The complications of conscience and elections
This site has been about as critical of Barack Obama’s presidential candidacy as any one might find outside the Right and the sectarian Left. I am unapologetic about that criticism; and folks can rest assured that such criticism will extend past the election and the inauguration of — I hope, frankly — Barack Obama.
I was reading a short piece by the young evangelist, Shane Claiborne, entitled Voting as Damage Control. Claiborne takes no definitive position on the question of whether to vote or to withhold votes as a matter of principle. Unlike the evangelists of the Right — who we know so well — he says he is interested in getting people to think before they act instead of telling them how to act. This seems a pretty transferable idea, beyond Claiborne’s Christian audience, that is.
Being critical is more work than being told what to do (from a pulpit or a party), and it is not synonymous with being ideological and memorizing someone’s playbook. Being critical also requires some set of values, some criteria, as a bottom-line (to use the common capitalist parlance), a final authority or principle.
Whatever that authority or principle is, I will suggest that benevolent solidarity is a ‘good’ for most of us. It’s complicated, however, in an American general election, as we all know, because solidarity-with-whom can be between solidarity with, e.g., solidarity with African America that is anything but solidarity with Afghanistan, about which Obama repeatedly declares he will expand and intensify the military occupation. They’re tough, these competing solidarity dilemmas. They can even lead to paralysis, either from demoralizations or sectarian perfectionisms.
As Claiborne says but doesn’t say, damage control itself cannot be minimized. Some minimizers of damage control strategies (to which elections have been reduced) elect inaction for themselves in order to hold onto the sense of being superior to these competing solidarities.
If there is damage — you make the list — damage does spread. Decry the damage control as imperfect if you like, but if there is real damage being done, defensive measures are better than none. Waiting for the eschaton or some Utopian program is just… waiting. We are not going to ‘build’ Utopia; and the eschaton is out of our hands. Meanwhile, time marches on and the bifurcating sequels of the damage with it.
Choosing between who will kill the most or the least is — as Claiborne suggests — a pretty shitty choice for people who care about strangers… like Afghans or prisoners or Iraqis or the poor.
There are a couple of other factors, however, beyond damage control (or lesser-evilism), that ought to be taken into account, and solidarity is just one of them.
This election means a great deal to African Americans, as it should, because the mere fact of a Black President is indicative — in a tangible way — of some ‘good’ in our culture. Anyone who argues otherwise is dishonest with themselves or others. I remember Klan billboards on the interstate highways, Jim Crow, and miscegenation laws. White supremacy has not been transcended; but it has lost a lot of ground.
We are witnessing something historic, and something that was not possible even ten — much less fifty — years ago. African Americans are being motivated to vote in record numbers this year, because, among other things, the parents of Black children want those children to see someone who looks like them accepted in this society to the most powerful political office in the world. It’s important in ways too numerous to count. Sherry and I are two of those parents.
God bless Sister McKinney, a principled Black politician, but her being Black does not give her candidacy anything like equal material force with Obama’s, and the people need to exercise that material force for all its worth — at this particular historic conjuncture — as a step down the path to communities retaking power.
The possibility of Obama has now entered into the realm of the probable, and so the issue of damage control (is Obama less dangerous than McCain) and the issue of solidarity (with the overwhelming majority of African America) are both real… and to some of us, compelling.
I’m not a fan of “building” political parties, even though I admire Green Party people. With each day, I become more convinced that the principle in nature and society of self-organization is always more determinative of outcomes than long-term strategic intent.
Obama’s candidacy has taken on the character of something more than an election. It has taken on the character of a mass movement. There is stage management and choreography in wild abundance, to be sure; but there is also a movement esprit that animates the Obama campaign. This spirit is self-organizing now in large part because there is a shared — if not-yet-clarified — sense of dissatisfaction, combined with a yearning for those intangibles: hope and change. The campaign tapped into this yearning, and it hit a colossal wellspring.
Two mass phenomena, then, are colliding: a latent mass movement, and a slowly waning mass cultural expression.
The mass expression of the substantial vestiges of white supremacy in US culture is the Republican Party, as a quick perusal of the demographics of McCain-Palin rallies shows. White supremacy and male supremacy have been the cultural synapses of Republican power for decades, with the Democratic Party playing the role of good cop and getting away with it. In this election, a very significant bloc of Republican and unaffiliated voters will vote against Obama because he is Black. And they are not voting against one Black man; they are voting to maintain white hegemony in American politics. No one who raises the aforementioned Black children will ignore this. The main effort in this election from the Republicans will be directed against African America.
I will not stand on the sidelines while African America — which has such a powerful stake and such an historical investment in this election — is under an organized attack for being African America — African America as it is, African America right now. For me, this election is damn-sure about race.
The mass movement aspect of the Obama campaign, however, is not tapping into simple antiracism as it mobilizes a very significant white plurality. The actual conditions that have generated these high levels of concern (with hopeful concern as part of the mix) are war, economic insecurity, etc. The other things that can be found in abundance in this latent movement are a lot of real empathy, goodwill, and altruism.
These latter qualities have space within the Obama phenom now, and will not evaporate after the election is decided. The connections have been made, and the experience of an historic turning point in which they participated cannot be undone. They have seen results in the enthusiastic exercise of their own collective work and creativity; and that can’t be taken back from them. These people are not turning back inward en masse. They will be the core of the immediate conscience of an Obama period.
I believe that, because I believe the latent movement has now overgrown a single personality. Getting Obama elected will not be everyone’s last act.
The acts that follow are going to depend on and be determined by leadership and its ability to critically discern.
It is my own hope that we can finally get the public talking about this hideous energy war again, as well as retooling for relocalization. Whatever the priorities are, one person who is certain to feel the pressure of these critiques from inside his own political base will be the POTUS.
j pasco:
Considerate of you to act in solidarity with African America - unfortunately, to do it your way you need to sign off on the untold deaths of Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Palestinians, etc. If these were your neighbors targeted to die, and not citizens of far-off lands, would you take the same position? The body count started for Obama and his supporters the first time he voted for more war, and will continue as long as he holds power.
Your solidarity argument fails to note the number of whites voting for Obama believing he ends all issues of race. Your dismissal of McKinney is weak and self-fulfilling,Good luck…
31 October 2008, 9:29 amjen:
many thanks for this, stan. i’ve admired your work for several years now (i still need to read your book on sex and war). i keep an eye on your website, but this is the first time i’m being moved to comment. i have very mixed feelings about this election. i’m a sociologist, raising my biracial daughter in an interracial marriage 5 blocks from the obama residence in chicago. i wanted to vote for cynthia mckinney and reluctantly voted (absentee, will be out of town next week in part to escape the madness here in chicago) for obama for many of the reasons you lay out here. i really, really hope you are right that getting obama elected (fingers crossed) will not be the last act of the people in this movement - just a beginning. though at this point i’m a bit concerned since so many of his supporters seem to believe he will be some sort of benevolent “savior.” time will tell. anyway, just a note to say “i hear you.” keep it up.
31 October 2008, 11:53 ambest, jen
Stan:
Thanks Jen.
j, I had this sense of inevitability that your issue would emerge. I’ve been in exactly that space. Then I took about two years off, where I dropped back into the mainstream of society, away from the hot-box of serial political meetings and planning cycles. Here’s the thing, though. Whatever I was doing when I was inside that process and that frame, now that I’m just out here in the general noise, I gotta tell you, I don’t hear anything about any of my comrades. Nada. I’m one who should recognize the cues and hear the down-home accent, but all I hear are the planes overhead and my wind chimes.
For reasons I haven’t discerned, the left is invisible. It’s still hiding out of sight of the masses that it invokes all the time. I can’t figure exactly why, but no one knows you (we) exist… unless they are already traveling on some inner circle. It was — for me — a process of trying to turn intellectuals into social change soldiers; while we may have been better served trying to figure out how to turn the millions of soldiers (who are tuning in for several reasons to the O campaign) into intellectuals.
