Doubtful about Presidents; Optimistic about Us
EconomicDemocracy Coop
By Peters, Cynthia
Cynthia Peters's ZSpace Page
Writing for Time Magazine on November 5th, Joe Klein called Barack
Obama's victory a sign that our country is a "younger, more
optimistic, less cynical" place. "It is a country that retains its
ability to startle the world -- and in a good way, with our freedom."
The Boston Globe editorialized that the new president will usher in "a
decisively different direction" for the United States.
...even left-of-liberal Michael Moore writes about crying tears of joy
and relief. Progressive friends all over town are waving
enthusiastically and giving me the thumbs up. I smile back. It's not
that it's hard to muster the smile. I understand people feeling
uplifted by Obama's historic election win. For all the reasons that
many progressives have recited - the important symbolism of having an
African American in the nation's top office, the repudiation of the
Bush/Cheney agenda, the populist-leaning domestic agenda, etc. - I
agree the outcome of the election is as positive as it could be given
the constraints of the current electoral system.
But I wonder: is there something wrong with me? Must I insist on
seeing the massive structural injustices in Obama's agenda? Must I
focus on his hawkish foreign policy? Must I go around reminding
everyone that his victory will only be as meaningful as we make it?
That it's unlikely he'll enter office as a centrist reformer and
emerge as a leader who is willing to address structural injustice?
Many people I talk to are impatient with this line of thinking. They
think it is pessimistic. They think I'll die young if I keep thinking
such negative thoughts. They think I should un-furrow my brow and
revel in this great American moment. They think it's okay to believe
in Obama. One person said something exactly like that: "Oh let me feel
happy about this. It feels so good to have someone to believe in."
But wait. It's not that I don't have someone to believe in. I do. I
believe in the power of movements. I believe in all of us.
When I was in Brazil in 2002, and Lula of the Workers Party, was on
the brink of winning the presidency, I had the privilege of talking
with members of the Landless Workers Movement. They said they would be
happy if Lula won, but they had no illusions that it would change the
essential nature of their work. On the contrary, Lula would be
pressured by the banks and by international financial institutions to
carry out their agenda. Only a sustained grassroots movement would
keep him from succumbing to those pressures. They were hopeful that
the Workers Party would win, but they wouldn't put their faith in what
Lula would do once he was in office. Instead, they were investing
their hope and energy in movement building, knowing that strong
movements would be the only way to ensure what Lula would do once he
was in office.
I remember seeing Howard Zinn speak to an audience in Cambridge some
months before the Iraq war started. An audience member asked, "What do
we do if Bush invades Iraq?" "That's not the question to ask," Zinn
pointed out. "The question to ask is: what are we going to do to make
sure he doesn't invade Iraq?"
That's ultimately an optimistic stance. It sees grassroots power as a
match against corporate and imperial power. It's a harder row to hoe.
It takes longer than an election cycle. It involves mobilizing a truly
democratic base to become powerful enough to actually determine what
institutions look like. Most importantly, it's a stance that projects
the possibility of real change over the long term and does not settle
for nicer versions of rotten institutions.
To the person who is desperate for something to feel good about: Why
do you need Obama for that? History shows over and over again that
reform happens when people at the grassroots organize together, take
risks, and refuse to obey. You could have been feeling good about that
all along. You could have been believing in yourself. I do.
Cynthia Peters is the editor of The Change Agent.
View online here, sustainers can comment: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3673
Here is the second essay....
Obama Mania?
By Albert, Michael
Michael Albert's ZSpace Page
Some things are obvious.
Electing a first African American President is world historic.
The electorate bending toward sanity, eloquence, and dignity, rather
than a death spiral into moronic depravity is positive, too, even if
mostly because the alternative is a condition of abject horror.
Realignment of various voting sectors and undercutting market mania
are very positive, too.
The fact that Obama's campaign was unprecedentedly efficient and
effective is certainly worth learning from.
An electoral facility is not, however, a progressive credential - more
or less like being a prisoner of war for bombing defenseless peasants
isn't a credential for wisdom or civility.
The fact that Obama's support, particularly among young people,
creates an incredibly hopeful opportunity to be boldly progressive, or
even radical, is also good, but not conclusive. Put differently, the
potential in Obama's victory does not imply there will be great
actualization in its aftermath. We will almost certainly see reforms
reflecting the catastrophic need to escape economic woes by regulating
markets and dealing with health care, but that could be the end rather
than beginning of Obama's positive agenda.
