bad as Bush. Bush Jr, that is.
And could there have been an easier act to follow? He may speak better than Bush--but who doesn't? Besides, seen one Obama lecture, seen them all. What's worse, is Obama may talk the talk--at times he seems to reveal some insight--but he never follows through--he sure ain't walking the walk. And that makes it worse--Bush could get away with not knowing better, but Obama exposes that he does at times, but continues down the Bush death spiral.
It was downhill since he won the election--because that was the extent of Obama's ambition. He made history winning the election and then the screen goes blank. End of story. Too bad his calculation didn't take into consideration the potential failure of that historical first. Were it Hillary, they would be saying that a woman wasn't up to the job. Draw your own conclusions about the first African-American president who upholds the status quo of rich white men.
Though author, I would be pretty pissed off if one of the thuggish cops in this town cuffed me for trying to get into my own house. Not sure where you are coming from there--seems they did mug shots too that were broadcast over the tv way past the time when that situation should've been resolved. It wasn't what Obama said--it is that he apologised for saying anything---as a black man in America. Obviously, you know nothing of the experience to dismiss it strategically rather than morally. It sort of blows the better earlier part of your article.
Obama's goals were:
1. become president
2. become part of the establishment
3. show that a black could just as good of a suckup and shill for Wall Street as a white.
He's just playing the part, livin the dream.
SO what exactly is bothering you guys about Obama?
fdoleza: we've been trying to tell you but you (like Obama) don't seem to be listening.
fdoleza,
"SO what exactly is bothering you guys about Obama?"
Why nothing at all, my dear, dense fellow. He is playing his part in this modern Shakspearean Tragedy perfectly. And so are you.
bgcd July 29th, 2009 2:44 pm..................The dream he's living is We the People's nightmare.
Great Communicators talk much more sparingly.
I was present at the commencement address Obama gave at ASU in the spring. It was alternately boring and weird. Most of the language and the content were trite and boring. At mid point he launched into some soaring language about people who'd fought for civil rights in this country. But his delivery was flat, mechanical, as if he himself didn't really believe what he was saying. Having to sit through all that, knowing that at that very moment drone bombs that he had authorized were killing civilians in Afghanistan, that he was not repairing the assaults Bush and Cheney made on our civil rights, that he was not standing in the way of mountain top removal in the Appalachians, that he was promoting "clean coal" and nuclear energy, that he was killing any hope of effective health care reform...I could go on, of course....well, it was more than boring and weird. It was excruciating. So very glad I didn't vote for him.
Nosurrender, I agree "flat, mechanical and boring" is only the beginning of Obams's speaking manner and I can't imagine why Green and countless others have regarded him as (at times) a Great Communicator. At best, he's a passable "actor" and delivers the eloquent "lines" that others wrote for him, just as JFK's "eloquence" was actually in repeating the lines of Ted Sorensen. Even with these scripted speeches, I see a bit of "bad acting" that I wouldn't tolerate for a minute in an actor I was directing (I'm a sometimes community theatre director): his way of making his statements of fact in as smug and axiomatic way as possible: not as good rhetoric should be an appeal to the audience to "think with me" about a matter being addressed, but to listen and learn the Final Words of the Master. Visually this is re-inforced by his head back and moving mechanically side to side as if he were reading from a tele-prompter---which he probably is, but not very skillfully).
When Obama goes from scripted to spontaneous performance, as in the semi-unscripted format of the press conference or town hall meeting, he loses it completely, almost as if he has one one-note of humanity in a face-to-face encounter with another person, a note of self-deprecating humor which is one of the few personal charms he has; but to do something like LISTEN and actually response to a person as a person, that seems outside his communicative repertoir. (If you ever saw Dennis Kucinich at a Q&A at a campaign rally, you know what I mean, as he insists on walking directly to whatever person is asking a question and sometimes listening for a longer time than he speaks afterward--this is the Great Communicator at the face-to-face level.
