"Seizing the "Obama Moment": Which Side Are We On?".....{Sirota..a Good Read}!

[KoKo]

http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=7630
Seizing the "Obama Moment": Which Side Are We On?
by: David Sirota
Wed Aug 20, 2008 at 17:59

This post is part of the ongoing "Obama Moment" discussion taking place at the Campaign for America's Future. Check it out here.

The question of how progressives can seize the so-called "Obama Moment," as my colleague Bob Borosage calls it, is an important one - and it is critical that the question be asked right now - before the election, rather than after (This will be the central focus of my questions to Michael Moore in the Meet the Bloggers discussion this Friday). Though the media's horse race coverage and the Left and Right echo chambers "win at all cost" psychology would have us believe that elections are ends unto themselves, our Founders envisioned them as means to ends - instruments by which the people's will is debated, politicians are pressured, and a mandate is crafted.

Luckily for progressives, America has aligned with us on economic issues, ready to sculpt a populist election mandate. As a new poll by the Drum Major Institute shows, the center of American public opinion is far different from the center of opinion in Washington and Wall Street that says "centrism" and "moderation" is continuing the kleptocratic financial and trade policies championed by the Goldman Sachs twins, Bob Rubin and Henry Paulson. Unlike the Royalist Right, progressives don't have to manipulate the public with the kind of faux populism that packages, say, tax cuts for billionaires as a supposed panacea for the working class. We can offer the real thing: a real populist agenda for higher wages, fairer trade policies, universal health care, a better regulated financial system and a strengthened social safety net - and we can do that knowing the vast majority of America is with us.

But before we can assess an "Obama Moment" we have to know if this is an actual "moment," or whether this is a mirage, like the one when Bill Clinton promised to oppose NAFTA, and then rammed it through Congress "over the dead bodies" of the progressive movement?
David Sirota :: Seizing the "Obama Moment": Which Side Are We On?

If we are serious about developing the tactics and strategies to bring about real change after the election, we have to first know if Barack Obama is even with us. That is the great unknown at this theoretically transformative "moment." The question that the Illinois senator still hasn't convincingly answered is that age-old question haunting all economic issues: Which side are you on?

When I interviewed Obama two years ago for The Nation magazine, he seemed to yearn for an elusive Third Way on most major economic issues - a middle-ground that can somehow simultaneously satisfy the insatiably greedy corporate profiteers that populate Washington, D.C. and the vast majority of Americans who live outside the Beltway and are getting eaten alive. This likely stems from Obama's disposition as a conciliator and bridge-builder who eschews challenging economic power. Then again, it conflicts with his much-touted history as a supposed Saul Alinsky-style community organizer (Alinsky was, ahem, no shrinking violet).

And so while Obama indeed has a website full of nice policy proposals, Bob is right. He has yet to really take a side in what is (and always will be) a binary confrontation between capital and labor - a confrontation that capital has been winning for most of the last generation, as evidenced by declining wages, eroding health care benefits, and raided pension funds. In fact, a candid examination of Obama's campaign suggests that when the senator does give us a glimpse of his answer to the "which side are you on" question, he is telling us he's not on the vast majority's side.

For example, back in July, the media had a field day berating John McCain's top economic adviser, Phil Gramm, after his comments blaming the middle-class for the recession. Progressives (rightly) used the moment to point out the outrage of McCain ever appointing a top executive at a major investment bank like Gramm as his top economic adviser. Yet, almost no one bothered to question why Obama long ago appointed Gramm's boss, Robert Wolf, as his own top economic adviser.

Similarly, Obama's first major announcement after securing the Democratic nomination was his decision to hire Jason Furman as a full-time economic adviser. Furman's claim to fame is serving as the apprentice to Rubin (the man who jammed NAFTA down America's throat), and defending Wal-Mart's wage and union-crushing economic model. Furman quickly packed Obama's economic team with other Wall Street titans and neoliberal extremists, all but ignoring progressive voices from esteemed institutions like the Economic Policy Institute.

Even now, as Obama knows his major challenge is to win working-class constituencies, Bloomberg News reports that his campaign is "tilting towards Rubinomics" while the Wall Street Journal documents his campaign aides aggressively "trying to wrap themselves in business's embrace by wooing some of the best-known chief executives."

What this all means is that the messy, disorganized and all-too-deferential circus of progressive institutions - from labor unions, to D.C. think tanks, to grassroots groups, to the Netroots - has to move beyond Partisan War Syndrome, and into a movement posture. We must get out of thinking that the cure-all is the election, and realize that while elections are important, constant - and often confrontational - pressure against both parties has always been the only force that makes real progress. Whoever is president - whether it is Obama, the economic progressive; Obama the Wall Street sycophant, or McCain, the Bush clone - that transpartisan movement pressure will be the deciding factor between "change" and "more of the same."

Of course, the propaganda telling us to look only through red and blue lenses - to think only in caveman-ish Obama Good, McCain Bad terms - is powerful. You can't turn on a television, listen to a radio, or read a blog (except for maybe CAF's!) without a superheated - and often fact-free - partisan screed searing your face off.

