I have thought a bit about the piece by Barak Obama that I posted the other day, and this is what I’ve come to. While I agree with much of what he says regarding the importance of respect, tone and eliminating certain kinds of rhetoric for the sake of rhetoric (note: snichols recognizes that this is something of an about face for her, but she’s coming to it in her old age), and I still trust Obama’s motives and heart, I think the proof is still in the pudding.
In other words, why should I fucking care what any Democratic U.S. Senator thinks about anything until they start winning some battles with their “thoughtfulness” and “room for debate?” I have recently started again reading Master of the Senate (Robert Caro’s amazing 3rd biography in a series on LBJ). I had left off at page 400 out of 950 (the first 150 years of history on the U.S. Senate were sort of tough sledding) but now it reads like a page-turning thriller leading towards the amazing conclusion (I’ll spoil it for you) of how LBJ, segregationist Texas Senator, uses his brilliance, his skill and above all his lust for power to overcome the power of the Old Southern Bulls and break the filibuster to pass the first significant civil rights legislation in decades.
How does he do it? He does it by creating party discipline by harnassing his party’s lust for power to the forward advancement of civil rights. He does it by marrying naked political self-interest with truth and justice.
Under its sweeping lovely rhetoric (yes), Obama’s statement is highly political and pragmatic but to what end? It is preaching the pragmaticism of moderation, the pragmaticism of letting politicians off the hook when they vote for corporate interests over the interests of working people, because the “average person” doesn’t think that corporations are bad.
Well this may be highly pragmatic for him, but is it for us?
Okay, so not all corporations are bad, but are giant multinational corporations polluting our water and air, sending all the good jobs overseas, exploiting women and girls for pennies a day in China, and making products that kill you? Yes!
Are average people capable of grasping this? Yes!
Could good leaders play a role in helping people grasp this? Yes!
Ultimately though, Obama needs to just chill. He’s an insider now and it’s their job to make tough decisions and it’s our job to let ’em have it when they make the wrong ones. And no, by being a generally good guy you don’t deserve an occasional pass when you do the wrong thing–the wrong thing is the wrong thing and you deserve to have it pointed out to you. Every liberal politician I’ve ever known has hated it when they get called on the carpet for doing the wrong thing.
“I’m on your side,” they whine. “You need me in here,” they continue. “I have to do certain things to stay where I am,” they conclude.
All this may be true, and we would be wise to think twice about how public our attacks are on generally good senators like Leahy or Feingold or Obama (or hey, my own homey Barbara Boxer, who failed to urge Schwarzenegger to sign the Gay Marriage bill, I’m told), but let’s keep letting ’em know what’s right and what’s wrong. And let’s not be shy about it.
I’ve been saying it for years and I’ll say it again, an admonition to all of us activist/advocates: It’s not up to us to make the tough choices, it’s up to us to make the choices tough.
Hmm. This has the feel of a swinging screen door. I can agree with both views up to a point–I certainly need to feel I can criticize my Senators. I certainly don’t want to cozy up to Corporations. But I’m not sure this is the essence of Obama’s point.
If Obama was saying lay off us because we want to suck off corporations in your name I think naturally we’d rise up in horror. But he’s not. He’s appealing for us not to alienate ourselves from the leadership we will need to rebuild the country when we ‘get what we wish for’ and Bush is out and we’re in.
Think about it. Leaders of any quality are thin on the ground. We’ll need Leahy and Biden and so on. And quite a few more whose names we don’t know. But the urge to turn over the chessboard and start fresh doesn’t become us. We’re not ten. We have to exercise historic discipline and keep our eyes on the horizon. Yes, we should watch that we’re not getting screwed in this or letting corporations and senators off easy. Just have a sense of proportion. Watching someone dance all over Biden’s indulgent rhetoric at a cocktail party the other night I had to wonder. Where’s all this energy going? Was Biden a little gassy? Did he politic? Yes. But while he was doing that Karl Rove and his gang of fuckers was jamming a broomstick up our collective ass. Something unseemly about raving over Biden’s cheesiness when this is going on, when the rape of the south is going on, when high crimes and higher crimes are going on.
Let’s wake up out of this stupor. The swinging screen door has to snap shut so we can go forward not just exactly as we want to but as we must.