I agree, of course, with those who say that Obama does such a poor job of "selling" his ideas because he often has so poor a "product" of ideas to sell. But he was not selected on his substantive policy positions in a presidential campaign in which style was everything and content was nothing. The campaign and his presidency seem to verify the old saw that there's a hell of a difference between great campaigning and good governance. No wonder that Mr. Green is so disappointed that the whiz kids of his campaign have become the bunglers of his presidency.
Some early campaign footage of Obama campaigning in front of Southern African-Americans audiences attempting to emulate that gospel preacher Ebonics-laced rhetoric is black-mail worthy. That and his attempts to connect to French audiences by lecturing to them about addressing the I/P conflict would do nothing to address grievances since the terrorists were out to get us.
Cringe.
Obama is rightly considered one of the most eloquent and moving speakers in American political history.
I would rather be as tongue-tied as George Wanker Bush but accomplish something real for people, than be the valedictorian in a bordello.
Yes, very true, Obomba is an eloquent and moving speaker and that is why I would submit that he is not so much a miscommunicator as a super, slick con man that fooled a lot of people into believing he was not part of the crime family called Congress, which is made up of mostly attorneys that represent the MIC and the vested interests of Pharma and the super wealthy.
Prof. Green,
You finally are starting to see what many of us saw months ago: Obama is a fraud (we did not vote for him). Like the other Dems and Reps, he is a sellout to the highest bidder. I hope current Obama supporters who still are feeling the effects of his kool aid will finally start to see the grim reality that he has no intention of helping middle and lower class people. Thus, these supporters need to do one of two things: switch to a third party or help change the political system.
You say he is a sellout to the highest bidder.
He's the president, for crying out loud. He is secure for life in every possible way.
What is he selling, and why?
Money? Unlikely.
Power? He'll never have more, and no one can give him more.
You may not like his less than progressive agenda. I don't either.
But to simply yell "sellout!" is no answer.
He is selling influence. Going back to the time he was a Senator, he sold influence to Wall St. If you look at his long list of campaign contributors, you will find Wall Street financial institutions on it who were his largest donors.
To reply to your last point, yes there are institutions that can give him more power: the Military Industrial Complex, the shadow government, and the shadow bankers.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
THE SHADOW DO!
waiguoren July 29th, 2009 12:23 pm.......... FEW people, especially politicians, ever have enough money or power. AND, if somehow money and power are not the big motivators, fear is.
Talk about generic and general propositions, my word!
waiguoren July 29th, 2009 1:22 pm......Who was?
Here's what really bugs me. The discussions about health care are set around 'rising costs' and a dichotomy of 'no-coverage' versus 'good coverage', and they presume that 'good coverage' - like my state coverage - is great except for the rising cost to the employer. If O or his staff had the slightest connection to the real world, they would change the discussion points because there are significant issues here that the middle class could relate to:
1. 'Rising cost' is currently undefined. O, if he had any blood in his veins, ought to clearly and repeatedly explain that high costs are due to profit-making by insurance companies, and by private hospitals/physicians partnering with medical technology companies for profit. Rising costs are NOT due to hypochondriacal patients who demand expensive procedures, but you can be sure that the only plan for reducing costs will be more shifting of costs to patients, and more denial of routine procedures (i.e., those that offer little or no profit).
2. My 'good coverage' is a nightmare of co-pays, high deductibles, and uncertainty as to whether any procedure will be covered. I have a law degree, but I do not understand the byzantine coverage statements. It is a daily issue for every family with so-called 'good coverage' to wonder whether the emergency room x-ray of their child's broken arm will be covered, or what a prescription will cost. This uncertainty and confusion will not be resolved as long as we are subjected to private, for-profit heath insurance. O ought to counter the fear of 'government health care' by repeatedly reframing the issue to highlight the middle class experience with private health insurance.
But that would require a real connection with the middle class, and that is what O and his staff do not have.
In addition to all the uncertainties you mention in point 2, the person insured through a plan at the job is confronted with instabilities such as employers changing insurers, physicians dropping participation in plans. One's medical record is scattered all over the place. Choice of doctors is an illusion under they types of plans I have had.
As a computer person who worked at medical facilities, I can tell you there is a whole cat-and-mouse computerized medical billing industry to counter the ever-shifting insurance company rules. Insurance companies want to cut costs, and doctors and hospitals want to maximize revenue. The ongoing analysis and programming required creates a lot of wasteful overhead.
