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We Have the Hope. Now Where's the Audacity?
On Aug. 25 last year, Sen. Edward Kennedy strode onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Denver and announced to a roaring crowd of party faithful the beginning of a new generation in American politics.
"I have come here tonight to stand with you, to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States," he said. Comparing Obama to his slain brother, John F. Kennedy, the senator shouted: "This November, the torch will be passed again to a new generation of Americans. . . . Our country will be committed to his cause. The work begins anew. The hope rises again. And the dream lives on."
Eight months into the Obama administration, as we mourn the senator from Massachusetts, many of us retain the hope, but we are wondering what happened to the audacity that is needed to move the country in a new direction. In recent weeks, many progressives have expressed concern that Obama's bold plan to reform health care may be at risk. A defeat on this key issue could undermine other elements of his agenda. We don't believe that the president has changed his goals, but we wonder whether he underestimated the power necessary to bring about real change.
Throughout the campaign, Obama cautioned that enacting his ambitious plans would take a fight. In a speech in Milwaukee, he said: "I know how hard it will be to bring about change. Exxon Mobil made $11 billion this past quarter. They don't want to give up their profits easily."
He explained what it would take to overcome the power of entrenched interests in order to pass historic legislation. Change comes about, candidate Obama said, by "imagining, and then fighting for, and then working for, what did not seem possible before."
Obama observed: "That is how workers won the right to organize against violence and intimidation. That's how women won the right to vote. That's how young people traveled south to march and to sit in and to be beaten, and some went to jail and some died for freedom's cause."
But in the battle for health-care reform, the president and his allies are ignoring his own warning. The struggle for universal medical insurance -- one that Kennedy began pushing more than 40 years ago, and that looked winnable only a few months ago -- is in trouble.
For months the president insisted that any significant reform of the health-care system include a "public option" -- an expanded version of Medicare that would compete with private insurance companies, pressuring them to reduce costs and providing Americans with greater choice. Republicans have made it clear that they won't support any plan that competes with the insurance industry or challenges its runaway costs and irresponsible practices.
Obama would like, but doesn't need, Republican votes to achieve his goal. But seven conservative Democratic senators -- led by Max Baucus (Mont.) and including Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Mary Landrieu (La.) and Arlen Specter (Pa.) -- oppose the public option as well. So by shilling for the insurance industry, they've made it thus far impossible for Obama to take advantage of the Democrats' majority in the Senate.
In the past few weeks, Obama has hinted that he might settle for reform without a public option, thus assuaging the Baucus caucus and the insurance industry but angering many of his progressive supporters.
At the same time, Obama's readiness to compromise hasn't mollified members of the small but vocal right-wing Republican network who, egged on by the conservative echo chamber, have disrupted town hall meetings across the country, warning of "socialized medicine" and other impending catastrophes. This has made it harder for Obama to argue for his proposals and has hurt his standing in public opinion polls.
If the unholy alliance of insurance industry muscle, conservative Democrats' obfuscation and right-wing mob tactics is able to defeat Obama's health-care proposal, it will write the conservative playbook for blocking other key components of the president's agenda -- including action on climate change, immigration reform and updates to the nation's labor laws.
What went wrong?
The White House and its allies forgot that success requires more than proposing legislation, negotiating with Congress and polite lobbying. It demands movement-building of the kind that propelled Obama's long-shot candidacy to an almost landslide victory. And it must be rooted in the moral energy that can transform people's anger, frustrations and hopes into focused public action, creating a sense of urgency equal to the crises facing the country.
Remember that the Obama campaign inspired an unprecedented grass-roots electoral movement, including experienced activists and political neophytes. It deployed 3,000 organizers to recruit thousands of local volunteer leadership teams (1,100 in Ohio alone). They, in turn, mobilized 1.5 million volunteers and 13.5 million contributors. And throughout the campaign, Obama reminded supporters that the real work of making change would only begin on Election Day.
Once in office, the president moved quickly, announcing one ambitious legislative objective after another. But instead of launching a parallel strategy to mobilize supporters, most progressive organizations and Organizing for America -- the group created to organizeObama's former campaign volunteers -- failed to keep up. The president is not solely responsible for his current predicament; many progressives have not acknowledged their role.
Since January, most advocacy groups committed to Obama's reform objectives (labor unions, community organizations, environmentalists and netroots groups such as MoveOn) have pushed the pause button. Organizing for America, for example, encouraged Obama's supporters to work on local community service projects, such as helping homeless shelters and tutoring children. That's fine, but it's not the way to pass reform legislation.