If we rely on Obama to actualize the larger hopes of the election,
most likely he will not. Indeed, the only positive signs that he will
are that he has the competence, confidence, and chutzpah, as well as a
sufficiently large organized base of support. In contrast, the
negative indicators that he won't are that nothing beyond vague
rhetorical flourishes indicates that Obama has seriously progressive
views, commitments, connections, or inclinations, and that the
systemic pressures on him and aggressive channeling of his time and
thought will be enormous.
My guess is, sadly, that within one week, literally one week, Obama's
staff and cabinet choices will make decisively evident that without
mass activism forcing new outcomes, change will stop at the surface. I
fervently hope I am wrong.
Our task is in any event to press Obama mightily, starting
immediately. For the moment, when folks who support him are
interviewed and connect Obama to the civil rights heritage and even
let their rhetoric expand in their understandable glee establishing
expectations that would require a serious left shift and struggle, it
pushes prospects well. But I don't think that will be remotely enough
if Obama appoints traditionally oriented folks to his staff, revealing
not boldness in pursuit of change, but aloof disregard for the
passions he has aroused in pursuit of business as usual, thereby
quickly undercutting euphoria.
Part of the Way with BHO?
Maybe we can have that much, at best. But ironically, if that slogan
does against the odds make some sense in coming weeks and months,
there will still be a strong analogy to the "Part of the Way with LBJ"
formulation of decades back. It was LBJ's populist inclinations around
civil rights and modest redistribution that engendered the slogan in
the first place. It was LBJ's pursuit of annihilation in Indochina,
however, that blew the slogan's sentiment to shreds. Imagine Obama
expanding war in Afghanistan or reneging on getting out of Iraq, even
assuming he is, personally, truely inclined to populist domestic
change, and you can see a road to repression and resistance.
But, one other thing about our response to Obama and the election
seems pretty clear, and I think quite important to note, even if my
worst fears about the limits of Obama come true.
Leftists of all kinds need to avoid acting as though this election was
run of the mill, or especially that those who voted for Obama were
deceived or naive, or that those who are elated by seeing him in
office are fools.
This election was not run of the mill. This election was, in fact,
historic as no other election I have ever encountered, regarding black
people's and other minority's hopes and aspirations, regarding the
electoral map, regarding escaping Republican nightmares that could
have gotten infinitely worse, regarding the possible emergence of
young people as an active political and social force, and regarding
the coming struggle over whether cynicism will continue to drain
activist prospects, or, instead, inspired by rhetoric and excitement
and then angered by rejection, masses of people ironically intoning
"yes we can" will persevere even against Obama Administration
opposition to win what we had hoped to more easily gain.
The election isn't, however, as best I can now see, a new society or
even remotely a road to one - instead, we will have to work for that
likely without Oval Office aid - but the fact that this election
wasn't everything, or even what some people hoped, doesn't mean it was
nothing.
And now comes the truly hard question - racism. What does having a
Black President mean about racism? Again, some things seem relatively
obvious.
The impact on young people's self image, hopes, and images of others,
will be enormous and even taken all alone this one gain is worthy of
the joyful tears many are shedding. To not understand that fact, or to
deny that fact out of some odd inability to acknowledge progress, is
blockheaded and extremely callous.
Barack Obama is a very unusual and inspiring orator/candidate - but he
is not Martin Luther King Jr. Yet the idea of King running for
President forty years ago was absolutely unthinkable. So we have
progressed. And that is no small thing. Jesse Jackson wasn't modestly
standing in the park in Chicago and weeping for no reason or because
he is deluded. Denying progress is utterly ridiculous both in its
divorce from reality and in that it shoots ourselves in the head -
after all, where did the progress come from if not social movements?
Does that mean there is no racism anymore? No.
But it does mean that the ideological trappings of racism and many of
the structural supports, as well, have been over years and years,
seriously undermined and in some instances even obliterated. What
mainly remains are three things. First, residual largely material
deprivations that owe their origin to the past but that are reproduced
simply due to their existing, even without any racist sentiment or
laws coercing the outcome. Second, I suspect there remain some basic
underlying institutional features which tend to regenerate racial
hierarchies still. And third, and now, at last, least consequential
and likely to further decline, admittedly, still many people who
retain racist personal inclinations, particularly in the South, but
not alone there by any means. Look at the maps showing the change in
vote level for the Democrat between 2004 and 2008, virtually all over
the country, and the trend is pretty clear.