You gotta meet them where they are, too. There’s no jumping over that.
31 October 2008, 12:13 pmWinston Warfield:
While I think democracy is moribund (conscious, engaged citizens, mapping their futures), and that politics has become just another consumer exercise, the Obama presidency will have important symbolic reverberations. People of color will rightly swell with pride that the last ceiling has been breached. That is important; my non-white family members and friends agree with many of my critiques of Obama, as I caution them about “drinking the Kool-aid”, but you can feel the undercurrent of emotion, that someone who looks like them will be the most powerful individual in the world. It will be salutory for whites in general, who have never “reported to” a person of color in this white supremacist culture. It reminds me of my first days in the Army, having to answer to black drill sergeants, the first time I’d ever been in a relationship where my superior wasn’t white. It was a shock and an education, one of the best educational experiences the Army can provide, by the way. Now the rest of non-military America will have their unconscious world rattled a little, for the good. Will I rest my case on critiquing Obama? Hell, no. My opinion stands that he’ll be just another CEO of Americorp, especially skillful at selling corporatism. What his apparent victory does is say quite a lot about white America, especially youth, for whom the grip of white supremacy (old-style) has loosened significantly. One downside to all this may be that actual, practiced and institutional racism (prison industry, law enforcement, etc.) may become more aggressive as POTUS’s race provides a decoy for ongoing ethnic persecution.
31 October 2008, 3:59 pmcharles:
The most historic aspect of this election is so many Whites voting for a Black candidate for President. I understand the idea of “solidarity”, but my thought on reading that is that it is more important for the White people themselves. It is in _their own_ best interest to end racism. So, it is not so much what White people’s anti-racist vote does for Black people, but what it does for the White people themselves. Pulling those giant racist “electrodes” out of their own heads is going to be revolutionary. Racism of White people has been the main barrier to the advance of Everybody, White, Black , Brown , Yellow and Red.
So, White people should vote for Obama for themselves , not for Black people. Racism is poison for White people.
Boy, John Murtha is pulling a John Brown.
http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/news/17764334/detail.html
STAN: My point is not different than yours, but with a different emphasis… on the unacknowledged white privilege of voting third party tickets each election. Not saying it’s racist, nor am I saying that lesser-evilism always trumps everything else. I even think voting tactically against Dems or withholding votes is legitimate and smart… under the right circumstances. But many white “progressives” fail to see their own privilege in claiming there is no difference between an R and a D, based purely on positions and-or class-embeddedness. Constituents form part of that mix, too. The risks inherent in voting a third-party expression-vote (they are not positiioned to win anything yet, far from it) are more immediate and powerful for those groups who still exercise less power in society generally. Parents of white children do not experience the same day-to-day risks and pressures associated with raising Black kids, nor do they see the contradictions Black kids have as part of growing up in the US. So parents of white kids may overlook how important the “mere” symbolism of a Black chief of state is. There will be no solidarity between white and Black on behalf of a very large plurality of white voters. I can’t address myself to them, because they are impermeable to reason. But I do want to address those white voters of goodwill who may have overlooked the fact that in the final days of this election — whether or not the media tip-toe around it — the spectre of negrophobia is back and getting plenty of exercise on the ground as the last retrenchment of the McCain campaign. White folk of goodwill cannot stand on the sidelines during an actual attack, and say, “We empathize with the Black folk here.” That’s ideological affinity. Solidarity is stepping out into the fray and putting ourselves firmly and actively on the defense with African America.
31 October 2008, 5:38 pmStan Moore:
Some might be interested in reading John Pilger’s book “Freedom Next Time”. He describes what happened behind the scenes when Nelson Mandela was being considered for release from prison in apartheid South Africa. When Mandela was a revolutionary threat to the South African government, including his stated willingness to use violence to overthrow unjust power, and his willingness to collaborate with organized communism, people in power were worried that his release from prison would reinvigorate the fight for social justice and redistribution of wealth and power amongst the entire population of South Africa.
Not to fear; John Pilger reveals that Mandela and others in the African National Congress cut self-serving deals with white power brokers that gave Mandela and his friends wealth and some symbolic political power while preserving the white power structure over the predominate white-dominated wealth and industry of South Africa.
So, South African blacks got to vote, but they did not get real power and they did not get their share of the national wealth. Mandela sold out and got freedom, prestige, and a comfortable lifestyle. So did a few hundred other ANC members, while the residents of Soweto and the suburbs of Capetown and Johannesburg continue to dwell in shanties with little hope of a better life, despite the end of official apartheid.
Barack Obama is all about symbolism, just like Mandela came to be. Who knows what will happen if and when their people figure out how they were bamboozled with symbolic democracy and no real power. The lesson to be learned by the youth is that selling out is the path to power and wealth in an unjust world.
I predict a reality check for African Americans and Democrats and all Americans when Obama/Biden enhance the forthcoming national security state under conditions of fiscal and economic emergency. This will likely occur during their first year in office. When people can no longer use their credit cards and when petroleum is scarce and the electrical grid faltering in Compton during the summer riots that are sure to occur, I predict that many of the youth who were so impressed on Inauguration Day will tend to forget the benefits of having the first African American president. And they might even regret trusting the man when they knew all along deep inside that he was not on their side and they asked absolutely nothing of him in exchange for their vote and their support.
Stan Moore
31 October 2008, 10:38 pmPetaluma, CA
Lisa:
OBAMA: CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN–NOT, Part One, By Kellia Ramares
Thursday, 09 October 2008
[Truth To Power is delighted to publish the first in an exclusive series analyzing Barack Obama and his platform. Kellia Ramares has done her homework and documents that an Obama administration, backed by the same corporatocracy that is presiding over the largest wealth transfer in the history of the world, has no investment in change beyond rhetoric and ostensible extreme makeovers.–CB]
Part 1. The Economy
by Kéllia Ramares
It is often said that you are known by the company you keep. If that is true, then progressive voters should familiarize themselves with at least some of Sen. Barack Obama’s advisers and fundraisers, and by this I don’t mean Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright. I mean the real movers and shakers who are the answer to the question: “How does a young, black, first term Senator rise so quickly in politics so as to be standing at the threshold of the White House?” You will see that those who made it possible are
not Weather Underground, or vociferous ministers, but are the people who will insure that Barack Obama will not make any fundamental changes to the way the United States does its business - here or abroad.
Three-part series at CarolynBaker.net
31 October 2008, 10:38 pmLisa:
Another Fake Election
The 2008 “election” is a choice between the Rockefeller Republicans and the neo-cons, between the Council on Foreign Relations (Obama / Biden) and the American Enterprise Institute (McCain), between the old guard of foreign policy and the crazies. We need better choices than that if we are going to be able to use some of the rest of the oil for relocalization, renewable energy and “power down” strategies to mitigate the end of the age of oil. Unfortunately, we are getting the choice of “smarter empire” versus “Fourth Reich,” not a choice of “empire” versus “no empire.” Worse, it is obvious that the “voters” are not going to determine the outcome via the ballot boxes, touch screen voting machines and ballot scanners - Presidential elections are rigged in advance by elites who are divided about tactics but not about the goal of US global dominance.
http://www.oilempire.us/
31 October 2008, 10:41 pmAvedon:
I hope he wins, but I really, really hope he’s better than he seems.
It would be devastating if the first black president was the one who lost the union for good.
1 November 2008, 1:00 pmpeggy:
Hello everybody. My name is Margaret Trawick, but friends call me Peggy. I am sixty years old and have enjoyed discussions on the internet with Stan for quite a few years. I am a U.S. citizen but live and work in New Zealand. Also, I am an anthropologist who has worked in India and Sri Lanka. In SL, I was trying to come to terms with the intractable war that has been going on there for more than twenty years. Wrote a book about that, in which I refer to Stan more than once. Stan helped educate me on the matter of warfare. Our sometimes heated disagreements were part of that education.
