Tag: change

With President Obama being a major disappointment in some corners, it was perhaps inevitable that Hillary Clinton loyalists would exercise their right to second-guess the inevitable nominee.  Anne Kornblut’s column in The Washington Post entitled, “When young women don’t vote for women” is but the latest effort to chastise young feminists and young women in general for not being more supportive of the first female candidate to make a serious run for the White House.  The column, regrettably, also invokes the counter-productive liberal guilt complex construct of the Oppression Olympics to make its point, which is something I thought we had recognized does nothing to unite and everything to divide.  Pitting women against African-Americans in some kind of twisted priority system has been the demise of many worthy organizations and the beginning of arguments that inevitably lead to raised blood pressure.

copyright © 2009 Betsy L. Angert.  BeThink.org

It is said, as individuals, we can achieve all we conceive, if only we truly believe.  President Barack Obama once knew this.  He lived this veracity.  Indeed, candidate Obama’s audacity and accomplishments gave Americans hope.  When Barack Obama reached for the sky he realized what no one thought he could. The electorate was energized.  People came to expect the country was in for a change.   Now, it seems Mister Obama is bogged down by what Eisenhower understood, concerns of the Military Industrial Complex.  

The intricacy of the Armed Forces mission does not confine itself to forceful martial escalation.  Nothing escapes the wide reach of combative nation building.  Lives are lost.  Limbs crushed.  With bullets ablaze, brains are battered or blown to smithereens.  Hope suffers.  Hearts are hurt.

The political news streaming out of Washington, at least as reported by the major outlets, already casts a large, ominous shadow promising nothing but inevitable disappointment and tension headaches.  By strong implication, the ultimate effect produced no matter what health care bill is passed by both chambers and then signed into law will be that of bitterest disappointment.  The irony, however, is that no matter the outcome, whatever results from negotiation and finds its way onto President Obama’s desk will be deemed either insufficient or detrimental in the minds of both liberals, moderates, and conservatives alike.  I suppose I was of the silly opinion that success had many fathers while failure was an orphan.  That a bill so desperately needed could be so reviled, rather than revered upon enactment, (and, need I mention, years before it will even be fully implemented and tested for effectiveness) speaks to how we seem to judge winning and losing these days.

As Paul Simon wrote,

Laugh about it

Shout about it,

When you’ve got to choose,

Every way you look at it, you lose.

Regardless of one’s political allegiance, the Health Care Reform bill will be rightly deemed beneficial or detrimental when it is more or less fully integrated into the existing system.  It is at that point, which might be as long as five whole years from now that we will be able to make a credible judgment for ourselves as to whether or not it works.  Until then, we are merely gaming on probabilities and resorting to that eternal bane of every cagey politician:  speculating about hypotheticals.  Although hammering out the intent of the bill is highly necessary, our fiercest criticisms should be saved for much later down the road.  My thoughts now pivot to the words of the Civil War historian Shelby Foote, who, when discussing his opinion as to the root cause of that divisive conflict, stated,

“We failed to do the thing we have a true genius for, compromise.  Americans like to think of themselves as uncompromising but it’s the basis of our democracy, our government is founded on it; it failed.”

To highlight another current issue, some are already pronouncing the stimulus package either an outright failure or a disappointment, but the truth of the matter is that its impact is simply not as bombastic and instantly transformative as many of us were expecting.  A vast majority of the funds have not yet even been dispersed or spent and many others are tied up in bureaucratic red tape.  The lesson to be learned is that government works very slowly, it is heavily indebted to the status quo, and that no matter what promises of change are made, one must work within the established parameters of the system.  This does not mean, however, that in seeking massive reform that we had unrealistic expectations going into it.  Ideals are the only way that anything gets formulated and brought to the floor.  

Change will come to Washington, but the pace is not proportional to our anticipation of it.  We live in a lightning-quick, impulsive, short-attention span world fed by media but this is absolutely nothing like the world in which our elected representatives dwell.  Most people I know find C-SPAN to be an effective anti-insomnia cure and not edge-of-one’s-seat entertainment.  One of my friends chose to study international politics rather than American politics because in other countries, one was apt to see scenes of excitement and upheaval on a frequent basis:  coup d’etats, violence in the streets, huge rallies, transparent espionage, and moments of high drama.  In recent memory, with the notable exception of the 1960’s, one rarely observes such things here, and even then the unrest didn’t reach the fevered pitch of say, the Prague Spring.  By contrast, we are indebted to the example of our English forebearers whose one and only revolution produced a short-term attempt at Parliamentary democracy, an equally short-lived de facto military dictatorship, and then a prompt re-establishment of the monarchy, albeit with a few democratic concessions granted to English citizens.  Our own revolution did not, quite unlike the French, take on a radical component that attempted to sweep aside almost all established conventions in the process.                  