One Obama campaign volunteer from Delaware County, Pa., put it this way soon after the election: "We're all fired up now, and twiddling our thumbs! . . . Here, ALL the leader volunteers are getting bombarded by calls from volunteers essentially asking 'Nowwhatnowwhatnowwhat?' "
Meanwhile, as the president's agenda emerged, his former campaign volunteers and the advocacy groups turned to politics as usual: the insider tactics of e-mails, phone calls and meetings with members of Congress. Some groups -- hoping to go toe-to-toe with the well-funded business-backed opposition -- launched expensive TV and radio ad campaigns in key states to pressure conservative Democrats. Lobbying and advertising are necessary, but they have never been sufficient to defeat powerful corporate interests.
In short, the administration and its allies followed a strategy that blurred their goals, avoided polarization, confused marketing with movement-building and hoped for bipartisan compromise that was never in the cards. This approach replaced an "outsider" mobilizing strategy that not only got Obama into the White House but has also played a key role in every successful reform movement, including abolition, women's suffrage, workers' rights, civil rights and environmental justice.
Grass-roots mobilization raises the stakes, identifies the obstacles to reform and puts the opposition on the defensive. The right-wing fringe understood this simple organizing lesson and seized the momentum. Its leaders used tactics that energized their base, challenged specific elected officials and told a national story, enacted in locality after locality.
It is time for real reformers to take back the momentum.
In the past two weeks, proponents of Obama's health-care reform finally woke up. They showed up in large numbers at town hall meetings sponsored by elected officials across the nation.
The president himself used his bully pulpit with more resolve, attending public events and addressing conference calls with religious groups, unions and others to urge them to mobilize on behalf of reform.
What's needed now is a campaign to shift the ground beneath Congress. First, it must concentrate on winning support for a specific bill that incorporates the key principles Obama has been advocating: universal insurance coverage, no denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, the public option and controls on exorbitant drug and insurance industry costs. The Limbaugh loyalists know what they are against. But Obama and his allies have to be clear about what they are for.
Challenging the right wing's framing of the issue, Organizing for America and the activist groups need to recruit volunteers to reach out to friends, neighbors and especially the "undecided" public with the same urgency, energy and creativity that they showed in the election.
Second, the campaign must focus attention on the insurance companies that are primarily responsible for the health-care mess. This means organizing public events across the country that can articulate Americans' frustrations with the current health insurance system and polarize public opinion against the insurance companies and their allies.
Americans who are paying the price of our failure to act -- people who lost family members because they were denied coverage for preexisting conditions, people who can't afford health insurance and fear that a medical emergency would wipe them out, families who went bankrupt and lost their homes because of out-of-pocket medical expenses, and businesses that suffer because of the high cost of insurance for employees -- need opportunities to publicly confront those responsible for their plight. It is time to put human faces on the crisis by contrasting their stories with the insurance companies' outrageous profits and top executives' exorbitant salaries and bonuses.
This requires "movement" tactics, from leaflets, vigils and newspaper ads to nonviolent civil disobedience -- such as occupying insurance company offices and picketing the homes of insurance executives -- to focus attention on the companies and individuals who are the major obstacles to reform. As long as the real source of the problem remains faceless (or can hide behind seven conservative Democratic senators), the right remains free to demonize "big government" rather than greedy corporations.
Third, the campaign must educate constituents of the Baucus caucus about their senators' political and financial dependence on the insurance industry and other opponents of reform. They need to ask these conservative Democrats: Which side are you on? If they won't support real reform, they should know that a primary challenge is likely.
This strategy could begin to restore the combination of hope and audacity that drives successful reform movements -- and that put Obama in the White House.
Kennedy understood that reforming health care is a moral obligation, and that the responsibility to heal the sick is at the heart of every faith tradition and is required for a civilized society. He was hoping to live long enough to see it happen. Obama and people of conscience cannot allow that victory -- and that tribute to the late senator -- to slip away.
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97 Comments so far
Show AllThis piece, while sort of telling the truth, lacks passion... just like Obama does. Obama had a lot more passion when he was running for office.
If you look at how many ways he has betrayed the trust of his constituents since taking office, you realize that he and his team haven't forgotten anything... the motivation just isn't there. If the motivation were there, he would have selected a different team.
It is a warning... that tells anyone listening carefully... that no matter what kind of health care plan Obama signs, it will not work as well as any of the other plans in place in other Western democracies. Half the country is brainwashed into believing that government doesn't work and half of those in government are committed to making sure government doesn't work. A nation so divided can't work. Appeasement will not bring us together. The only thing that can, is a commitment and a passion in honoring the truth. But that takes real courage and who do we know in government that has that kind of courage?
Sioux Rose
Mr. Dreier certainly remains enamored with Obama. The whole article exalts the presumption that Obama is a man of the people and genuinely cares about progress for "the little man" and "woman." We have volleyed this premise 'round the CD forum, and it comes down to facts. One or two compromises strategically made to retain the status quo is one thing, but capitulating on EVERY meaningful policy (or decision) is quite another. And that approach ostensibly defines Obama's modus operandi. The new prez talks a good game, but plays the insidious role of deflecting all that raw human energy that amassed in response to the DEADLY policies of the Bush junta. Yet the wheels continue to turn ON course, and it's a course that has led to more and more wealth aggregating upwards, and worse and worse conditions for "the people." Nor is meaningful representation anywhere to be found.