And as you imply, there is constant analysis the profitability of various procedures. Profitability is carefully measured as follows: what is charged minus the value of hospital resources required). Doctors are monitored to see what procedures they favor and are not so subtly encouraged to use the profitable options: treat depression with electroshock therapy (very profitable)or drugs (profitable) or counseling (not profitable). High Caesarian section rates are periodically criticized by state governing bodies, go down temporarily and then creep back up due to the billing superiority of C-sections. I am not speculating. Programmers are constantly called upon to mine data and design databases and programs to produce "Procedure Profitability Reports" and "Physician Performance Reports". Outcomes are not that important to the institution unless they lead to lawsuits or citations by the state. Outcome and patient oriented physicians are often treated as nuisances.
Single payer would reduce these problems. Funding stability would reduce those problems. Providing more salaried positions for physicians and loan forgiveness for medical education would reduce costs as well in the long run.
There will always be ethical dilemmas about who gets what and how, but they can be approached more humanistically and rationally if the domination of profit seeking insurance companies is reined in by competition from a public option and there is more room for preventative and holistic approaches to health.
Joe
Bravo! You went right to the center of the problem and showed how, if the will to solve existed, it could be solved.
Thank you
Is this article a thicket of confusion or is it just that I haven't had my morning coffee yet?
Obama is "centrist" and "regressive", yet he is not selling his progressive agenda well enough. Obama is a big disappointment, so let's bring back the the spiffy marketing that sold us the bill of goods in the first place.
Nostalgia for flim flam? Image is everything?
Coffee's ready.
I like Obama. I think many of you forget he got a majority of the votes, but over 40 % of the US voters voted for McCain. After seeing the way Bush did things, and ignored 50 % of the country (and even more as his popularity waned and he became more disconnected from the people), I'm fine with having Obama try to do a balancing act. His job is to convince a substantial majority of the people (I'd say about 60 %) to back him, and to get that support he needs to be very careful, and for the most part be at or near the center.
Or I suppose you'd rather see a left wing version of Bush, a person who runs towards the extreme end of the spectrum, ends up with very little popular support, and sinks his party in the process, so that Republicans can return to control things?
"Or I suppose you'd rather see a left wing version of Bush, a person who runs towards the extreme end of the spectrum, ends up with very little popular support, and sinks his party in the process, so that Republicans can return to control things?"
That's a strawman argument, and it doesn't work. Nobody wants a left wing version of the imperial chimp. However, polls do indicate that the great majority of USans favor a far-left political agenda. The people like extreme left because it means replacing extreme bad with extreme good. Like keeping all the rotten food out of your bowl, and putting lots of super fresh nutritious food in it. From our vantage point there's no benefit in "political balance".
fdoleza July 29th, 2009 6:53 pm...........Repugs are still controlling things. What has Obama done to reverse anything mangled in the past eight years? The only powers he is appeasing are the MIC, the CIA and Wall Street. The remainder are so screwed, they are still smoking that "cigarette" of golden rhetoric with post-orgasmic adrenalin still flowing through their systems as they rest their heads on that pillow and wait for the next shafting.
Oh yeah, I got the last sentence this time. That makes it a little better. I hope Mr. Green understands the irony in his use of "miscommunicator" in regard to Obama, but as he didn't explore it, I'm not sure he does.
We're all just celebrating the few remaining 'happy days' before the Big Event. Each in our own way, including Prof. Green.
Nothing makes sense anymore. Nonsense is, sense, as it were. Project for a New American Century!
Forgive him; he knows not what he does. Does anyone? ?? Project for a New American Century! Oh, did I say that already?
Cheers.
nedlud
Go to
www.9112010.com
for a nice well written story about PNAC et al.
It is a good read.
Professor Green sums up my response to our new president. I am normally one not given to hopefulness, but the election of Obama led me to believe that there was the possibility of a new FDR-JFK-type leader who could inspire the American people to be happy about the changes that need to be made. Now he's looking more and more like a "beard," a neo-JuniorBush made over in the style and rhetoric of a progressive. It's as if the Establishment (you know who they are) said, "If we give 'em a black guy who can talk real good and say all the stuff they like hearing, then we can go on with and get back to business as usual, including that Afghanistan war we're so happy with."