2 November 2008, 2:17 amI sent in my overseas vote for Obama a couple of weeks ago. I think he is great, and no I don’t think he is any kind of god, but compared to other presidents in the last sixty years, he is much better than most, and trying to go in the right direction, and I believe he is very intelligent. All Americans, including me, have blood on our hands because of the U.S. policies to which we have acceded, sometimes forcibly, but mostly not.
In a couple of days, New Zealand is also having national elections. I am voting for the Maori Party and for the Green candidate for MP in this area. It would be much more interesting if the U.S. had MMP (proportional representation in government of small parties as well as big ones). But that won’t happen too soon, I fear. One of America’s many problems is that it is too big - third most populous country in the world, after China and India. Indonesia comes fourth. So, with that size, consensus on any matter is harder to achieve, as is communication among citizens of different persuasions. Like Stan, I respect Obama for his attempts to achieve consensus, and wish him luck. Also, I think highly of him because his mother was an anthropologist, like me.
charles:
Stan Moore, Why do you predict all that ?
2 November 2008, 2:05 pmcharles:
Hey, Peggy !
Wow, I had heard that O’s mother was an anthropologist, but now I get confirmation from you. Cool.
2 November 2008, 2:12 pmStan Moore:
reply to Charles who asked why I predited “all that”.
Well, Charles, first of all, here is my prediction:
I predict a reality check for African Americans and Democrats and all Americans when Obama/Biden enhance the forthcoming national security state under conditions of fiscal and economic emergency. This will likely occur during their first year in office. When people can no longer use their credit cards and when petroleum is scarce and the electrical grid faltering in Compton during the summer riots that are sure to occur, I predict that many of the youth who were so impressed on Inauguration Day will tend to forget the benefits of having the first African American president. And they might even regret trusting the man when they knew all along deep inside that he was not on their side and they asked absolutely nothing of him in exchange for their vote and their support.
And here is my answer to your question in as abbreviated fashion as I can make it:
There is plenty of evidence that the U.S. is headed towards being a police state. Anyone can be locked away on suspicion of terrorism and I see evidence already that the Federal government is surveiling and tracking movements and contacts and communications of everyone from peace activists, environmentalists, social justice agitators, attorneys, internet commentators, authors, and all forms of intellectuals and dissidents. Big Brother is already watching and I have no illusions that when a real fiscal emergency arouses the ire of the population, the solution preferred by the Federal government will be detention, repression, and injustice. In addition to fiscal emergency, we are no doubt headed for food emergencies in this country, because the Peak Oil reality will make food production and distribution more challenging and the net effect will be that the poorer one is, the more difficulty one will have even in simple survival. This will be especially true in urban settings.
Barack Obama is fully aware of this, but says nothing, because he wants power. His power will be derived primarily from corporate interests and those are the ones whose interests I believe he will protect when the feces hit the blower.
Interestingly, if McCain were to win the White House, the same outcomes, same emergencies, and same loyalties to the elite will be put in play.
Obama supporters are hoping for change, but the change they hope for is an illusion. Obama knows things he is not telling. I feel absolutely confident that Barack Obama knows the fiscal emergency that will worsen after the next election. He knows about Peak Oil, which is why Obama wants to end the “war” in Iraq, but not the occupation. He wants control of that oil and he wants to control Afghansistan for similar reasons.
Obama supporters are in for a reality check, in my opinion because the reality is that his rhetoric is knowingly empty.
Obama knows that he cannot enact an agenda of meaningful change, but he knows that only by promising one can he get elected. Bill Clinton was very similar, but Bill got to ride a big financial bubble which has popped and there can be no more bubbles for Obama or McCain or anyone else to jump aboard and take credit for.
Hard times are coming, no matter who will be the next President. Obama supporters are betting that their votes will ensure change, but change of the sort they hope for is not even possible in the intermediate term because the world and the national financial crisis are headed towards the level of catastrophe and inevitable turmoil and militaristic control of the populace of the U.S.
Read a little Naomi Wolf. She may not know it, but she was describing Bush, McCain AND Obama. They are all part of the power elite who will attempt to survive and maintain control of the U.S. population by any means necessary.
That is why I said earlier that U.S. military methods of population control in Fallujah and in Baghdad are practice runs for population control of the U.S. population.
I predict that it is just a matter of time before Obama supporter realize that they blew their bet on him. If Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader or Dennis Kucinich were elected in 2008, different priorities would be at play in response to the inevitable national emergency, but McCain/Obama are players in the elite who will sacrifice the little guys for the big ones. And those who hope that their kids seeing Obama in the White House offers real hope for the future are mssing the Big Picture, as far as I am concerned.
When symbolism crashes with reality, reality wins.
Stan Moore
2 November 2008, 9:52 pmPetaluma, CA
Mel:
Quote: “In this election, a very significant bloc of Republican and unaffiliated voters will vote against Obama because he is Black. And they are not voting against one Black man; they are voting to maintain white hegemony in American politics.”
It’s hard for me to disagree with you on this, but I do. Early on in the Dem primaries I was a Hillary supporter (and even then we’re talking lesser-evilism to some extent). An Obama supporting friend commented to me that she had no chance to win, to which I responded “But does Obama really stand a better chance? Don’t discount the massive levels of racism that still exist in this country - I’m not sure Obama can do it just for that.” Which is certainly not a statement I’m happy to have made, but I still think there’s some truth to it. I just think now - having seen that swell that’s come with the hope and the pride that Obama has inspired - that maybe we can rise above them.
But to get to why I don’t agree with your statement… While I certainly would agree that there will be some that vote against Obama for this one singular reason, my feeling is that the greater majority of the white folks who think that way would take umbrage with any number of Obama’s ideas and policies as well and would be driven to vote against him for those reasons in addition to race. Indeed, I’d wager that some (many?) of them even think this is the main reason they are voting against him but in reality if it were a white man running on the same platform, they’d be voting the other side still.
More to the point I think that the reverse is possibly what we’re seeing instead - and what could finally be that piece that puts him over the top - that African American voters who may be more in the middle or even further left leaning who would have considered voting McCain or 3rd party based on platform alone will instead cast their vote for Obama just because of race. I’m not passing a judgment on this decision - whether that’s a good or bad way to go about it I’m not sure - but I have personally heard conversations where this was stated as the reason individuals were voting Obama. (And that’s without counting the large number of first time voters who are coming out in droves solely because an African American is a real and plausible choice on the ballot.)
3 November 2008, 5:12 amcharles:
I predict that it is just a matter of time before Obama supporter realize
^^^^^^^^
3 November 2008, 3:08 pmI predict that if Obama wins, which will take a historic anti-racist vote from tens of millions of White people, it means the beginning of the end of Reaganism and a major opportunity for progressive change. It will still have to come “from the bottom up” as Obama says again, and again and again…, but his winning would mark great potential for We, the People to make reforms as significant as the New Deal and the 60’s Civil Rights laws , Great Society/War on Poverty. Yes, we can ! And that’s real.
charles:
http://www.tamilnation.org/forum/trawick/index.htm
Peggy,
I see you got your Ph.d at Chicago in 1978. Did you have an contact with Marshall Sahlins ?
Charles
3 November 2008, 3:14 pmStan Moore:
I was in Emeryville, CA today — a neighboring city with Oakland and Berkeley. My friend, a thirty-ish Jewish businessman, was wearing an Obama tee shirt. My friend is opening a new restaurant and there were workers and contractors there from Asian and Latino backgrounds, but no African Americans. People were “high-fiving” my friend and exclaiming “Obama!” all morning.
Obama clearly has excited liberals of all races.
I will not be the least bit surprised if the Republicans illegally steal the election,and there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that they will try.
But if Obama is inaugurated, I am certain that the high hopes of his adoring admirers will be replaced with the same sort of backpedaling and excuse-making that we already have seen regarding his alleged opposition to wars for Empire. And those wars will surely rage on and possibly even be expanded into Pakistan and perhaps other lands during his predictably disastrous tenure.