The author uses the phrase, "As the president's agenda emerged" to suggest that Obama really WANTS reforms that benefit citizens. In reality, he just plays a little chess to move a few pawns knowing the other pieces on the board are close to setting up a virtual check-mate; yet it's not the queen that's lost, but the rights and necessities of citizens. In other words, what we have is a REBRANDING of bull shit and policies that are detrimental to the nation and most of its citizens, not to mention a great many citizens residing in other lands, those that have resources our amoral corporations want access to. As has been shown decade after decade in America's foreign policy, our military is used like a hitmen acting on behalf of the corporate chairmen of the boards.
The U.S. is NOT above the law of karma, and much time has been given for it to change course. It is a tragedy that when things were moving in such a disastrous direction, a new leader came aboard to promise the people something else, while holding the ship of state to the same awful course. For this author to lend apology after apology, and use words to clothe this president with the cloak of good intentions is either grossly naive or outright disgusting. It asks us to deny our own wisdom and the evidence before our eyes, in pursuit of tickets to the good ship lollypop, a/k/a hope... the ship destined to crash on some kick-ass karmic rocks.
Sioux Rose, well stated as always. I had to wonder at the author's phrase "many progressives have expressed concern that Obama's bold plan to reform health care may be at risk." What bold plan would that be?
The author goes on to say: "First, it must concentrate on winning support for a specific bill that incorporates the key principles Obama has been advocating: universal insurance coverage, no denial of coverage for preexisting conditions, the public option and controls on exorbitant drug and insurance industry costs."
Nowhere in this article or any other MSM rag, no place on TV or town hall, does our Pres (or even these maveric journalists) boldly declare that there IS a SPECIFIC BILL that is what Americans need, HR 676.
I'm getting so tired of hearing about Grass-roots movements, a phrase that has been almost as overused and abused as "bi-partisan". One President with the backbone to stand up and demand Single Payer, as Rep Anthony Wiener has done, would equal a thousand determined "grass roots" movements.
Sioux Rose
ELAINE: Thank you. Your own analysis is very sharp here, too.
This last phase of the Piscean Age relies upon deception, and with so much dis-information and adulteration of LANGUAGE (hello, George Lakoff), far too many persons are left bamboozled. They know something is wrong (and I agree with KIVALS that the uniting of so-called left and right wings of the U.S. population would function as the best strategic means for taking down the elites that rule like corrupt kings, with equal disregard for the well-being of their "subjects"), but are being quite skillfully led to the wrong "sources" upon which to project their growing angst. The confusion factor is being purposely drummed up. Chaos makes unity nearly impossible. These elites knew how to purchase and make use of the lessons drawn from Ph.D psychologists and what they could reveal about human nature. The last line in my book on This Final Phase of the Piscean Age is "how will dreamers come to recognize THE awakened state"?
It may well be that after the battles, those born from intense anger, settle down, those still left standing will gain a sobering awakening as they survey the field and note what's left. From the ashes the Phoenix rises, and perhaps learns to appreciate the simple things more, having had a brush with death.
Bamboozled indeed. We think we have to oppose each other and then compromise in a bi-partisan way. In one of Obama's first speeches he talked about how he wanted to assure us that he would act in a "bi-partisan manner", and I thought Uh-oh, that's BS-speak for making congress look good while screwing the American people.
And O has done nothing to sort out the "confusion factor" as you so aptly put it. In fact, with his vague nattering about a "public option" he actually foments more misunderstanding.
Let's face it, our whole system is based on one set of people being the IN crowd while the rest are "Other". If all of us downtrodden Others united, as you & Kivals say, we would have a chance at busting up the IN crowd. But the IN crowd knows that and works hard to manufacture differences, albeit ridiculous trifling differences ala poor Terry Schiavo.
The healthcare issue is singularly important in that we can all agree that we all need healthcare. Holy Crap! Something we can all agree on! The walls will come tumbling down and change the way we all think. That can't happen, not even once, or the whole system of steadfastly doing shit that's against our best interest would fall apart.
To me health care is THE issue for the American people to unite around. How this goes will show how the rest of the century will go.
I guess our chore as progressives is to keep it simple, keep it on a human level, and keep hate and divisiveness out of our conversations. Again I point to Rep. Wiener as a man who has kept it simple. We all need to ask the same questions he has asked: What service do the insurance companies provide to you for your healthcare dollar? Why are we paying some heartless agency to come between us and our doctors?
When people realize that these are the important questions, healthcare for all will be left standing and the corporations making profits on our blood will be in the ashes.