It's disturbing because he still seems to be completely sincere, relaxed in his utterances, and confident that he's doing the right thing the right way despite all evidence to the contrary. He's still likable (but in the beginning, so was Bill Clinton).
I hope he will rise to the occasion as conditions worsen (which they are doing and will continue to do so), but I am quite uneasy about the outcome if (more likely, when) the people who pinned their hopes on BHO begin to feel like they've been royally snookered and the fear and anger seething just below the surface begins to show.
"he still seems to be completely sincere, relaxed in his utterances, and confident that he's doing the right thing the right way despite all evidence to the contrary. He's still likable"
I.E. he's just a f*cking ACTOR just like Reagan and Clinton and all othe rest of these politicians. Stop deceiving yourself. You've been HAD.
It does now seem that we've been "had," and the tone of your reply demonstrates exactly the kind of anger that I'm afraid our been-haditude is in the process of unleashing. But all politicians are performance artists. Name one who has ever been successful who wasn't an actor. Stop deceiving myself and do what? The last national politician I worked for and hoped would win was Lyndon Johnson, the "peace" candidate, and we now know how that worked out. This time I tried to suppress a bit of my worst-case-scenario mind bias and actually did hope that this one would at least try to live up the role he was playing, and that maybe we wouldn't be had quite so bad.
OK. I've stopped deceiving myself about our new president. He's a phony with a heartfelt belief in his own b.s.
What now?
I think it would be useful to realize where the sources of power are...in the corporate boardrooms, banks, and in the extensive machinery that greases the corporate way. Why so much emphasis on the front man in a plutocracy?
Personally, I don't think we will be serious until we are able to organize resistance in the form of massive boycotts and widespread civil disobedience which will entail significant risk as well as a final rejection of life in a manipulative corporate state. I'm not saying it will happen. I just think it is necessary.
On the other side of the scale of real change is building an economy and society free of the corporate stranglehold. People are doing this right now in the form of the localization and post-petroleum movements. These correspond with peoples and cultural movements throughout the world that are growing despite massive and violent corporate intrusion. Things look dark, but all is not dark. Forget Obama and hope. The bonfires around the world are where hope resides. We need many more in this country.
"Why so much emphasis on the front man in a plutocracy?", I ask. I'll answer myself. Because it's useful to the plutocracy, one of their primary diversions. It works, obviously.
Not being a believer in "Jesus"---I still use the following analogy when communicating this thought, simply because there are millions of Americans who do.
"America?. If they elected 'Jesus' as president on Monday----if he was not doing what the 'money guys' told him to do on Tuesday, they would kill him all over again on Wednesday".
Until the American people dismantle the Plutocratic Oligarchy that has been their 'government' from the beginning they will never know a 'Democracy'.
The election of Barack Obama to the presidency, and his subsequent 'performance' should be all of the proof that anyone with even a marginal intelligence ratio would need to realize that they are simply 'slaves' to a Plutocratic Oligarchy. They will remain so until they change it; or they collapse from the weight of their own corruption.
From all of the 'evidence' now available from the 'other collapses' that history reveals the USA is in the earliest stages of their own collapse. They seem to be 'rushing headlong into an acceleration' with their current behavior.
Good Luck America, you really need it.
They'd probably not literally kill him, but get him entrapped in a sting operation at Mary Magdaleine's house.
Absolutely!
One of the cardinal rules of defamation mechanics in PR is that martyrs are a no-no. Bickbiteing, slander, gossip, negative echo chambers, etc. is the modern corporate way.
This article is far too long (as is usually the case with Prof Green).
But DMG finally answers his own question in the piece's very last sentence: the reason the Obama admin stinks at marketing is because they've got nothing to sell.
In other words, it's hard to be "moving and eloquent" when all you're really doing is helping Wall St & the military-intelligence complex screw the whole US population.
I agree.