Some are quick to pronounce Americans as either center-right or center-left, but I think center by itself would suffice.  Most people, if asked, would probably identify themselves as moderate.  We are a centrist nation, by in large, and one which looks upon both unabashed liberal strains and conservative strains with a great degree of suspicion.  Our fear of radicalism and/or reactionary elements is hardwired into our DNA.  Most Americans are not inclined to march in the streets or to take on activist roles.  Being left alone to their own devices might be the attitude of a vast majority.  Regarding health care, what will probably be signed into law will be a slightly left-leaning proposal that contains concessionary measures to moderates while preserving a few key demands of liberals.  Love it or hate it, this is just how Democracy functions within a pluralistic society.  When Mussolini took control of Italy as a dictator, the saying goes, the trains ran on time like never before, but then again, the barrel of a gun has a persuasive power that an attack ad never does.    

Lest one think otherwise, I don’t want to seem as though I’m happy with accepting crumbs when promised a lavish dinner.  Certain elements of the House bill really trouble me, particularly the anti-abortion amendment tacked onto it as a means of placating anti-choice legislators.  Still, the place for changing minds and disseminating ideological stances is ours, not theirs.  The role of the politician is, as stated, to best represent the beliefs of his/her constituency.  If our stated duty is enlightening and educating the ignorant, then we might take this huge flap over health care as a reference point of where we need to allocate our resources and the strategies we propose to use to accomplish it.  We are not immune to the need for reform, either, and though we might make a living off of rocking other peoples’ boats, we need someone to rock our own every so often, too.    

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    I’d like to share with you all this comment that was placed in my diary yesterday by Dkos User lascaux, as I think it sums up what we as Progressive activists and the Democrtaic base MUST accomplish in order to effect REAL CHANGE we can believe in.

What I learned

What this reform fight has taught me:

it is not enough to elect a progressive president, we need to elect liberals and progressives in congress as well.

    The frustrating inability of this Democratically controlled Congress is PROOF that our job did NOT END when Obama won the Presidential election in 2008. In fact, our work has just begun, and we must face it with the same dedication, intensity and enthusiasm that we did in 2008, or we WILL lose, because we simply don’t have the money to compete with the special interests that control our Government.

    But we DO have the people, and they can’t beat that.

    So, here’s how we should FIGHT BACK.

When it comes down to brass tacks, people in positions of authority seem often to be indebted to one of two sorts of leadership styles.  Some are devotees of the process school, whereby one embraces wholly a highly regimented and specific system, and in so doing does not deviate from it for any reason.  Process managers doggedly cling to a prefabricated strategy until resolutions and goals are finally reached.  Other people are of the idea/visionary school, and for them the big picture and a more creative means to an end are far more important.  While process people are frequently exasperating to idea people and vice versa, what is often forgotten is that there is a need for both of them in the big tent.  However, when the organizational structure of a political party is overwhelmingly dominated by process politicians, the discrepancy between the two is not only jarring and highly visible, it is also demoralizing and insipid.    

Many of us would prefer a more dynamic leader in charge of both the House and the Senate.  I am among the many who appreciate a scrappy fighter who loves hand-to-hand combat and will not be bullied or cajoled into submission by anyone.  Within the Democratic party a few names fit that profile, but their overall limitations in leadership capacities keep them from reaching a wide audience.  For whatever reason, both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid—perhaps Reid more than his House colleague—are beholden to process and the minutia of their jobs more than inspirational speeches, long range planning, or dramatic legislative success.  In contrast with President Obama, who is the consummate big idea politician, they both look tepid and dull by contrast.  When the base clamors for red meat, they are instead provided with bloodless Democratic leadership.  Thus, it is any wonder that approval ratings for Congress and for both the Speaker of the House and the Senate Majority Leader are exceptionally low?  Nor is it any wonder that Harry Reid is facing the fight of his life in 2010 and that Nancy Pelosi has proved a huge disappointment to those who, like me, welcomed the arrival of the first female Speaker?  

Having read the news today, I did note that with the passage of the House’s version of Health Care Reform Pelosi was forced to twist some arms and hurt some feelings, one notices this is hardly a role she relishes and one she performs only when absolutely necessary.  She and Reid both seem to prefer behind-closed-doors private negotiation and shrink from direct confrontation.  If I believed in that sort of methodology or in its inerrant ability to achieve results, I would be less skeptical, but I know that a balance between recklessly throwing forearms and elbows and sweet talk is what usually translates to legislative success and does not create enemies in the process.  Forgive me for believing that political people-pleasers might consider alternate careers as well as those who try to be everything to everyone.  Compromise ought to be empowering, not debasing.              