"I guess our chore as progressives is to keep it simple, keep it on a human level, and keep hate and divisiveness out of our conversations."
Many progressives seem to have a very difficult time with that approach to dialogue in general. It always seems to get overwhelmed by subordinate "special interests" that, at times, appear to emphasize their devisive aspects over all others. It's almost like some childish playground competition claiming superior victimhood for various societal sub-groupings.
Excellent Sioux Rose and in addition ,let's not forget that karma precedes the inauguration of Obama. Obama is a reflection of past misdeeds by all of us. If we subscribe to the all inclusive laws of karma then we as a country must accept our own complicity in creating Obama. We have been sailing into those rocks for a long time. I personally feel that America has been creating cruelty from it's inception, and now we are finally becoming aware of what has always been.
Sioux Rose
SIRIOS: While it is true that there is that entity known as "national karma," it is NOT true that there is a veritable WE that is responsible. Many of us have worked most of our lives to do what we could to offset these very outcomes. I know I have tried as a writer and teacher.
When Hurricane Andrew leveled much of South Miami/Homestead 10 or so years ago, I had the opportunity to speak with residents returning to Homestead. There is a parable in the Old Testament about the angel of death passing over some homes, but impacting others. I asked people if they noticed any pattern, that is which members of their family incurred the greatest amounts of property damage. I wanted to know if the really KIND family members were spared the greater destruction. Admittedly this was my own ad hoc "study," but what I heard confirmed my beliefs.
Obama is a creation of a portion of America, certainly not all. We cannot underplay the influence of deception over his election. America, as an entity, is responsible for its use of free will, but when the population's mandate is ignored, when elections are fabrications or media events where powerful buzz words are used to forge a consent that's not based on anything real, then the premise of free will or responsiblity is itself obscurred.
I have had this discussion with respect to drug addicts and alcoholics. There is a point early on when choice operates, that is, they are not yet UNDER the full tidal undertow posed by their addiction. ONLY at that point is choice available. Otherwise the substance subsumes their will and twists their mind in support of its demands on their time, energy, and priorities. They become its slave. Whether we acknowledge ours as a nation of addicts (it is), or otherwise, the premise of choice has become very nebulous. True choice emerges from clarity of mind, and a balanced outlook. Decades of media co-optation of mental focus has seriously undermined both of these facets, those necessary to free will.
On the other hand, the karmic implications of the next few years are incredibly significant. I will soon post a serious overview on my website.
Oh,there is a "we' but maybe not you in this case. I don't know. My point is, that if you are identified with personality then some of that identification will seep out into the "we". Working against something even though loftier, is still engaging in polarity. Taking a position on one side or the other entrenches both parties in a little deeper with each encounter. Entrenchment is divisive in nature and requires defense of ones position, which adds to the overall stress of the atmosphere. So, the "we" is always waiting in the wings unless all identification with individual is dropped. Even the attempt to right a wrong does not come with a license of superior exclusion. Engaging the world in thought or action places us in the "we" no matter what the intent. Karma may have placed us here to correct evil, or to participate in it, either way it places us in the "we". If you are successful at halting the lies and chaos, wonderful , but at some point the belief that "i did it" appears in ones awareness and that new collective group that stopped evil now becomes the new target. The success will be stored in memory as "if i did it once i can do it again" and thus begins the complicity in the defense to save righteousness, and a new "we" is born.
Sioux Rose
SIRIOS: I do at times fall into the polarity trap. Hey, there's night and day, male and female (although it would seem a third sex is emerging from some of those who rebel against gender in how they dress, change their bodies, etc.), and so many reminders of it all around us. However, I teach the circle for a reason. Embedded hidden geometric relationships between the invisible points (the triangle, the square, etc.) suggest maps or occult directions for overcoming seeming polarities, the illusion of irreconcilable opposition(s). On a personal level I know that when I am angry, I contribute to the fiery rage that fuels Mars in this world. I am pretty good at turning the other cheek, have had AMPLE opportunities to practice forgiveness, and realize that when I step out of the consciousness of love, I am the one who suffers. This is a universal truth, so it behooves us to stay IN that place of light that begins in our heart-centers. Being a kid from the l960's, I have always honored sacred ecology and try to teach others to use less and appreciate more. Teaching constitutes THE great work. I have a friend who insists we can only teach by example. She is far more tolerant of human stupidity than I am. She insists that people know when they are doing something wrong, abusing their own bodies or someone else's. She thinks I overstep their boundaries when I sometimes deliver a message they may or may not wish to hear. I figure if I am crossing their paths and MOVED to speak (or act), then there's cause to in fact deliver said missive. Much depends on our intent. Is it based on ego, a wish to harm or feel superior to the other individual? Or is it motivated on the basis of spirit, a realization of love being extended via compassion.
