EMAIL SIGN UP!
Most Popular This Week
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- Disaster Capitalism Strikes as Hedge Funds Circle Near-Bankrupt Municipalities Like Vultures
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
- Patent Filing Claims Solar Energy ‘Breakthrough’
- Wisconsin Bill Would Treat Organic Milk, Sharp Cheddar, Brown Eggs as "Junk Food"
- Climate Change's 'Evil Twin': Ocean Acidification
- In 'March Toward Disaster,' World Hits 400 PPM Milestone
- Ignoring Bee Crisis, EPA Greenlights New 'Highly Toxic' Pesticide
Popular content
Today's Top News
Affectionate Jousting with Michael Tomasky
My good friend Michael Tomasky has a blog over at The Guardian...
I consider it what he called it in his subject line--an "affectionate joust." (Mike is an ace former Nation intern, a longtime friend, a brilliant writer and not-frequent-enough-in-my-view Nation contributor.) In his blog he takes on (some of) my comments on MSNBC's Ed Schultz show last night. (A little friendly cherry-picking, Mike!) I don't disagree with much of what Mike writes. My first reflex is certainly not to blame Obama. (See my column on "Obama, One Year On"--posted below, for more on why I think progressives would be wise to avoid reflexive criticism.) But I do think President Obama could step forward at this time, challenge lobbyists more directly, speak out more forcefully about the cruel Stupak language, call out self-righteous egotists like Joe Lieberman, demand some party unity on a bill that will define not only the Democratic party's future in 2010--but for a long while. And why not bring in LBJ? Sure history by analogy is often imperfect, but there are also lessons to be drawn from models of Presidential leadership.
What I did refer to on the Schultz show (in a 3 minute segment!) and what Mike fails to mention--is the desperate need for structural reform of a dysfunctional and increasingly anti-democratic body. (That would be the Senate) Here we agree. Mike writes that we need process reform of Congress--a grassroots movement to do away with the filibuster, for example. The Nation has been championing this critical reform for decades--most recently with must-read pieces by Thomas Geogeghan, William Greider and Chris Hayes. I also had the cojones to write an 8000 word essay--"Just Democracy"--in July 2008 which focused on the filibuster and laid out a passel of other pro-democracy reforms which groups like FairVote and Public Campaign have championed for many years.
And in a column I wrote on the first anniversary of Obama's election--taking stock of what has and hasn't been accomplished, disappointments and hopeful steps--I point to structural obstacles. Hell,I know one election isn't going to solve all of our problems. I post that column below, and hope Mike will link to it, because he must know that real short television segments do not do justice to the complexity of our arguments and ideas. That's why my job is to edit this rag.
Obama, One Year On
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
This article appeared in the November 23, 2009 edition of The Nation.
Barack Obama was elected president at a time defined by hope and fear in equal measure. It was a remarkable moment in our country's history--a milestone in America's scarred racial landscape and a victory for the forces of decency, diversity and tolerance. For the first time in decades, electoral politics became a vehicle for raising expectations and spreading hope while it mobilized millions of new voters. Obama's was a campaign built on the power and promise of change from below. At the same time, he was elected as the nation was rapidly sinking into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The night Obama was elected, relief was felt around the world. There was a widespread feeling that the United States had turned its back on eight years of destructive, swaggering unilateralism and was re-embracing the global community. In many ways, the election was a referendum on an extremist conservatism that has guided (and deformed) American politics and society since the 1980s. The spectacular failures of the Bush administration and the shifts in public opinion on the economy and the Iraq War presented a mandate for bold action and a historic opportunity for a progressive governing agenda.
A year later, it's clear we are a long way from building a new order and reshaping the prevailing paradigm of American politics. That will take more than one election. It requires continued mobilization, strategic creativity and, yes, audacity on the part of independent thinkers, activists and organizers. The structural obstacles to change are considerable. But at least we now have the political space to push for far-reaching reforms.
Whatever one thinks of Obama's policy on any specific issue, he is clearly a reform president committed to the improvement of people's lives and to the renewal and reconstruction of America. Yes, his economic recovery plan was too small and too deferential to the Republican Party and tax cuts. But it has kept the economy from falling into the abyss, and it includes more new net public investment in antipoverty measures than any program since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.
We need a much more robust jobs program--without one, Americans will not believe this president stands with the working people. Obama would be wise to use his presidential pulpit and brilliant oratorical skills to explain that when one out of six Americans is unemployed or underemployed, our greatest fear should be joblessness, not deficits.