What we might want to ask ourselves is why so many process legislators exist in the Democratic party in the first place.  One explanation is that they were forced to take the path of least resistance while out of power for twelve years and in so doing concede ideological territory to the Republican majority.  Post-1994, the party was at its weakest point in decades and hardly fired up and ready to go.  Back then, Barack Obama was an obscure law professor who had yet to run for a single elected office.  Though certainly no one at that point would have ever speculated in print or in conversation as to whether or not the Democratic party was dead, to many of us, it did certainly feel that way.  Democrats shifted to a prevent defense kind of strategy, whereby they sought to stem the  bleeding and in so doing, ensure that the liberal stalwarts and left-leaning centrists did not get voted out.  What this did, however, is concede the middle to the Republicans, who continued to make steady, solid gains with moderates and independents.  Years of failure and failed policy cannot be easily overcome by two successful election cycles.  To be sure, ideology and party identification calcifies slowly but once set, it is difficult to melt away.    

Although this is now 2009, you’d scarcely notice it if you examined the conventional wisdom of the, need I state the obvious here, majority party.  It’s one thing to play like one is behind, but it’s quite another thing to not act like one deserves to be number one.  At the moment, the Republican party may be in tatters, but one cannot deny that there is a certain defiant spirit to the right-wing base at the moment that I never saw in the aftermath of 1994, nor even in 2002.  That it took a charismatic, genius public speaker with an inspirational message combined with highly incompetent incumbent President to bring that perfect storm to Category 5 status reveals some very key limitations within our goals and expectations.  Electing a President promising transformational reform is not sufficient.  We must also elect stronger, better, more effective Representatives and Senators, too.  We know, now more than ever, that a President can propose anything, but he or she cannot vote and cannot through force of will break up logjams or counter the inertia of committee and counter-productive partisan posturing.                        

Process is beholden to policy wonkery and, rest assured, I do not deny the importance of knowing the existing framework, also.  The best Senators, for example, are masters of that chamber’s rules and in so doing utilize their encyclopedia knowledge of said fact to push legislation in the direction they feel is best.  However, process can also result in stubborn inflexibility and a wanton disregard towards changing course when what is being tried clearly is not working.  Process individuals often feel utterly rudderless and lost when their carefully formulated theories prove insufficient or ill-equipped in a changing environment.  Complacency in any form is anathema to any movement or any organization.  What some fail to understand is that reform is a constant process with no end because those who oppose reform constantly redraw the battle lines to suit their own desires.  My own hope is that we may have recognized finally that letting things get this bad for so long provides us with challenges so large and so looming that even getting the minimum passed and enacted provides a supreme challenge.  Had we not buried our head in the sand all these years, our plates and portions would be of much more manageable size.  Above all, we cannot and must not ever assume for an instant that victory is owed to us based on moral high ground or that any battle can be won so conclusively that we have nothing else to do but swap combat stories and reminisce about the good old days.        

One-hundred and eighty-one years ago, this nation was engaged in similar debate over similar issues.  A recently elected Democratic president by the name of Andrew Jackson had won the office by vowing to uphold the rights of the people, not the small circle of well-connected and powerful brokers that had run Capitol Hill for close to a quarter of a century.  Had there been highways then, or, for that matter, cars, one might have dubbed these new money, self-proclaimed, unapologetic aristocrats the Beltway elites.  Jackson’s election was nothing less than an abomination to these sorts, since they placed no faith, nor any trust in what they considered to be the under-educated, ill-informed grumblings of the partisan rabble.  Government of the people, by the elites was their governing philosophy, and it had gone unchallenged since the beginning of the Republic.    

Though Old Hickory sought to carry the banner of the common person, this didn’t necessarily mean he supported progressive reform in all of its incarnations.  