Each of us must ultimately answer for our own actions & choices; and there are also the webs of family karma that extend to city, national, and world karma. Thinking of these as energetic spider web threads is useful. That analogy helps us realize why and how the plucking of our own individual "strand" can influence the entirety of the great communal web.
Sioux Rose, a very beautiful and heartfelt reply ,thank you.
RIGHT ON--keep telling it like it is!
Sioux Rose,
I wish you could debate President Obama. You'd make him limp away after five minutes. Have you considered offering your talents to Cindy Sheehan?
Nice to hear you again.
Sioux Rose
AGG: What powerful praise. Gracias. It means a lot coming from a mind like yours. I sent one of my books to Ms. Sheehan, and if she ever needed help writing a speech (I don't think she does!), I'd be HAPPY to come aboard.
Captain Jim: Thank you, too. It's good to have time to participate in this forum. When I travel I seize every free moment to "check in," but it's impossible to keep up with the long threads when I step outside the daily postings. I haven't mastered the art of jumping rope, changing trains and standing still. Yet.
Ummm yes, Sioux Rose, I agree that your arguments could be used to benefit us all if Ms. Sheehan accepted your assistance.
However, you'd inevitably digress into your astrological superstitions, which would distort all arguments and give people the impression that you're a wack job. Now before you or anyone else attacks me for ridiculing your beliefs, let's imagine you use Christian superstitions instead. Would not a great number of CD contributors write you off as an evangelical wack job?
Arguments and assertions in this forum will be much more effective when based on logic, reason, and empirical evidence.
Sioux Rose
AD HOC: It is precisely that level of arrogance that got the world to its present destination, a calamitous one at that.
There is a reason why the human brain owns two distinct hemispheres. And by analogy a reason why there are two genders. For the vast majority of the past 3000 years ONLY the masculine orientation has been granted credence or the stamp of academe. The whole apparatus reminds me of the way Galileo's beliefs were inconvenient to the church having already established the orthodoxy of an established earth-centered cosmology. When only one oar is allowed to navigate, the boat is destined to circle endlessly. THAT is why HIStory repeats. The OTHER voice is absent and has been absented by "the controllers."
There is a place for didactic reasoning, the mechanical function of the mind, a species of intellectual inquiry that uses facts in sequences along the lines of solving a mathematical equation. This is far from the only valid way to arrive at a world view, or experience intelligence. There is a more diffusive form of inspired thought that melds the lower thought processes with a higher, more unifying sense of the way things connect. I cannot impart to you what my mystical exposures have taught me.
I find it amusing and sometimes more than irritating that women like myself who possess a very refined form of sentience, an understanding that designated us heretics, "dangerous" to the state, and summarily executed... are not only targeted, denigrated, and demeaned by the right wing religiously intolerant authoritarians, but meet the same fate (a bit more gentle, perhaps) coming from equally intolerant, authoritarian thinkers on the left.
Until such time as your own consciousness lifts you out of the shell in which it dwells, one that finds satisfaction in thinking it alone can speak for the ways of this world based on its limited conjecture and equally limited five senses (their range being tapered from birth to suit the constraints of a society more interested in crippling the consciousness of its members, then risking their flying over the collective cuckoo's nest), you will in fact find my words to be jibberish.
Wow, 360 words and you didn't answer my question. You really would make a great politician.
What does this have to do with gender inequality? What I wrote had absolutely nothing to do with you being a woman, man, hermaphrodite, or whatever. I simply stated that your "mystical" superstitions are in no way apropos to a logical debate.
Again, I ask you: if we replaced all your talk about the moon and the stars with that of Jesus or Moses or Mohammed, would your arguments be any less credible?
What a Cop out. Obama could have hit the ground running by executive order alone. He didn't need to even consult with congress never mind need their cooperation. He could end all the wars in the Middle East tomorrow if he wanted to. He could order a truth and reconciliation commission to investigate nd prosecute Bush. He could close all the black prisons including Gitmo. He could stop fighting court decisions demanding transparency. He could invoke the Symington amendment and cut off all aid to Israel until they submit to NPT oversight. He could authorize Egypt to open the Gaza border and break the criminal siege. He could have stopped the bailouts to the banks. He could support REAL reform in our financial system. He could set the stage for the abolition of the FED by doing exactly what JFK did by authorizing the printing of silver and gold backed currency by the treasury. That and more could have been done in his first 100 days. Then with the vast, vast majority of the American people behind him he could have pushed publicly for the Blue Dogs to either get with the program or instigate their impeachment as obstructions to the will of the people.
The sad fact is that his inaction on the things he can control is just more proof that he is just a more telegenic pitchman for the same old crap.