Still, there's much to be praised. Obama has spoken eloquently of a new and progressive role for government. His first appointment to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, was a strong choice--the first Latina on the Court and a powerful progressive jurist. In selecting Sotomayor, Obama has finally halted the Court's long drift to the right. The president says the labor movement is the solution, not the problem. (If he really believes this, he should act on it by pushing for speedy passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.) He has reinvigorated the regulatory agencies in Washington, from the EPA to the FCC (in doing so he has, ironically, fueled a full-employment program for K Street lobbyists). He has repealed the global gag rule on abortion, has spoken of the urgency of the climate crisis and has restored integrity to the government's scientific research programs.
The president's quartet of major speeches abroad--in Cairo, Prague, Moscow and Accra--began to lay out an Obama Doctrine in international affairs: support for diplomacy and the UN; commitment to a nuclear-free world; a belief that democracy is strengthened not through US intervention but when people win for themselves their rights and liberties; and engagement and cooperation with, rather than antagonism toward, the Muslim world. However, the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned against grows ever stronger. And so far Obama has been unwilling to rethink skewed priorities in this arena; he just approved a bloated military budget despite his rare cancellation of several costly weapons programs.
And then, of course, there is Afghanistan. Historians have warned that wars kill reform presidencies. The most recent, and perhaps most relevant, example is the Vietnam War's undermining of the Great Society. Obama is wisely taking his time to make a decision about Afghanistan, but he appears to have excluded the one option that makes the most sense--a responsible exit strategy--and seems poised to escalate this unnecessary war. If he does so, he will endanger his reform presidency and squander funds needed to rebuild and renew our country.
Obama could have used the moment of economic crisis to restructure the economy and rein in the financial sector, not simply resuscitate it. The taxpayer-funded bailout of the banks has contributed to a popular backlash. If Obama doesn't respond to the widespread anguish and anger with constructive support for those in need, the GOP will continue to channel it in destructive directions.
There are other disappointments. I am sure you have your list. At the top of mine is Obama's failure to end the excesses and abuses associated with the Bush/Cheney national security apparatus; also on it is his unwillingness to push more strongly for a public option on healthcare reform. But instead of playing the betrayal sweepstakes, which promotes disappointment and despair, we'd be smart to practice a progressive politics defined by realistic hope and pragmatism. That is, simply denouncing the administration's missteps and failures doesn't get us very far and furthers what our adversaries seek: our disempowerment. We can't afford that. These are times to avoid falling into either of two extremes: reflexively defensive or reflexively critical.
Remember that throughout our history, it has taken large-scale, sustained organizing to win structural change. There would have been no New Deal without the vast upsurge in union activism and unemployed councils, no civil rights legislation without the mass movement. We need to learn from those inspiring examples and build our own movements. And we need to start playing inside-outside politics too: engage the administration and Congress, even as we push without apology for bolder solutions than the ones Obama has offered.
Progressives should focus less on the limits of the Obama agenda and more on the possibilities that his presidency opens up. Like all presidents, Obama is constrained by powerful opponents and deep structural impediments. Independent organizing and savvy coalition-building will be critical in overcoming the timid incrementalists of his own party and the forces of money and establishment power that are obstacles to change. But if we work effectively, we can push Obama beyond the limits of his own politics and create a new progressive era.
- Posted in
Comments
Note: Disqus 2012 is best viewed on an up to date browser. Click here for information. Instructions for how to sign up to comment can be viewed here. Our Comment Policy can be viewed here. Please follow the guidelines. Note to Readers: Spam Filter May Capture Legitimate Comments...
12 Comments so far
Show AllBetcha if Obama really threatened to withold funding for Israel which by far gets the lion's share of US tax-payer funded foreign aid, than Tomasky might be demanding Obama step up. It seems like as good an assumption as any since Tomasky went as far to suggest that Obama's race was responsible for making him a coward--which is truly straining to cover his ass.
Seems like Tomasky is content with the status quo since his argument seems to be nothing will make a difference and despite Obama's imagined high ideals or intent, you can't fight city hall. Than why the hell bother at all--what difference does any of it make--or did anything ever make? Funny thing though, the lobbies, like AIPAC and the Right NEVER question their ability to force the issue and when the Right was in power the Democrats were forever capitulating to them.
First they tell us we must push Obama and now they cry "what can he do, anyway" and make excuses for him--and even when Obama deliberately acts against us--in favor of the corps and ignores or pays cheap lip service to us, it is still up to us to do something. Like exactly what?
For starters
Obama can try to work with us rather than work against us.