But the process of maturing from Partisan War Syndrome to movement psychology should - theoretically - be aided by The Who's iconic song "Won't Get Fooled Again" ringing in our ears. On many issues in the 1990s (from welfare to Wall Street regulation to trade issues), the new boss - Clinton - was the same as the old boss, and the results of being fooled still scar our economy today. Though many younger people's sense of political history stretches only back to the outrageous Clinton impeachment, it is undeniable that the reactionary economic policies that are crushing our country were uninterruptedly carried out from Reagan/Bush through Clinton to the present - and getting fooled again this time around could take our economy over a cliff we haven't seen since the Great Depression.

Can progressives mature? It is a tough to know - and it brings up uncomfortable queries that ask progressives a version of the same question we must ask Obama: Which side are WE on?

For instance, can truly progressive groups in Washington match the powerful corporate front groups and faux "centrist" think tanks that get so much attention? Will labor leaders pining for recognition in elite D.C. revert to their quadriennial "thank you, sir, may I have another" attitude when it comes to presidential candidates' footsie with Wall Street? Or will they start making real demands on these candidates, White House Christmas lists be damned, knowing that these candidates are, after all, benefiting from the blood, sweat, tears (and dues) of unionized janitors, truck drivers and teachers? And will much-vaunted Internet-based "grassroots" organizations continue serving only as partisan mouthpieces, or will they actually start organizing pressure against both parties?

How we answer these questions about ourselves - not the whims of Barack Obama or of the same Democratic "strategists" who have destroyed the Democratic Party - will decide whether this is, indeed, an "Obama Moment" that sees real change forced into legislative reality, or whether this election is merely a televised fiddler recital as America burns.

[danielet]

1. An exchange on Obama for Pres web site you might find interesting

FIRST COMMENT BY DANIEL FROM MINNEAPOLIS
Why are we still close in this race? | Report to Admin Reply
By Daniel from Minneapolis, MN Today at 2:32 am EDT (Updated Today at 2:32 am EDT)
Going back in February /March of 2008,I have concluded that Barack's campaign was in need of major shake up, from top to bottom...The latest poll numbers would support the notion that Obama campaign is in a laid back,sleep-walking mode, starting with Axelrod to Gibbs and David P. as the major non-responders...If not for Keith O. and his daily comments on the "Countdown" revealing the idiocy and hypocrisy of McCain campaign,we wouldn't even notice that there is another guy who is running also for a president but technically unopposed and unresponsive(to negative attacks from McCain). The worst part is, when Barack does remember to respond those personal attacks,it is usually very soft, like "I am scared to offend anybody".
It took Obama campaign almost a week to respond to "celebrity ad" and that was lame at best. Dissapointing is not the right word,more like disgusting.
Now,my comments are going to be very negative for some people but I am very certain,the BO campaign that is currently (not) underway for presidency is not a winning campaign for a POTUS.
I hate to quote J.Carville but he said of BO, if Hillary C.had any balls she would give Barack one so both of them would have two...Remember what Obama campaign said during the primary how he is going to take on John McCain and I have not seen none of it....Anybody?

RESPONSE FROM DANIELET
Re: Why are we still close in this race? | Report to Admin Reply
By Daniel from Bridgewater, NJ 1 second ago (Updated 1 second ago)
Daniel from Minn.-- I share your disdain for these whory election pros who think they can be Pied Piper and want total control. Most of them are still virgins when it comes to life and frauds when it comes to feelings. But hell, they don't understand responsibility. And if Obama looses they'll blame him, not themselves. The creeps around Hillary-- including Bill-- are classics (one even vomits up on FOX NOISE for added cash!

But you must also consider that Obama is a composite of opposites. He can't hate whites because he's white...nor blacks for the same reason. This must be a terrible personal burden as I saw with my nieces and nephews. And, having resolved that thesis-anti-thesis--> synthesis in himself, he wants to run to do the same with the nation. As a result, he is personally anti-attack because he will have to work with them all to unite the nation as president. Perhaps then he should stay out of the frey. However, John McCain is such a proven scumbag, advised by the devil's own children in that scumbag, that he must be confronted-- just as was the Senator from Virginia and thus exposed. It's a hard call. McCain calls for "VICTORY" in Iraq, knowing that we are forced into date certain for withdrawal by the Iraqis who want an end to our occupation. Since 2000, McCain sold his soul to the neocon devils and his mentor Lieberman stands at his side controlling him as if he's a ventriloquist controlling a dummy. MCCAIN ASKED DASHEL TO SEE IF KERRY WANTED HIM TO BE HIS RUNNING MATE IN 2004, so the man has no principles, like all the rest of my FORMER fellow Republicans. McCain must be exposed as a fraud who exploits his POW status that he came to suffer by dumb luck. DUMB LUCK DOESN'T MAKE YOU LEADERSHIP MATERIAL, as the Navy concluded when he wanted to be an admiral. As a result, he quit and sought to be Commander-and-chief, bypassing real command experience. He is a screw around guy, now dying of melanoma. He must be made to face all these truths and not to be allowed to turn this into a RACE RACE....THAT'S UP TO YOU, ME, AND ALL OBAMA FANS...We must go door to door and tell the people that an ava lange of manure is coming to town named McCain, trying to drown real change.

DO YOU AGREE WITH THE VIEWS IN THESE TWO POSTS?