And all those people who were bamboozled into thinking that Obama has a fiscal plan that will significantly benefit the janitors and the blue collar workers will struggle in vain to see those benefits.
I would not be at all surprised within the first year or so of Obama’s administration to see enactment of a national identification card for security purposes, from which would follow mass eviction of illegal aliens from the country, including his dear “auntie” from Kenya.
Obama promises better times and positive change for the masses, but I see just the opposite, whether Obama or McCain is inaugurated. Obama and McCain know. The Congress knows. But they are trying to avoid a panic till after the election…
Stan Moore
3 November 2008, 8:28 pmPetaluma, CA
Stan:
Loren Goldner just wrote this analysis of the coming crash. He’s been quite prescient over the last few years on economic matters; and he is a ferret for hard numbers.
If his figures are correct and we have most of the overdetermining variables at hand, then the top of the heap will experience quite a bit of desperate and angry writhing from below. The effort divided by the political fraction of ruling class between accommodating the needs and desires of the domestic political base and cnducting the businsess of preserving US power and maintaining a stable accumulation environment, will be shifted more and more heavily to the former… only now with needs and desires becoming more need than desire, more desperate, and more politically volatile.
The resort to old-school red-baiting in the campaign is a direct reflection of the emergent prominence of economic class on the US political landscape as this crisis begins to really put down its taproot.
The left, and even the Sabbath-Jubilee bible-thumpers like me, can sit by and claim our own powerlessness in this period; but that would be a terrible mistake imho. The top is losing control by inexorable degrees; and the bottom now has an oportunity to assert itself in the form of demands. The “hopeful” base in the Obama campaign — Black folk, academics and young professionals, new voters, et al — will now have to drop the honeymoon in January and get back into the fray over macropolicy. That means the anti-imperial, the anti-capitalist, the feminist, the anti-racist forces must take hold of their former critiques and bring them into line with a new post-Bush reality. But it also means that the so-called “middle class” (the force majeur of American electoral politics) will be present with demands, regardless of how they split ideologically in the election. They are on a very precarious debt ledge, just for beginners, with mass unemployment coming their way.
If there is one thing my marxist training drilled into me, it is that the deep secular trends will always eventually bulldoze the other determining aspects of any period. These are not ideas, but material realities. The power of these trends transcend control by the imperial class (note the war and the economy, eg). The people are going to get their opportunity now — not because Obama wins (I hope), but because everything is such a blue ribbon fuck-up. Neoliberalism, the form of global capitalism since Reagan, is literally collapsing before our eyes. Now is not the time for sour grapes. Now is the time to shift the center of political gravity back to the masses. Some New Deal-style programs are first and foremost necessary as a bridge, ie, public works jobs programs (hopefully doing eco-repair, not building dams and generators). Debt forgiveness (at least interest forgiveness) should be at our top. And ending the war remains an immeidate and inescapable moral challenge, imo.
The people have just inherited a lot of power (again, not because of the election, but because of major systemic failures). Now is the time to organize for all we’re worth; and part of that reorganization is to be the change we forsee (relocalization).
4 November 2008, 6:07 amRev. José M. Tirado:
“You gotta meet them where they are…”
You know, while I have never watched one tv commercial by either candidate, saw only a tiny percentage of the debates on the Dem side and less of the Reps, saw the last debates a day late, and generally agree with the radical and more progressive “Left” publications, I have followed this election with a muted enthusiasm that belies my poitical identity.
I read both the NYTimes, Wash. Post, Wall St. Jrnl. along with CounterPunch, commondreams, Dissident Voice, Monthly Review, this site and others. I say this to say that as an American who lives overseas, I remain invested in this ritual in a way I never have. And that is because I feel this election is important.
Look, as Stan mentioned above, “we” are invisible: that is, the articulate proto-vanguard who can quote Left thinkers in our sleep and the names of great revolutionary heroes and heroines.
While I spent most of my life trying to get an education so that I could understand things, I remain tied to a worldview I inherited from my father. And that is a working class, ordinary guy perspective that I rarely see anymore on the Left. We will not win. Obama will not usher in the great age of Left politics and unfortunately he is NOT a socialist. But we cannot discard or look down upon those whose excitement about electing a Black man has given more hope for a better world than a thousand ZNet articles.
As a man of color who watched in pain as my father got called “nigger” in front of me, this moment is significant for me. At times I tear up believing he would have been happy had he lived to see this. We have a ton of work to do because most Americans are not all that political. Most Americans vote when excited and otherwise want to be left alone. So to belittle voting is not wise and smacks of an elitism that pushes putative allies away. We need to redouble our efforts because after this election most people I think will celebrate and assume all will now be well. But it won´t. And that´s where people like us come in. We cannot assume Obama will govern from the Left (he won´t). But we shouldn´t dismiss the raw emotional weight the election of a Black man as President has for so many people. That´s a starting place for work. At least that´s how I feel.
4 November 2008, 6:10 amJim Neville:
Wow. I read this blog with great interest and respect. I came on to see what Stan Goff had to say regarding for whom I should vote…McKinney or Nader. I’m floored. Although I can understand voting for Obama simply because he’s African-American, (especially because he’s so smart, talented, charismatic and elegant), but Hoy Cow, all I can think of is Colin Powell. He’s African-American, too, Stan. Well, it just goes to show, I ultimately have to depend on my own good judgment. I only wish that I could vote for both Cynthia and Ralph, but I’m off to the polls now, and I’ll make that decision once I’m in the booth. I respect you immensely, Stan, but I’m blow away. Whew.
4 November 2008, 7:17 amStan Moore:
I do not have time right now to read and digest the comments by Stan just above. I absolutely agree that crisis creates opportunity and can result in a sort of “reshuffling the deck”. Naomi Klein has been publicizing her book on “The Shock Doctrine” which points out that capitalism manipulates crises for its own benefit by reshuffling government policies and tactics to further depress the downtrodden and shift wealth upwards. Just the opposite could happen in theory.
I heard a quote on the radio the other day about the difference between the rich and the poor of the world. The gyst of the explanation is that the rich are more organized. I would add a corollary that anyone who does not believe in “conspiracy theories” has no understanding whatsoever of human nature; the rich and powerful have every motivation to conspire to maintain control of their wealth and power and it would be insane of them to do otherwise.
I believe that a major component of that control by the ruling elite is to distract the masses with a false notion of democracy that democracy is all about voting. If you cast a vote, you are said to be practicing democracy. Thus, the power elite rig a system in which voters define their power by one simple act that is rigged by the system to provide minimal power with maximal (but falsely deceptive) satisfaction.
The reality is that democracy requires accurate knowledge, good candidates, good legislation, relentless oversight and scrutiny by the masses, constant supervision of the actions of the government, which in the U.S. is supposed to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
In our system, we get candidates who are allowed to lie relentlessly because the lies make the electorate feel good just prior to the election. Most of the electorate in today’s elections do very little independent research on the real goals of the candidates and the real situation the government must deal with.
As an example, some of us know about the seriousness of Peak Oil, subprime mortgages, balooning national debt, derivative credit swaps, and other instruments of mass deception and financial destruction that have been heading toward us like a powerful armada for several years. But neither party and neither major candidate is excercising true democratic leadership by making the electorate fully aware of the consequences of these matters and allowing the electorate to influence policy in the genuine public interest. Instead, we have seen the guarding of the public henhouse by the very wolves who created the messes that are being dealt with.
The true public good is not a public issue in this election or any election in living memory. Instead, special interest groups are focusing on grabbing tiny little pieces of the pie while the whole pie is getting stolen right from under their noses. A recent Naomi Klein commentary correctly identifies the series of bailouts we have been seeing recently as the final act of looting of the public wealth by the oligarchs. Even the lefties are standing by and cheering Barack Obama as he joins John McCain at facilitating the greatest wealth transfer in history, which is an upwards transfer that will result in further depauperization of the class of people wildly supporting their “hero”.