FRED54: This is a fine conpendium of some the Obama "hopes" that could have been fulfilled with but a minimum of actual "audacity," since the doing of them is well within the limits of his legitimate authority as President. Specifically to the point about his ability to alter the course of Middle Eastern affairs, I wrote at the time of his "Cairo speech" in June that a trip to that region could have produced actual results had he but had the courage of a Reagan to go to the Berlin Wall and say "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down his wall!" He could have gone to Bethlehem and said "Mr. Netanyahu, tear down this separation wall!" or to the Egyptian border with Gaza and said: "Mr. Mubarek, tear down this sanctions-maintaining fence!" Of course he didn't do these things, but made a "speech" scolding Arabs for their violence and then went straight to Buchenwald to bolster his pro-Israeli identity. Had he backed these demands with withdrawal of support for Israel and Egypt, he easily could have accomplished some of his pious "hopes." http://sunstateactivist.org/ssablog/?p=251
Fred54, you're joking right? You're advocating that Obama abuse the same executive powers Bush and Cheney abused, but in the name of a liberal/progressive agenda.
Although I agree that most of 'could have' points you made would actually be beneficial, Obama needs to respect the US Constitution. Advancing this the Bush precedent of using the Congress only when convenient will open the door for a future neocon president to unilaterally attack nations and enact decrees by executive order. Is this really what you want?
Well, to be honest... I wish it were true that half of those in government were committed to government working. Then we might have a chance.
Obama's very basic, very obvious mistakes in reforming health care seem incredibly stupid... unless one examines them from the perspective that true reform was never the plan to begin with. In that case, Barack and Rahm look quite like the clever people they are... "We tried! We really did!" while having no intention of meaningful change. "Hope" was also Bill Clinton's theme (he was "The Man from Hope", remember) and this is looking a lot like the return of the Clinton administration. Especially since so many of the faces are the same.
This is so true. They never really wanted any true reform to begin with.
Amen Hawkwind.
""We tried! We really did!" while having no intention of meaningful change."
Yup.
The trouble isn't with progressives. The trouble is with whom the progressives help elect. Obama, et gang, seem to own allegiance only to special business interests. Obama, et gang, assume they can spin anything to the masses of hopefuls that mark an X for him. So, first it is "single payer", oops can't have that, then it's "public option" (whatever that possibly could be), then, oops, can't have that. It's control costs, oops must do a deal with the Drug companies, so, oops, who knows where that has gone.
Come on, enough with the excuses for the guy and his gang. Admit that preachy rhetoric isn't going to put bread on the table, re-built the mess from Katrina, stop killings abroad, stop torture, etc. etc. He's only words with no "fire-in-the-belly" for any issue that means anything to ordinary people. Obama appears happiest on a golf course with a billionaire banker in tow. I guess its hard to lecture that type of corporate tycoon about social responsibility so Obama can just kick-back and enjoy the luxury and know once he's finished as the POTUS he can expect even greater wealth and really, really good living to come. I'll bet you won't see Obama swinging a hammer for Habitat or taking any real position outside the business cocoon stilted world view once he leaves the WH.
What did PT say? Oh yeah, "a sucker is born ... ." Just great. Incidentally how is that HOPE AND CHANGE THING GOING?
True, I'm tired of pieces laying the blame on progressives on Obama's failure. When the vast majority of people agree with a forward thinking, compassionate future, and are completely ignored, I don't see how more sit ins are going to help change the minds of these bought out elected scum.
I often wonder if even PT Barnum himself fully understood how profoundly his own philosophy and outlook on life reflected the totality of American culture and its social, economic and political intercourse -- and maybe even its sexual intercourse for that matter.
I've oftentimes wondered that myself. How are the slick salesmen that sold the Joads their jalopy in The Grapes of Wrath different from Paulson and Bernake? Sometimes I read Bloomberg. They have this "Hahvahd" business type that comes up with some amazingly heartless predatory business articles slanted as good business tactics. Manipulation is persuasion and coercion is adequate leadership and so on. It's nauseating to see how totally dead to humane behavior our business culture is. Is this our soul? I hope not.
Oh, and don't forget the Ditka damage to sportsmanship with the "Winning is everything" statement.
Sir Terry Pratchett exposes the fallacy of "hope" in his very funny book "Going Postal". I can't put my hand on my copy just at the moment, so I can't quote from it.
But his thesis is that "hope" is exactly what makes us vulnerable to crooks like shell-game operators and lying politicians.
We know, deep down, that the shell we choose will not have the dried pea under it, nor will our lottery ticket be the winning one...but it *might*, and so we bet again. Time after time we trust the smoothest politician rather than the one with the best record. We hope he will keep his promises even though we know he won't, and it keeps us from doing anything that might actually change our circumstances.
The author says, "We don't believe that the president has changed his goals."