What has happened, in other words, is that the massive courageous and
intense efforts of Blacks in struggle, plus their allies, have
undermined many people's racist beliefs to a very considerable extent
- though not completely. Those struggles have also eliminated at least
a considerable part of the laws and other structures, overt and
covert, that daily reenforced horrible racist hierarchies. Those
struggles have, however, not gotten, I suspect, to the deepest
institutional heart of racial hierarchy, nor have they eliminated all
the bad views and habits from all people's personalities, either, of
course, nor eliminated all the residual disparities in income, wealth,
and position. But, still, the change that has occurred is enormous and
if efforts persist, calmly but steadfastly, and if they go from past
logics built on symptoms to finally addressing the deepest underlying
structures and relations, whether in families, community definitions,
or whatever else, the scourge of racism may be all but eliminated as a
powerful drag on people's lives in the years ahead.
I would never have said anything like the above forty, thirty, or even
just twenty years ago, nothing like that, short of seeing revolution
on the horizon - but the simple fact is, you can't have a society that
has a black president who polled better among whites than his opponent
in most states and better then any white Democrat in decades in
virtually all states, and still claim it is the days of fiercest
virulent racism. It just isn't...though yes, until we eliminate the
most basic underlying causes, those horrible days could return.
Am I in fantasy land either regarding my doubts (despite my hopes)
about short term presidential agenda or my hopes about longer term
electoral and racial implications? I don't think so. Here is a letter
a friend of mine received from a public school teacher in Boston...
I know I can get down in the dumps about my job, but not today. Today
was a great day to be a teacher.
After staying up into the deepest hours of the night, agonizing,
waiting and celebrating, I had to drag myself out of bed this
morning. My early morning drive to school today was a little fuzzier
than usual... so fuzzy that I decided to stop on the way for a cup of
coffee and ditch my usual green tea start to the day. Little did I
know that I would need no amount of caffeine to get me through the
day.
The excitement started as soon as I entered my building. It turns out
that a small group of students were in the building before school even
started to decorate our hallways with Obama posters. They had made
photo copies of Barack Obama's face under which they wrote one word:
"President". By the time the rest of the student body had arrived our
whole school had been plastered with these signs. At 7:14 am, the
hallways at my school looked very familiar: crowded, hectic and loud.
Only this morning, students weren't ignoring their teacher's requests
to get to their homerooms because they were too busy gossiping about
shoes or TV last night or each other. Instead, students were simply
too busy to get to class on time because they were all talking
politics with their friends. It was stunning to overhear
conversations between 8th graders that included words like: electoral
votes, democracy and ballot. And it wasn't just a few kids - it was
all of them.
Felix, the loudest, tallest and coolest 8th grade boy in homeroom 8F
came into our room with 6 Obama buttons on his sweatshirt. And as if
this wasn't enough, he set the school trend for wearing the Obama
posters that were once hanging all over the hallways. One minute he
was asking to borrow some tape and the next minute the Obama print
outs are all over his (and then all the other boys') torsos.
Meanwhile I looked around my homeroom and had a shocking realization:
this is a room filled with 13 year olds and all of them are in a good
mood. But knowing how much their moods fluctuate during the coarse of
a day, I was sure that by last block the excitement would have
subsided.
I was wrong.
I picked up 8C from lunch and on the way back to class I had to remind
Lexxi that it wasn't appropriate hallway behavior to chant, "Obama,
Obama, Obama" as loudly as she could. Now I knew my lesson on
chemical formulas would be a hard sell for such an over-stimulated and
over-tired afternoon crew so I decided to make them a deal. "If we
get all our work done this afternoon, we will spend the last 20
minutes of the day watching Obama's victory speech. However, if we
don't work efficiently we won't have enough time."
When else would this be a successful incentive for adolescent
children: if you work hard, i'll let you listen silently to a grown-
up give a long speech about our political process.� I couldn't
believe it worked, but it did. The class only got off track a couple
of times and I was easily able to re-focus them by providing one
simple reminder: "President Obama would want us to get our work
done."
As promised, at the end of the period we closed our chemistry books
and tuned in to hear our next President give his victory speech. It
didn't seem to matter that it was the last 15 minutes of the day ...
the first bell even rang and no one even packed up their things. Not
only did they listen to Obama's speech intently, but a few times they
began cheering so loud I had to pause the speech and remind them that
a class was taking place next door.
You remember this part of Obama's speech last night: "This victory is
not my victory. It's your's." To this, Vianca (one of my most chatty
and challenging girls) said out loud: "Yeah, it's my victory!" I
looked around at the room of my 28 students - all of whom are people
of color - and I saw the future teachers, doctors, artists and
Presidents of this country. I almost started crying all over again.
View online here, sustainers can comment: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3674
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