If there is to be hope, democracy is going to have to work a whole lot better than electing a man who is stabbing you in the back while smiling to your face and promising you the moon.
The smartest thing the elite have ever done is to create complacency and comfort by the same group of people they fleece over and over again.
In past generations, there was always room for further economic growth because the planet had plenty of additional resources to exploit and the little guy could get some trickle down benefit from the growth process. At this point in planetary history, with oil production stabilizing at its all time peak and destined to permanently enter into decline, and with many earth resources tapped out and also in decline, we are entering the last stages of capitalism.
Capitalism is all about plunder, and when the world’s wealthy elite have less and less material resources to plunder from the planet, they resort to plundering the underclasses and stealing their accumulated wealth. That is what is going on right now. The national treasuries of nations all around the world are being looted by the bankers and the financiers and the insurance moguls and the public is being tricked into thinking it is for their own good because it is necessary to restart the “real economy”. Barack Obama is part of the scam and he is telling people that his policies will resume economic growth and make it possible for the low level workers to get an increased share of an increasing pie. This is all a lie. The pie is shrinking, the prospects are dimming, the situation is getting increasingly serious and dangerous, and the elite have got the people cheering as if progress is being made.
Reality must intervene and only by working within a framework of reality can the pending emergency be met. Survival itself will be at stake for many.
Stan Moore
4 November 2008, 10:56 amPetaluma, CA
Stan:
Colin Powell is not Barack Obama. This is not as obvious as it appears at first glance; but these differences are important. First among differences, Colin Powell has never been put before the American electorate as a candidate for chief exec. Voting may be the opiate of the masses, but a hell of a lot of people bled and died for that opiate. Only white people have the privilege-generated capacity to ignore this.
As a white Southern male age 57 living in North Carolina, who remembers segregation and miscegenation laws and White Citizens Councils… and as the parent of Black children and racially-heterogenous grandchildren, I will say without any apology that this election is historic, regardless of the infinite list of things it will not accomplish. To say differently, or even to minimize its signifcance is an exercise of white privilege, self-delusion, or plain intellectual dishonesty.
The Civil Rights Act didn’t end capitalism either, but it sure as hell made a big difference. This is an extension of that same struggle that will not and cannot jump over its own historical context. The left remains self-isolating precisely because it doesn’t take Marx seriously on the topic of philosophical idealism vs dialectical materialism.
Conditions. Conditions. Conditions.
4 November 2008, 12:55 pmLegume Sam:
I’m a 46-year-old white male ecosocialist living (at present) in southern California. I’m quite aware of class division, having been to an elite private school for grades 7-12 on scholarship, and having devoted a small portion of my life to teaching in southern California’s impoverished neighborhoods. But my main concern at present is the complete lack of any consideration of ecosystem resilience in the architecture of consumer society.
I am currently reading Sing C. Chew’s The Recurring Dark Ages, a book which discusses the role ecosystem change has in bringing on the collapse of civilizations. Chew concentrates upon the civilizations of Eurasia in this book, and upon “Dark Ages” from 2200-1700 bce, 1200-700 bce, and 400-900 ce, but generally his thesis is this: depending upon how a civilization appropriates the land, local ecosystems are made more or less fragile in their ability to withstand climatic changes. Pile political upheaval (which of course varies in intensity from time to time) on top of climatic change on top of ecosystem weakness, and you have the collapse of a civilization. The effect is, of course, mitigated by the resilient powers of culture and technology, but not entirely.
The perfect storm may not be brewing as we speak. But the climate change we can expect will dwarf anything experienced by human beings, and ecosystem fragility is also doubtless at an all-time high. Our cultures and technologies are quite resilient, but for the most part in the wrong way; we are resilient at appropriating nature in an out-of-hand manner, but not in our everyday understanding of ecosystem resilience. We live in wastelands of concrete and grass, and we don’t even blink as we gaze upon the ruins of the future. Everyone is taught to focus upon their sovereign individual selves, never mind the society or ecosystem which forms the substrate for the existence and growth of selves. Law, education, business, all are about the primacy of the sovereign individual. If anything needs to change about our collective perspective, it is this.
President Obama will only be able or willing to do so much about our dilemma. But there’s really nothing else of any momentum upon the ballot. “The left” has historically been self-isolating post-1973 because it’s tied down to “vote for the Democrat” electoral strategies with no vision of the future, never mind that of a likely future, and so it has had to wait for the collapse of Republican Party hegemony to be handed a chance. On top of this, we should consider that if freedoms aren’t used, they tend to be overwhelmed by circumstances.
4 November 2008, 6:15 pmStan:
This just bears quoting. This is also where many leftists and Christians share a critique of liberalism. That liberal focus on sovereign self.
4 November 2008, 6:33 pmJim Neville:
And I, in my turn and also without apology, voted for Ralph Nader. (My only possible regret is that I chose not to vote for Cynthia McKinney.) I agree with you that Obama isn’t Powell, Stan. My point was that skin color is only part of the calculus. (See: The Honorable Clarence Thomas; Ms.Condoleezza Rice.) When Ralph Nader speaks on the issues, I am able to breathe much more deeply, and my blood pressure diminishes. It’s quite visceral. Obama, on the other hand, has quite the opposite effect on this one individual. He sings the praises of nuclear power, doesn’t support the Palestinians, promotes “clean” coal, will increase the militarism in Afghanistan, sees Venezuela as a terrorist nation, is anti-gay marriage, etc., etc. By the way, I happen to be male, white, two quick years younger than you, and very happy to declare that I am the proud father of my lesbian daughter whose maternal grandfather is Afro-Caribbean… but I don’t see the relevance in any of such personal data for the purposes of this discussion. I voted for someone whose words have resonance for me on the issues, and who has dedicated his life absolutely to causes that have greatly benefited all of us, in my opinion. I truly admire you for your good work, Stan, but with you I will respectfully disagree this time.
4 November 2008, 6:37 pmStan Moore:
I wish I could be giddy tonight. But I just do not see Barack Obama as the same sort of heroic, historic figure that compares with Harriet Tubman or Jackie Robinson or Thurgood Marshall or Shirley Chisholm or Barbara Jordan. Barack Obama did everything he could to keep race out of his agenda. And then he benefited and won because his supporters contradicted his own strategy by lauding him and electing him as a symbol of that which he fled from in his own elective strategy.
If Barack Obama reminds me of anyone, it is Barry Bonds of baseball. Barry was an outstanding natural talent, but not a power hitter. He became a false legend because of his affiliation with a chemist and his skin color played a crucial role in shielding him from scrutiny by his rabid fans. (By comparison, when Mark MacGwire was found to have hit his home runs under the artificial boost of a non-steroidal drug, his reputation was totally destroyed). Barack Obama had some natural talent as a community organizer, but now he is in the Big Leagues and expected to hit the ball out of the park for the little guy. The problem is that the juice he got from Penny Pritzker and others will allow him to pull the ball to the shallow right field where the financiers operate and snag home run balls, but the po’folks in the upper bleachers will find his home runs few and far between.
However, if Barack Obama would choke up on the bat and hit some singles and get his confidence up, he might get in a rhythm where he could drive in some runs and help his team. The question is — will his handlers let him follow his instincts or make him swing for that shallow right field fence for the benefit of his influential fans and personal agents.
It will be interesting to see how this team of Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi perform. A good clue will be told in the first budget.
Stan Moore
5 November 2008, 12:37 amPetaluma, CA
Henry:
I am happy for Black Americans. After all the suffering they have endured, this is a great moment for them.
5 November 2008, 12:44 amJMCSwan:
It is my own hope that we can finally get the public talking about this hideous energy war again,
Hi Stan,
What very, very few people discuss; at least linking the dots together, in a clear manner to a reader indicating ‘hey these dots are linked in many more ways than one’ (which I find in western thinking does not occur that much, it being so compartmentalized; reducing issues to the minutia, instead of eastern big picture ‘everything is connected’; sum of all parts greater than whole kind of thinking).