I can't find a thing in Van Den Huevel's piece that Tomasky would disagree with based on what I have read of his. I stopped taking Tomasky seriously when I saw a piece he wrote excoriating "the Left" and progressives for failing to show sufficient enthusiasm for the Cheney/Bush assault on Afghanistan. Tomasky's piece was particularly egregious because it's argument was essentially based on Cheney/Bush foreign policy falsehoods. Then, of course, it also implied that we were somehow not "manly" and "mature" enough to appreciate the necessity of imperial slaughter.
I frequently disagree with Van den Huevel, but I respect her. Tomasky comes perilously close to Christopher Hitchens's dark corner of the empire's brain trust. Go up that river far enough and there's nobody up there but Kurtz. I don't care if Van den Huevel has Tomasky over for Thanksgiving. Maybe he's a nice guy in person, but he's something of a reactionary asshole in print.
Tomasky is also an Obama fanboy, so it isn't surprising that he would criticise Vanden Heuvel's mild criticism of Obama.
I agree about Tomasky, and I find Van Den Heuvel's silly pro-Obama optimism dangerous fluff. The only "reform" Obama has offered lately is pure pseudo-reform that merely reconfirms the same predatory structures we already have. On the wars, health care, civil liberties, torture, Bushco's crimes, etc etc, the drift is more than clear at this point, and Katrina, like all the rest, still giddy at finding herself something of a star in the pundit galaxy, is mostly spouting hot air about policies she would have denounced in the past. These are not good times for journalism.
Van Heuval writes, "Whatever one thinks of Obama's policy on any specific issue, he is clearly a reform president committed to the improvement of people's lives and to the renewal and reconstruction of America.'
Where's the evidence of this reform tendency?
One might more accurately say, ""Whatever one thinks of Obama's policy on any specific issue, HE SOUNDS LIKE he is clearly a reform president committed ..."
Obama's actions clearly put him in the category of "friend of the Plutocrat and militarist."
So far he has done a lot for powerful interests and precious little for the people.
Vanden Heuval writes, "The taxpayer-funded bailout of the banks has contributed to a popular backlash. If Obama doesn't respond to the widespread anguish and anger with constructive support for those in need, the GOP will continue to channel it in destructive directions."
Yeah this is true but her choice of words is patronzing, The opposition to the bailout is charecterized as "populist backlash", and ""anguish and anger." The not so subtle messsage is that the opposition of the majority of American workers to the bailout is not rational, but emotional.
This is liberal intellectual elitism at its worst and one of the reasons American workers instinctively distrust liberals.
PUSHIT!? We the people are paying for these presidential and press microphones. We hired Y'ALL, Messrs Obama and Heuvel, to Do THE JOB, not More MIRRORSPEAK!
So much emphasis on what Obama has said and so little accountability demanded for what he's done (made criminals and incompetents on Wall Street richer; preparing to make already obscenely compensated insurance companies wealthier), and for how little he has even attempted of what really needs doing. We get it---he's capable of delivering a pretty good speech. Good for him. Make him president of Toastmasters.
I will not repeat the words which issued from my lips while reading this article by Katrina vanden Drivel.
It is no wonder that she really, really likes Obama. She is exactly like him. So charming. So smooth. So completely lacking integrity.
She begins by making excuses.
She talks about what he should do (or should have done), but fails to question why he does otherwise.
She ASSUMES Sotomayor is a progressive because she is a latina/female. There is absolutely no proof of this.
She takes Obama at his word. He lied about fighting against giving the telecommunication companies immunity for their participation in criminal behavior, he lied about believing climate change was an "urgent" issue, and he has lied about fighting for LGBT rights.
She claims he has "reinvigorated" regulatory agencies, but fails to mention Obama's eager participation in blindly pouring HUNDREDS of BILLIONS of dollars into UNregulated and blatantly corrupt Wall Street Banks and "investment" firms and hiring some of the most corrupt pigs from these areas to be his chief economic advisors.
She cites his repeal of the gag rule on abortion, but fails to mention his acceptance of attacking access through economic measures.
She glosses over Obama's stated commitment to increasing the "bloated" Pentagon budget.
Then, after all of her proud, delusional pandering, there is this;
"...we'd be smart to practice a progressive politics defined by REALISTIC HOPE and PRAGMATISM" (emphasis added).
I am, at this moment, showing great (though totally undeserved) restraint.
Can someone send this woman pictures of the dismembered limbs of the innocent victims of Obama's warmongering?
