Building Hope in the Time of Obama

The mayor of my town just north of New York City lives one street away.
He was-until last month-a visibly proud supporter of Barack Obama: more
than a year after the presidential election, his front porch displayed
a couple of Obama campaign posters with words like "hope" and "change"
on them, along with an American flag with a peace sign in place of the
fifty stars. For unknown reasons, the posters and the flag are no
longer there.

Regardless of the mayor's intentions, this absence is a manifestation
of what is one of Barack Obama's most notable accomplishments during
his first year in office: the dashing of the hopes of the many who
supported his election. From the ratcheting up of the war in
Afghanistan to the watered-down, insurance-industry-friendly health
care bill, to his woefully insufficient gestures related to climate
change, Obama's administration thus far has been characterized far more
by its status-quoism than bold, progressive initiatives. Throughout
this first year, advocates of far-reaching change have learned to
expect little from the White House.

In many ways such an outcome is hardly surprising. While the
attractiveness of a candidate with a community organizer's background
and one who importantly symbolizes the weakening of the country's ugly
racial barriers is undeniable, he was and remains a deeply mainstream
political figure. As various analysts have pointed out, his talk of
hope and change throughout the campaign was largely rhetorical and void
of serious substance. That so many of us failed to see this speaks to
the depths to which politics descended during the G.W. Bush years and
the resulting desire and willingness to see a wealth of light where
there was little; the weakness of progressive social movements and our
collective political myopia; and the genius of the marketing scheme
that surrounds brand Obama.

These factors-and his ability to out - Clinton Bill Clinton in giving the
illusion of saying something empathetic, meaningful and different when,
in reality, he has said little of significance - have carried him far,
helping to enshrine him in a pantheon of would-be progressive political
leaders. Indeed, they helped to win him a Nobel Peace Prize.

On the face of it, awarding a peace prize to someone who commands the
largest military in world history - one whose budget roughly equals those
of all the rest of the world's militaries combined, and whose spending
he has increased - and whose military had already bombed four different
countries in his barely nine-month-old presidency, seems ludicrous. But
unlike, say, G.W. Bush, Obama is to be judged by his words and
potential, not his deeds.

As the Norwegian Nobel Committee explained in announcing the award in
October, Obama's "vision of a world free from nuclear arms has
powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations." And
thanks to his initiative, "Democracy and human rights are to be
strengthened." He has, the Committee asserted, "captured the world's
attention and given its people hope for a better future." In other
words, apart from the highly exaggerated claim of his having
"powerfully stimulated" arms-reduction and control efforts, it is the
promise of Obama that is supposedly so noteworthy.

While many wondered how the Nobel Committee could make such statements
in light of how little Obama had accomplished by that time - and given
how much he had done (antithetical to the cause of peace) - others saw in
the award proof of Obama's progressive genius. According to New York
Times columnist Bono, for example, Obama offers a bold vision, one that
has rebranded the United States. Combined with what the rock star
characterized as his efforts to combat climate change and improve
relations with the Middle East, these reasons - among others - make Obama
deserving of the honor.

Such sentiment was not limited to the politically vacuous. Even some
heavyweight analysts associated with progressive politics celebrated
the decision to honor Obama. Columbia University professor and
oft-critic of U.S. foreign policy Hamid Dabashi, for instance,
highlighted on CNN.com Obama's "idea" to rid the planet of nuclear
weapons, along with what must be invisible to those on the receiving
end of U.S. power and that of its allies: "the president's commitment
to diplomacy over warfare." Meanwhile, columnist Patricia Williams of
The Nation attempted to counter critics of Obama's selection by
pointing out that "90 percent of Britons, French and Germans believe
that Obama has affirmatively changed the course of diplomacy and that
the United States is now a superpower that listens." (One wonders what
polls in occupied Palestine or Pakistan would show.)

Whatever the reasons for such sentiment in the face of so little, it
points to, or at least reinforces, a pitifully low set of expectations.
Where are demands such as an end to the U.S. war in Afghanistan,
dramatic reductions in the bloated U.S. military budget, and a U.S.
foreign policy toward Israel-Palestine based first and foremost on
international law and human rights?

To realize such goals, we have to avoid falling into despair, a
sentiment which, as writer Rebecca Solnit points out, allows us to live
comfortably and cynically and "makes no demand upon us." Instead, we
truly do need hope, but not of the merely rhetorical kind, nor one that
is invested in charismatic individuals. It must be a hope which
challenges the injustices that underlie who we are and how we live,
and, in Solnit's terms, "demands everything." It needs to be a hope
informed by sober analysis of the limits of Obamaism while
strategically cognizant of the openings it provides, a hope which helps
us to "win something that matters, if not everything all the time." It
must be a hope born of radical vision and struggle.

In a Dec. 24 report on Aljazeera.net on the stifling effects of the
Israeli occupation on the West Bank's tourist economy, journalist Nour
Odeh recounted the words of Jerusalem's Catholic patriarch during his
Christmas message: "The painful reality contradicts our dreams," he
said. "Despite all that our hope remains alive," he added, "because
hope doesn't mean surrendering to evil. It means resisting it."

Only that type of hope can lead to far-reaching change, a change we
cannot only believe in, but organize and mobilize around to make real.