So with that said, I’ve put together a page, which in brutally frank ‘in yo face’ terms brings issues of the exponential functions, and their relationships with each other, and exponential effects on each other; of among others; with some brief resources:
- exponential money supply growth
- exponential debt growth
- exponential energy supply decrease
- exponential (metal/commodities supply) decrease
- Expponential population growth etc.
- Exponential ‘economic growth’
And then the Political and Economic Consequences of the Collision of Overpopulation and related exponential factors with scarce resources
So, not sure if anyone interested therein; but it’s kind of a quick ‘OUCH’….
Anyway, it’s at: Exponential Yewgenics, or The Energy Economics of Feebleminded Addicts to Politically Correct Religious and Corporate $lave and €annon Fodder Breeding Economics & Religion….
Lara
5 November 2008, 5:33 amStan:
Now is the time to turn away from this election except to acknowledge its historic import. The President-elect has finished with campaigning and now must figure out how he is to govern, along with a new Congress.
Given the backdrop to the election — losing a two-front war, watching the financialized global economy tumble, and (as Sam points out) a climate crisis that is frighteningly inconceivable to us — now that the election is done, that backdrop becomes again the foreground that shoots at our heels each day.
The struggle now is for hearts and minds, not votes. Reaching those who were mobilized by this election is not accomplished by showing them condescension or contempt. The amorphous hope that fueled this election campaign can be clarified, but only if we engage people in a respectful conversation that doesn’t begin with our own assumption that we can’t learn anything from those “less evolved” others.
Since there is a hankering for “change,” then we need to talk about deep change… about food security, about sustainability, about local autarky. These are not things to be against, but practices that carry with them their own satisfactions and which attract people, embodying that hope.
Some 12-steppers told me that “hope is half-assed faith.” Faith, in this meaning, is that radical trust that obliges us to behave as if the good is possible, even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In short, it means we don’t withdraw, and we don’t give up. I would add, we don’t make enemies of those who are not beside us yet, nor do we treat them with contempt. (This is a vestige of machismo, even though it has been adopted by more than men; and something I struggle with in myself.)
Relocalization is not only a means for surviving the economic crash; it is the seizure of democracy by the actual stakeholders in the conduct of our daily lives; it is the way to more genuine and embedded community; and it is a strategic defense initiative.
Explaining the latter, the decentralization of critical infrastructure is tantamount to wide distribution of redundant “targets,” such that no decisive single attack can have other than limited effect. The other half of that security model, of course, is to quit provoking… a question that brings us back to policy related to dollar hegemony, oil, strategic minerals, and Israel/Palestine.
None of this happens unless we articulate it clearly, coherently, and in a manner that it will be willingly received… again and again and agian. This vision must become relentless in its assertion, until it becomes part of our public vocabulary…. and part of our internal monologues.
The oportunity is not in this historic election — though that is part of the overall — but in the systemic collapse. As this dinosaur period enters its endgame, we must become the mammals who are driven to enter the abandoned niches of the old, and make them our own. This is not dependent on elections, policies, and laws; those are simply means that will emerge along the path in specific ways. It is dependent on learning the example, practicing the example, becoming the example, and bringing more people into the same cycle.
5 November 2008, 6:58 amStan Moore:
Moving forward into the post-election era, some very interesting paradoxes emerge and will become more and more evident.
In his acceptance speech, the new President stated that “change has come to America”. Thus he seems to be revealing to me that he is the beneficiary of change, not the agent of change.
The electorate clearly seems to be paying the victimhood card, assuming that the new president will focus on redress of past grievances and alteration of perspective that will reshuffle the deck for a more fair and honest and just nation and national government. On the other hand, the President will soon remind in his post-election phase as he did during the campaign that he feels that we must get past the politics of divisiveness, which means no complaints about past victimhood will reach his ears and his view of governance will likely reflect the advise of his financial advisors.
When will the new president step up and discuss the massive fraud and corruption intertwined in the ongoing financial crisis and act to properly regulate the securities and financial and banking industries? That would be a precious cue to the electorate that real change is at hand.
When will the new President define Peak Oil to the masses and stipulate a strategy to deal with it in the real public interest? Will he make Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute his Secretary of Energy? Or will he put an industry flack in that position? Richard Heinberg authored a book called “Power Down” which describes an internationally balanced and fair and just approach to the inevitable changes at hand. Will Heinberg or someone like him have the President’s ear?
What about real solutions to Global Climate Change? The last Democratic ticket, with Al Gore on board, knew all about climate change, and refused to ratify the Kyoto Treaty, which we now know ten years later is woefully inadequate. What change is the new President going to enact that will deal with the problem effectively and in the public interest?
I can recall even that old devil Richard Nixon, during the Arab Oil embargo of the 1970’s, taking to the airwaves on television and speaking frankly with the American people, telling them that crisis was at hand. Will Barack Obama have the chutzpah to be the bearer of bad news before that bad news turns catastrophic?
I agree with Stan Goff that what happens next is of critical importance and what happened even in the recent past is now history. Obama could do some important work even before his inauguration by speaking truth to the American people about what to expect in the world situation and by doing what he can even now to prevent rollbacks of the public interest by the outgoing Bush Administration.
I would suggest a press conference by Obama and Pelosi next week telling the electorate what is and what will be in the first six months of the new administration.
There is no doubt that the electorate will be willing to cut Obama a whole lot of slack during his administration. But if the winter is harsh and people are freezing to death in their homes and the news is routinely bad with no sign that the new administration is proactively solving people problems, things could get particularly ugly in a political sense.
Stan Moore
5 November 2008, 10:36 amPetaluma, CA
Tom:
The bottom-line on Obama is that none of you know who he will be as President.
The things he said to get elected President are the things that one must say to get elected President - period. McKinney, Kucinich, Nader are not getting elected President - not under the present system. Stan Moore said it is a given that Obama knows some or all of the awful truths and did not address them — well it is also a given that if he wants to do right by these issues, he has to get elected first and therefore would not speak truth to power until he gets the power himself.
So what will he do now that he is President? We don’t know.
He can do a Bill Clinton and put a good face on the agenda of the power elite. This is the really scary scenario. Historically, the powerful have understood that they can push through portions of their agenda with greater ease under a populist Democrat President than can be accomplished with a Republican. Wilson and Clinton as examples.
Or Obama can stand up to the Powers that be. Of course we hope for the latter, but the choice he makes is not the end of the problem. There is the issue of how the powerful react to a challenge to their power if he goes that route.
They can create a severe economic plight and international crises and sit out one term. Such conditions can bring down weak leaders like Carter and Bush I. But I think Obama is stronger than that if he asserts himself on the side of good and right. So then the option is one of eliminating him, which is what I suspect occurred with JFK and was attempted with Andy Jackson and possibly Lincoln as well. But that is a very high-stakes gamble. They’ve had a long string of successes exercising that option, but they got a little cocky with 9/11 and the hubris of that event might still come back to bite them in the ass. The growing questions over 9/11 may make them a little shy on using this type of option again, but I doubt it. Set up a racist as the patsy, put the country in grief and mourning. Install Biden and prop him up with some successes and everyone moves on.
No real point speculating. Obama clearly presents a better calculation for the future than McCain. I do not disagree with Rockefeller v. Neocon candidate model, but that does not mean that Obama will not go off script the way I believe JFK did. I hope he does and I hope it turns out better.
But as a matter of principle, I voted for Nader (McKinney was not on the Ballot).
BTW — you should read this piece John Cusak wrote on Huffington Post - quite good.