He didn't. He just changed the flavor of the CoolAid you're drinking. Maybe if you stopped judging him by the words coming out of his mouth and studied his past policy-making record you'd understand he's just telling you what you want to hear. He bought the office at a time when the other party with candidates that buy the office was in such disarray that their candidate and his running-mate were basically pathetic. CAMPAIGN SPENDING LIMITS
With all due respect, anyone who believes in Obama, is out of the loop of sensibility. Obama is a mouthpiece for those who run the world, the quiet bankers. Anyone, in academia no less, who does not see this, has had their noses focused on the official propaganda for far too long. U.S. elections are won by how much money is spent on them. From what I can tell, democracy is over. If we want to regain some power over our own lives, I cannot see operating through the official channels. I want justice now. I am finished with "the tranquilizing drug of gradualism", as Martin Luther King Jr. put it. The common theme of Common Dreams lately has all been centered around truthfulness. It seems clear that Obama is a pathological liar. Sorry, I know that's a bit harsh. But, I believe it. I don't believe Obama has capitulated on any of these issues. I don't believe he was honest in the first place. Although, he did really seem interested in the plight of the Palestinians before he was kidnapped by the Israeli Lobby, and sold his soul. We've got to quit thinking we'll have a Savior. One doesn't exist.
There are a couple of layers of truth lingering behind the official story. Our government wants us to be afraid of everyone, except them. I think that is about exactly opposite of how it should be. We've got to get away from the hero worship and start concentrating on values, principles and policy. We must look behind the curtain. Because behind that curtain is probably another curtain. What we're looking at on TV, in the theaters, in the White House, is not real. This an illusion created specifically for us. People, it's time to toss out the official story and start thinking for ourselves. This article is one example of how our educational system helps perpetuate the official myths. Obama is a shill for the bankers. He should be marginalized.
Excellently put. The Romans knew how to distract the population: Bread and Circuses. Quite funny really - American liberals indefinitely mesmerised by the dangling of shiny objects.
. . .And the dream lives on."
The Dream is living under a bridge. Obama banished it there.
If so, most others who also live there seem to have overlooked its arrival.
Representative government works when a candidate speaking to the issues of the people that would vote for them is elected by those people. When in office that candidate fights to represent the issues of those that voted for him.
Obama and the blue dogs represent the total failure of the system of representative government. They have become upon election empty vessels abandoning our system of government to fill themselves with that which they personally desire hoping to satisfy their feelings of total emptiness and void.
Obama is the sock puppet of industry and has abandoned those struggling financially yearning to be free from the oppression of industry that suppress their wages and prevents them from progressing toward their ideals. These are the people that Obama and the blue dogs have abandoned the very people that helped him win his high position.
He is the very clear picture of the total collapse of representative forms of governance.
Absolutely! Now what?
Absolutely! Now what?
We should not continue to reward those that lie to us by continuing to support them. We must rather direct our limited resources to those that do not lie to us and who are effective in challenging the status quo - CCR, ACLU, Democracy Now etc
crosskankl: While I agree with the thrust of your post, I would just urge that those who support the worthy organizations they support maintain vigilance as to whether they really do represent our best interests. A case in point for me is the ACLU, an organization I do "support" with monthly contributions, but about which I have had some problems in recent months. It started with what I saw as the booming silence of the organization in the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, in the process of which I thought the ACLU should go to bat in questioning the candidate about her views and record on constitutional issues related to matters of civil rights, an area in which the Court is precariously balanced between civil libertarians and those who would allow Presidents and Congresses much "leeway" in observing those rights, depending on "national security" situations. With Sotomayor now on the Court, today's news is that the Court will likely have a re-examination of a case involving the right of a corporation to produce and have publicly distributed a film about Hillary Clinton that was little more than a "hit" piece in last year's presidential election, and was deemed in violation of McCain-Feingold law limiting corporate contributions to political campaigns. This is being framed by the ACLU and others (but mostly not by other civil rights organizations) as a matter of preservation of "free speech" rights for corporations. As many have said on these comment boards, the issue of the personhood of a corporation may go to the heart of our ability ever to restrain the influence of corporate money on American elections, without which restraint we have not a democracy of "the people" but a corporatocracy of "the corporation." To find the ACLU that I "support" on the corporate free speech side of this controversy is disquieting to say the least. Has not "free speech" always been contingent on that speech not being damaging to the general welfare: can you falsely "speak" a shout of "fire" in a crowded room, can you falsely raise the flag of "free speech" when it takes the form of corporations buying our elections by their propaganda efforts? And, of course, did our Constitution ever envision treating a corporation as a "person" with "civil rights?"