Or, maybe send some pictures of an inner-city classroom when they find out that their funding is being cut because they aren't "competitive enough" to keep their funds from going to a school which is more affluent and "successful"?
katrina the nice is too much obama's enabler. obama's spooked by cheney and the right, cozy with big pharma, and doing everything the guys and gals at goldman-sacks want him to do. he's increased military spending, has never challenged the contractors, and is more than willing to bleed the youth of america to keep karzai on his virtual throne in afghanistan. send a case of busch light to the white house, where they can toast all the idiots and crooks who ran the old regime.
"But I do think President Obama could step forward at this time, challenge lobbyists more directly, speak out more forcefully about the cruel Stupak language, call out self-righteous egotists like Joe Lieberman, demand some party unity on a bill that will define not only the Democratic party's future in 2010--but for a long while. And why not bring in LBJ? Sure history by analogy is often imperfect, but there are also lessons to be drawn from models of Presidential leadership"
Had to stop there.
This is all the recap I need to re-affirm the distance I keep from The Nation.
And really, this is not about Obama being a nicer man than almost any president since Jimmy Carter (and a good number of presidents before him)which he probably is, although I have to admit that it makes me no never mind how much I am able to see or not see beneath the spin produced about his nice-ness: because his problems in office are the problems of an office that was already something of a monarchist blot on an otherwise well-thought out and designed federal system, and that George Bush... a particularly un-nice man... made even more a liability to the future of the country and to the success of its definitive progressive leading edge; without which it will wither up and die or just become a regionalized bucket of armaments and threats and sometimes funny, sometimes terrifying, personalities-cum-politicians like Ms Palin.
And really, is Mr. Obama so far from that? Certainly his mass produced and artfully co-opted Change and Hope campaign, which cost more money to mount than a few developing countries’ entire GNP, was cruel in it's psychological acuity, particularly as the full nature comes clear of how far Obama intends to drift away from any populist direction that would have dabbled, even minimally, in the real stuff of hope and change for the majority of us.
But none of this is a surprise to those who remained dispassionate and prudently skeptical enough to observe exactly what and who was happening as these events unfurled like one of those obscenely huge flags over a mess of concrete on- and off- ramps of our clogged freeways.
It IS a bit painful to watch the predictable splitting and winnowing out of those whose class background prevents them from really fighting against the kinds of disastrous privatizations that continue to wreck the hopes and dreams of Americans everywhere. Certainly, in spite of his vastly over-spun community organizer creds (how many years did he do that? I've been working with and advocating for a segment of one of the most disenfranchised people in the country for decades and I know that after two years in such a field, one hardly has their feet wet) Mr. Obama, like his last Democrat predecessor, Bill C., has left any desire for credible association with the working poor and those who have slipped beneath even that misnomer tag a long long time ago.
And there is a race issue here too. It is understandable that the progressive white people have reasons to want the first non-white presidency to look even the slightest bit different than any presidency it succeeded. But isn't it just a tad bit racist to refuse to come to grips with its burgeoning failures... for fear of criticizing a Black man? Or is it just that they cannot conceive of being something other than Democrat... like LBJ?
It is more understandable, perhaps, that African Americans might be loathe to find problems with his presidency, but still... the loudest he has gotten about racism was in response to another wealthy Black man from the University who was arrested outside his million dollar home... otherwise he actively avoids association with issues around the kinds of struggles that the disproportionate cut of Black Americans face. I might have tempered this opinion had he even one time suggested (even a suggestion!) that putting a moratorium on foreclosures for a year or two could be advantageous, but no... we were instructed to look to the future as he helped the richest of the rich recoup the billions they lost from a still quite full pot of gold that they filled through their greedy Clintonista and Bushite stooges and then punctured with their incompetence and pathological hoarding… and then refilled with our hourly sweat and toil while they made deals with our bucks on the golf course and in swanky shrimp and brulee shops.
Still... it is the presidency that is the problem. And as long as it is up to the president to make the changes needed in the office to establish/re-establish the equality between the branches that was the basis of the spirit of the design, if not its implementation, how can we ever hope for better?
Well said Katrina. Obama is constrained by a corporate bought political system. Who would be better who is ELECTABLE? Kucinich or Sanders would be wonderful but not electable. Obama said our goal should be to rid the world of nukes. Let's help him move in that direction. He has ended torture and is committed to closing Gitmo. He is committed to end " don't ask dont tell". Yes he is too cautious but lets press him to be more audacious. If not Obama we could end up with Palin or Beck or worse.
Ended torture? I need proof. Just because he says it doesn't happen? I suspect otherwise. His support of extraordinary rendition makes sure that it continues. C'mon.
Committed to closing Gitmo? I need proof. I need a date.
Ending Don't ask don't tell? When? Give me a date. Then make it happen.