5 November 2008, 12:40 pmKim Sky:
i happened to be in san diego over the election. wow. talk about a very deep, silent undercurrent, you could feel it — cut it with a knife.
one example: to talk with my father’s gardener/friend/mexican-cannot-vote — was to reach into the heavens of camaraderie, hope, joy — like tapping into a spring of spiritual renewal.
this chance to feel like an american again, that all the people i know in this country ARE AMERICANs. especially in light of the last eight years of exclusion is overwhelming. i cannot stop crying with joy.
right now — i cannot listen to the lefties that i normally listen to, even amy goodman, chris floyd, world socialist, whatever — the relentless march of the gloom and doomers — with their negative face against everything except the ABSOLUTE cause.
this is profound — and i’m gonna be there and work.
5 November 2008, 1:28 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
Managing The Transfer. The Civilian Role.
My first thought goes to the money. The money already borrowed and the money already spent ; the money that has gone to Lockheed Martin,
Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrupp Grummman, Blackwater,
Halliburton, and others in the BUSINESS of keeping America “safe. ”
Two days ago, it was either gonna be President-Elect Obama
or President-Elect McCain. Either way, the BUSINESS of keeping Ameri-
ca “safe” was likely to be safe itself.
Now, it probably will surprise few who-read-this-blog that
the Democrats are funded by the Lockheed Martins, Boeings,
General Dynamics’s, Raytheons, Northrupp Grummans, Blackwaters,
Halliburtons, and others that are in the BUSINESS of keeping
America “safe. ”
There’s a lot of money going ’round while the USA is being kept
“safe.”
The victims at Virginia Tech were not kept safe. The victims
at a school in Pennsylvania in October 2006 were not kept safe.
If money could’ve been made by keeping those persons alive, well,
they might all be alive today ; sorry if that offends anyone
it happens to be true.
The people who’ve died since the “military operations”
in Afghanistan started, waaaaaaaay back in October 2001,
AND BY THE WAY THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF THEM ,
did NOT benefit during all that time and money that was spent
in the effort to keep the USA safe during the past seven-and-a-quarter years ……
It might be time, now, to think of the USA’s military ’s problem
with sexual assaults. Some victimes of sexual assaults do not feel safe;
sorry if that offends anyone, it happens to be true. It is absolutely bizarre to me that Secretary Of Defense Gates has not been,
to borrow an old-timer’s phrase, ” run out of town on a rail.”
Could a man be more IN DENIAL than Sec.Def. Gates is ? Well, I mean apart from Bush, Rove, Hannity, and Cheney, I mean !
It might be time, now, to acknowledge that Iraq is its own country. So it seems fitting to suggest that the USA’s government remove the USA’s military from Iraq NOW ; owing to the fact that Iraq is its own country, after all.
It might be time, NOW, also, to acknowledge that Afghanistan
is its own country. So it goes here that maybe the USA’s government
should remove the USA’s military from Afghanistan NOW ; owing to the fact that Afghanistan is its own country , after all.
But, and most folks who follow Stan Goff’s career are likely already aware of this, there’s money to be made by keeping the USA’s military operations operating in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
The things that persons find time for !
” BAGRAM AIR BASE, AFGHANISTAN : It wasn’t Bob Hope,
but the thousands of U.S. troops craning their necks for a peek
at the hulking ’superstars’ and scantily clad ‘divas’ in the
hastily constructed wrestling ring at Bagram Air Base didn’t
seem to mind. ”
” ‘ I’m just here to watch the chicks wearing pretty much nothing’ ”
said Spec. Cody Chandler, 28 years old of Palmdale, California. ”
” Apache helicopters and A-10 Warthogs, with soldiers perched on top,
formed the backdrop
for the holiday spectacle as the stars of World Wrestling
Entertainment’s Monday Night RAW descended on the base outside
Kabul on Friday (Friday, Dec. 9, 2005) in a whirlwind
of chest-beating patriotism and minutely choreographed
mayhem. ”
source: news article by Thomas Coghlan, Saturday Dec. 10, 2005; additional note, next, by Timothy R. Anderson:
More than two hundred American military servicemembers have died
in Afghanistan since the day I first saw Coghlan’s news-article.
Billions of dollars have been made by BUSINESSES since then as
well.
Timothy R. Anderson
5 November 2008, 1:31 pmcharles:
The people have just inherited a lot of power (again, not because of the election, but because of major systemic failures).
^^^^
5 November 2008, 3:37 pmBecause of the election , too. Obama said about a thousand times, “change comes from the bottom up,not from the top down. ” Sounds like a member of Solidarity with “from below”. Obama represents enormous potential for the People, the working class.
VJP:
Count me in among the “pessimists”. I have voted in every election, including primaries, since 1972. This was the first election I considered not voting at all. I finally found my motivation for voting based on spiting the republicans. I am not into identity politics, symbolism, nor making history. That doesn’t mean I have contempt for those who are inspired by Obama; I just don’t share in that feeling.
It is the powers that be who have contempt for us.
I particularly agree with Stan Moore on this:
‘The smartest thing the elite have ever done is to create complacency and comfort by the same group of people they fleece over and over again.’
When pressed, my husband admitted that he NEEDED to have faith in Obama. I sincerely hope it’s a soft landing when people realize their wants & needs are 2 different things.
5 November 2008, 3:42 pmcharles:
The amorphous hope that fueled this election campaign can be clarified, but only if we engage people in a respectful conversation that doesn’t begin with our own assumption that we can’t learn anything from those “less evolved” others.
^^^^
5 November 2008, 3:55 pmSpeaking as one of the “more evolved “politically (smile), let me say the People of the US just took a qualitative step forward in political consciousness and practice. All lefties should go to the masses with great humility and a sense of political optimism that “yes , we can change the world for the better”. A lot of the left is in the political rear guard, not the avant guard at this moment. Like the old joke, “there go the People. I better follow them.” The ultra- left needs to do as much soul searching as the Republicans.
DeAnander:
Meanwhile “progressive” California just voted to ban gay marriage… while from my present home in Canada, people look on with puzzled expressions and occasional murmurs of “what is wrong with those people down South? why on earth is it even an issue?”
Of course there are wingnuts, bible-thumpers and the like North of the border as well. They just haven’t been running things for the last 20 years (despite a good strong bid in the person of Harper).
–
Apologies for my long absence, friends. Personal face-space life caught up with me in a big way this summer — a good way, too, but very involving. Have been working on boats (mine and others’), planning a garden, and growing into a new ‘more-than-friendship’. Also cooking for various people on various occasions, starting a worm composting bin, entertaining visiting friends, getting around car-free, continuing to explore my new town, and suchlike usual and customary activities. Somehow there has been little time left for things like blogging, knitting, writing — even reading has been less of a feature in my life than normal.
But winter is upon us (hard frost last night, ice on unprotected pools of water this morning); southeasterly gales tonight, possibly freezing rain. Darkness falls early since the clock change; the evenings are loooong and cold, and rather than rowing all over the local bays, visiting other boats, hiking, etc. I will probably be spending more time snuggled up with the laptop and the wood stove, reporting from my curious little 21st/19th century world.
As to the recent election, I breathe a small sigh of relief; am scheduled to go Stateside for a couple of weeks to visit far flung friends, ex-colleagues and family, and it will be slightly less scary to visit Obama’s America than McCain’s. The border thugs may be slightly less offensive and bullying; the mood of the people may be slightly less fecklessly martial (and more optimistic?). I see no prospect for any President — no matter how intelligent or resolved — to rescue industrial-capitalist civilisation from its structurally inherent death spiral; but I foresee less bad craziness from this gang than we might have expected from the McCain/Palin gang. I know a sigh of relief is not exactly cheering and dancing in the streets, but hey — it’s better than nothing!
5 November 2008, 5:28 pmLegume Sam:
Stan Moore asks:
My response: in a recent diary on DailyKos.com, I suggested some real solutions to global climate change. I would count it as a political victory if any of you could get these ideas discussed at important political functions. See if you can’t get some group like Americans for Informed Democracy to talk about this stuff — I think I have an “in” with these people and will certainly try. Or maybe you could try to persuade “A Siegel,” an individual on DailyKos.com who posts diaries nearly every day, that capitalism and real ecological solutions do not mix. Anything along those lines would be great.