Joe
The die was cast long ago, the deals were made and the MSM collaborated (as always)...with Hillary, Bush and the Bilderbergs. McCain and Palin were sacrificial wolves. Obama would not be there if the regime deemed otherwise. "Blinded by the Light"...more likely the dark. It's up to We the People...always has been. Get used to fascism...it's here in it's full glory.
Miscommunication, my butt...lies. Pay attention to what these deceivers do, not what they say.
easydoesit July 29th, 2009 10:30 am
"It's up to We the People...always has been."
Absolutely!
Like you, many of us believe that big-money controls every branch of this government to a significant degree. Obama knew this before he ran for president and he now knows just how powerful these people are.
With that said, the only thing that remains with me about Obama's address on election night and in many previous speeches, was his repeated message that he needed the help of "the people" to effect change.....that he alone could not accomplish the needed changes. If he didn't want "the people" to get involved in their own government, why would he have repeated this so many times and with such conviction? Was this his way of telling us that he will have little control over the powers that be and that only "the people" making demands in great numbers can effect change?
As far as I'm concerned, the Obama Code still hasn't been broken.
Gail July 29th, 2009 11:39 am............I understand your point. BUT, If leadership must speak in "code", the validity of the leadership itself is compromised; read weak. This means he has already shown his hand and the game is lost.
If the fear is assassination, he's in the wrong business (unless he is there FOR business and not the people); it may be best to become a used car salesman.
easydoesit July 29th, 2009 12:08 pm
I hear you, but under the circumstances, can we place complete blame on him because "we-the-people" failed to grasp the message.....a message which was loud and clear?
Maybe I have a need to hold on to hope or believe that if you give the perps enough rope, they'll eventually hang themselves.
Here's a quote from Bernanke: "I don't think we'll ever completely eliminate financial crises, but there are ways to make sure one this severe never happens again." How many financial crises does this guy believe "the people" will tolerate before we take to the streets and demand reform and justice? The gallows are moving closer every day, especially with the never-ending job losses ahead of us.
Let's not give up the fight!
Gail July 29th, 2009 1:22 pm...........Believe me, I have no intention of giving up the fight. But I do not expect Obama to be in our corner under any circumstances. I've seen his hand and it's all bluff and rhetoric. You cannot be on the side of We the People and continue to bomb women and children. AND call the happenings on 9/11 FACT.....as he did in Cairo: attributing the deaths of 9/11 and since 9/11 unquestioningly to 19 hijackers with boxcutters.....Just does not mix.
Obama is so in favor of "the people" that he kept single payer health care off the table.
Obama is so in favor of "the people" that he ignored us when we all cried out against his big giveaways of our tax dollars to the financial sector.
What kind of "help" from "the people" is he talking about? Obama, along with our senators and representatives, just ignores us when we speak out. Or is he asking for demonstrations, which won't be covered by the media unless they become violent, in which case they will be covered and used as opportunities to further marginalize our demands?
I concur!
"What kind of "help" from "the people" is he talking about?"
From the beginning, single-payer was off the table. With 72% of the population wanting a strong public option, something like "Medicare for all," what more could Obama ask? Doctors and nurses have put their lives on the line, and were arrested -- the Baucus 13. Huge demonstrations have taken place, petitions have been delivered, letters have been written, etc. Citizens, themselves, as well as former health industry professionals, have testified before congress -- Linda Peeno, as far back as 1996, and more recently, Wendell Potter of CIGNA. The last time I checked, 72% is a strong majority. Still, our elected officials don't listen, and neither does President Obama.
And, the bank bailouts are still being protested -- I have attended three rallies. Wall Street is rebounding, and fast. I still don't know how "jobless" and "recovery" can be used in the same sentence.
Kay Johnson July 29th, 2009 7:58 pm........So true...Give We the People multi-trillions of dollars (last figure I heard is that the 700 billion has grown to something in the area of 27 trillion) and see how damn fast we rebound. What a felonious farce was the bailout..."pass it or I'll have to mandate martial law"...so said the chimp.
Swallow your pill, take the vaccine. Respect the right of the rich to rule. There is no 'right' save that right.
This is Amerika!