Great post Jerry. Point well taken. I think a great part of the problem to which we are all more or less susceptible is our tendency to want to believe that achieving a just society should not require so much mental effort and vigilance. We think we can take shortcuts. So instead of holding our "favorite" people and institutions (ACLU, Obama, Whole Foods Market ??) accountable for their actions, which would be a relationship of equals, we seek a hero to worship or a fanclub to join, which is a relationship of servility. And when you're being servile or loyal there is no way that you're going to be holding anyone accountable. Loyalty to any person or group should never be allowed to trump important moral principles.
crossmankl: I totally agree with your comments. Just now I've faced a "moral principle" issue with the support of a faith-based alliance called Action Network which is trying to mobilize "liberal" church groups in support of a "comprehensive health care reform" measure which is going to mean, in effect, that pressure is being put on members of Congress to support the health care-industry crafted "reform" bill that will (if any bill does) come out of Congress. Last week a "conference call" with Obama (with his making a brief pep talk) was arranged for Network members throughout the country. Since "my" church is affiliated with this group and "our" principles are the "Christian" ones of the welfare of all people, who is going to oppose the Network's action? Well, I for one have withdrawn from their "mobilization" and pledged to myself to become "re-mobilized" with others seeking the genuine health care reform embodied in "off the table" HR 676. I'm not going to be popular in my church, but I'm already unpopular because I don't have an Obama sticker on my car, but a McKinney one. (Just like I'm not popular at ACLU which called up to ask me to up my contribution and I told them why I wouldn't: that they had dropped the ball on constitutional issues with the Sotomayor nomination.) Sticks and stones....but it's not easy offending your "friends."
Well said. Could not agree more. Let us concentrate on supporting those who do not lie to us and who seem to be our last hope for progressive change i.e. ACLU, Democracy Now, HRW, Amnesty International, CCR etc.
In fact, the U.S. does have an excellent representative democracy. One just has to understand which "corporate persons" actually get their pre-selected politicians elected and whom those politicians therefore represent. When that is clearly understood, it will be abundantly clear that the representation is very dedicated and faithful to a fault.
The U.S. is also perfectly faithful to the principles of republicanism, so long as one also understands that those same "corporate persons" constitute the people in whom sovereignty resides.
If, on the other hand, you're looking for a land where ordinary human citizens are sovereign and are actually represented by their government, the U.S. most definitely ain't it. In fact, the U.S. regards any such concepts as dangerously "populist" and looks upon any country that espouses them as intolerable threats to its own security.
Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely in the circumstances) ordinary Americans will actually fight and die in foreign lands to spread their form of (non)representative (non)republican democracy globally. Maybe it's true that misery does love company.
Do we have a real democracy in this country or is it a sham? Is it fixable as long as the big money owns the media and the politicians? Is there a legal way to fix this mess? Without democracy, how does the public (i.e. the non-rich majority) exert its will?
The author appears to be just another of what I have come to call Obama True Believers. These are people who fumed for 8 years while a band of thugs in the White House trampled over everything sacred. So when Obama came along he was welcomed as a saviour, a Messiah. It is much easier to believe than to know. In order to believe all you have to do is decide once on the basis of anything you please (he has a nice smile, he's a black man, he speaks so well, he seems so sincere). In order to know you have to go beyond and behind the rhetoric and obfuscation and acknowledge actions and behavior. (Particularly when the subject is a politician!)
If the author and other Obama True Believers were to start judging Obama by his actions (or inactions) rather than his words they would quickly come to see that his rhetoric bears no resemblance whatsoever to his behavior. That would lead to an unavoidable deduction: he is untroubled by the fact that his words and actions are at complete odds because he is insincere. Which would lead to another unavoidable deduction: he has played you like a fish. And this is an unacceptable conclusion because it is a)embarrassing to have been played like a fish and b)it is disappointing that the most inspiring rhetoric we have heard from a Democratic politician since JFK is empty and insincere and c)if Obama will not challenge the Military, Industrial, Media, Healthcare, Banking Complex then progressives have just lost what seems to be the best opportunity in at least a generation to bring about progressive change through party politics and therefore d)party politics and elections in America are just an elaborate and expensive pantomime which will never bring about progressive change.
You can see why Obama True Believers remain OTBs: it is much more comfortable and safe to remain in their little cocoon than to face such unsettling facts.
Of course if they were courageous enough they would realise that there is life after party politics. There are people and institutions all across America who are both outside party politics and dedicated to progressive and moral change - the ACLU, The Centre for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Amy Goodman's Democracy Now, Glenn Greenwald, Marcy Wheeler etc - they all need your help.
Sioux Rose
CROSSMAN & ABE W: Fine analyses.
Ditto.
This article is pure hog-wash which is intended to infiltrate a progressive site to confuse and dilute the severity of our national situation--Even the topic of health care has been over-rated--we have far more important issues to deal with before it can be dealt with properly. For instance how many billion a month are we now wasting in the combined arenas of war, death and destruction?
"intended to infiltrate a progressive site to confuse and dilute the severity of our national situation"
Infilitration, disruption and sabatoge of the left is a tradition of the big money. These websites are sitting ducks: easy to infiltrate to confuse and dilute as well as keep close tabs on what we're all thinking. A handy tool this internet is, indeed.