Rejecting capitalism is only the first step, however, in getting society to recognize its interest in ecosystem resilience. The danger of complete ecosystem collapse is growing yearly with abrupt climate change and with all of the other thnigs capitalist business throws at the natural environment (e.g. overfishing). The ultimate solution, I feel, is to promote a sort of “ecological discipline” by which people would structure their lives around these things, with the understanding that if it has not been integrated into the individual’s corpus of habits, it won’t take a high enough priority to be worth doing often enough to count.
As for the “hope” that people understand in Obama’s election, part of it approximates the feeling one gets when feeling that the torture of life under the Village Idiot may in fact soon come to an end. This isn’t too hard to understand, right?
5 November 2008, 5:50 pmStan Moore:
A positive expectation I have for President Obama is regarding his role in shaping the Supreme Court. I think there may be some S.C. retirements during Obama’s term in office and if there is one important positive contribution he can make to the public welfare, it is to put a proactive jurist on that court. I loved Thirgood Marshall’s attitude as an activist jurist using that power position to do right by the people. We need an antidote to the “strict interpretationists” like Scalia and Thomas and the more recent Bush appointees Roberts and Alito.
Although I have some grave reservations about putting hyperpartisan flunkie Rahm Immanuel as White House Chief of Staff, I see him as a conduit that could easily lead to the placement of Hillary Clinton on the Supreme Court for a lifetime appointment. To me, that would be the best place for Hillary Clinton to serve her country (and me) effectively and meaningfully. I would not complain if a second position came up if Obama/Immanuel put Bill Clinton in there with Hillary for the first wife/husband collaboration as justices on the Supreme Court. Probably an impossible proposition, but it would be even nicer if closed circuit monitors were installed in chambers and we could watch the private engagements between the Clintons and Scalia/Thomas and even Alito/Roberts. I wonder if Judge Roberts ever loses his cool…
But seriously, if Obama puts a proactive jurist devoted to the public good (and against the corporate/elite interests) he will have accomplished something substantial that goes way beyond symbolism and really affects people’s lives in a positive way. And he would upset the conservatives and possibly win a second term.
Stan Moore
5 November 2008, 6:00 pmPetaluma, CA
Tom:
Admit it - Stan Moore - you are getting caught up in the excitement. Hell - I am.
I saw the clips from of the excitement, hope and enthusiasm from overseas.
This guy is really smart and he has to have more morals than Clinton. It’s just hard not to see this as JFK all over again. I am starting to believe that his own ego will not allow him to turn away from this adoration. I don’t think he is going to be tricked for very long, if at all, and so if he makes decisions to betray the hope and excitement that he has inspired, he is going to do it with full knowledge that he is a tool and not the leader that the better part of the nation and the world believes him to be. I’m not sure he can do that. Not with two young kids and the rest of the world looking up to him.
We can hope.
Hey, the guy grew up with Chicago Rules - so he knows how to play hardball.
5 November 2008, 9:27 pmStan Moore:
Hi Tom –
I don’t have a television and have seen zero minutes of the televised coverage of recent events. I listen to National Public Radio and read some web-based news and continue to be basically appalled. So, no, I don’t get caught up in the hype and hysteria– at all.
As an example, a black commentator on NPR yesterday remarked how the Obama election meant that anyone could be president of the U.S., no matter what their race. But then he turned around and complained about Ralph Nader’s repetitive running for President, since he said Ralph did not have a chance to win.
Cynthia McKinney is viewed by women of color as a leader of a movement, not a viable presidential candidate. Jesse Jackson had no chance, nor Al Sharpton. Dennis Kucinich is treated like a joke.
So, when they say anyone can be president, there is a huge qualifier that excludes almost anyone of any race who has integrity.
Then, we turn around and hear Nancy Pelosi discussing how Obama will govern “from the center”. So much for change.
Here are some good ways to analyze what sort of change Obama brings after his first term in office:
1) what will be the ratio of executive salary to employee salary in this country?
2) what will be the ratio of imprisonment of black males versus white males in the society?
3) how many illegal wars of aggression did Obama end by removal of American occupying forces?
4) how much change went into the cabinet composition of the Obama administration from prior Democratic and Republican Administration? — was/is there real change in key personnel?
5) what will be the level of environmental healing under an Obama administration? — will his climate change initiatives benefit climate or pour billions of more dollars into the economy without reducing greenhouse gases?
6) what will Obama do to protect species at risk of extinction that Bush failed to list under the Endangered Species Act by the hundreds?
Any number of other measures of change could be established.
I will be more than happy to give credit where credit is due.
A great start would be to see some executive orders repealing Bush orders that limit American freedom and harm the Constitution.
Let’s see if the Left Media even bothers to provide analyses as they did of the Bush Administration’s egregrious wrongdoing.
Stan Moore
6 November 2008, 7:32 amPetaluma, CA
charles:
In Detroit, we’re with you, Kim Sky. We voted 97% for O !
6 November 2008, 12:53 pmLisa:
A Look Under the Hood at the (Potential) Obama Administration
By Joshua Frank
Full article
6 November 2008, 2:48 pmHarris Pohl:
Just watch and get down to crying. This video was done 2 weeks before the election.
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/468.html
Reality is very painfull.
6 November 2008, 11:09 pmAmit:
A bit late, but I find this agonizing over voting for third-party candidates somewhat puzzling and ridiculous. Here’s why: we do not elect a President based on popular national vote. If we did, all this reasoning would be perfectly justified.
And the reality is that other than 5-6 swing states with close margins, and another 8-10 states which are somewhat of a toss-up, rest all states are solidly red or blue. That’s exactly why candidates from both major parties focus their campaigning only on a handful of states out of 50.
So there’s no excuse whatsoever for someone who considers herself a true progressive/liberal living in say, California, to NOT vote for a third party like the Green Party (given that her principles and views are more aligned with the GP than the Democratic Party), if she knows and agrees that Democrats are more or less, the same as Republicans. There’s no fear of splitting the “left” vote in such a case, but increased numbers voting for third parties will
a. help that party register 5% and be qualified for federal funds next time around, as well as not waste resources on collecting signatures for ballot access next time around; and
b. when others see a third party getting some significant number of votes on the national scene, it’ll pique their interest and it’s a positive step forward. That’s exactly how I first found out about the Green Party and that led me to explore their platform, compare it to the Democrats, and then to lend my support to GP and people like Nader. So I disagree with the argument (that some give) that GP needs to build itself up from bottoms-up and a top-down approach of contesting a National Presidential election without having grassroots support is meaningless and not productive.
Similarly, for a progressive/liberal living in a state like Texas, there’s no reason to vote for a Democrat. Might as well put my vote to a better use by voting for a third party instead of wasting it on a Democrat candidate.
Also, something to keep in mind that Obama won North Carolina and Indiana because of Barr being in the race. His margin of victory over McCain is smaller than Barr’s percentage share of votes (and making the usual assumption).
I read so many arguments similar to the one made by the author here, as a reason to vote for Obama, and all of them ignore the simple reality that we have a winner-take-all system in states (with a few exceptions), which implies it’s actually somewhat easier to vote with your conscience in slam-dunk states without letting the greater evil come to power.
This election was more about the unmentioned expiation of the white liberal guilt (among other factors), so it was understandable and expected that third parties will have to wait another four years. But I respectfully disagree with all this intellectual reasoning and hand-wringing over justifications to vote for Obama over McKinney (or Nader) knowing how the electoral system functions. No amount of the former can get around the simple fact of the latter.
peace.
25 November 2008, 4:05 pmAmit:
Correction: In the third para, it should read
“There’s no fear of splitting the “left” vote in such a case and having the ‘greater evil’ win, but…“
26 November 2008, 12:55 am