…Jackson fretted about what were drily known as internal improvements–projected roads and canals that were to be funded by the federal government.  The issue was at the heart of a philosophical argument.  Was Washington’s role to be a limited one, leaving such matters to the states except in truly national cases, or was the federal government to be a catalyst in what was know as “the American System,” in which tariffs and the sales of public land funded federally sponsored internal improvements?  As President, Jackson favored the former, John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay the latter.  Related, in Jackson’s mind, was the issue of the national debt (the money owed by the federal government).  To him, debt was dangerous, for debt put money in the hands of creditors–and if money was in the hands of creditors, it could not be in the hands of the people, where Jackson believed it belonged. (Bold mine)

–American Lion:  Andrew Jackson in the White House by John Meachum

A true son of the South, Jackson was understandably squeamish to impose too much federal authority upon state government, even if it promised desperately needed infrastructure to industrialize and modernize a country which was still largely agrarian and rural.  However, his reluctance to take on debt for any purpose, no matter how worthy, is not the same sort cited by Republican politicians of our day.  Perhaps the question we ought to ask ourselves in age is “Who holds our debt and do they have our own best interest at heart?”  Jackson did not live in an age where globalization had complicated and expanded monetary policy to the degree that foreign investors were heavily involved in the process;  he did, however, hold an oversimplified point of view that saw money as belonging either to the moneychangers or the people with no overlap in between.  Today’s GOP eagerly sounds the warning regarding our spiraling national debt but certainly has no credible plan, nor plausible solution that would place it firmly in the hands of their primary constituents.  If such a thing were proposed by a Democrat, Republicans would surely claim that doing so would “spread the wealth around” in a radical redistribution scheme that, once enacted would destroy the country’s economic structure.    

Meanwhile, we have now commenced with hand-wringing in response to a less active electorate this time around.  The below passage disproves the idea that fickle and transitory voter participation is unique purely to our day.  

A Scottish visitor to Albany in the late 1820s noted an American love of what he called “the spirit of electioneering, which seems to enter as an essential ingredient into the composition of everything.”  But it was a highly personal kind of electioneering:  “The Americans, as it appears to me, are infinitely more occupied about bringing in a given candidate, than they are about the advancement of those measures of which he is conceived to be the supporter.” (Bold mine.)  

Ibid.  

We love the chase but then quickly lose interest with the implementation stage.  Media saturation, short attention spans, rock star politics, and all the other theories currently proposed that aim to explain why voter participation and interest is down from its height of this time last year might be simply explained as Americans acting like Americans.  To be sure, activists never lose their focus or their drive, but most of us are not activists.  Jackson was one of the first politicians to whittle down complex issues for the easy digestion of the average citizen.  Had there been television in his day, one might have called them sound bytes.  This, of course, oversimplified often contentious and complicated policy decisions, but Jackson’s belief was that the American worker had no time to devote from his busy day for in-depth political study and contemplation.  This assertion is one that frequently frustrates activists of our times—who demand larger participation but recognize too that the time and energy commitment needed to push reform is often more than many people are willing or able to devote.        

Regarding Presidential strategy, Jackson was cautious not to box himself in, even though this left him open to charges of playing politics when candor and taking a firm stand might seem to be a better strategy.  An immensely popular President upon taking office, he had a knack for strategic positioning and a marked refusal to provide his enemies an easy target, likely due in part to his years as a military man.  It was also a response to the well-known fact that the General had more than a few enemies in high places who coveted his office for themselves and would use any means necessary to achieve it.  

[Jackson’s] first inaugural…was purposely vague.  Gazing out on the admirers gathered at the foot of the Capitol steps, Jackson saw that he was the object of wide affection—but he was not yet certain of the depth of that affection.  The people hailed him today but might not tomorrow.  Better, then, to proceed with care, to be general rather than specific, universal rather than particular—for specificity and particularity would give his foes weapons to use against him.  Many leaders would have been seduced by the roar of that crowd, lulled into thinking themselves infallible, or omnipotent, or secure in the love of their followers.  

But Jackson knew that politics, like emotion, is not static.  There would be times where he would have to tell people what they did not want to hear, press a case they did not want to accept, point them in a direction they would prefer not to go.  Best, then, to preserve capital to spend on those speeches and those battles.

(Bold mine.)

Ibid.

President Obama is fortunate that the relative weakness of the Republican party and the still ample approval among those in his own party do not leave him vulnerable to direct challenges to his authority as Chief Executive.  Unlike Jackson, he does not relish making enemies and in so doing, challenging them to duels.  Some of us would prefer a President cut from that same cloth, though I do note that nothing unifies otherwise disparate elements only tangentially related to each other more than a common enemy.  This course of action does not make for theatrical governance or high drama, certainly, but perhaps the boring way is the best way.  Any President is compelled to occasionally be the bearer of bad tidings, the purveyor of necessary, but unpopular policy, and the leader pointing the way against a headwind of reluctance and even stubborn refusal.  The more change one pushes for, the more one must assume such mantles.  Many will feel short-changed, disregarded, and under-represented in the process.  Lament it, if you will, but be sure to acknowledge the substantial challenges that face those who attempt its removal.  This New American System combined with a still very New American President might not require as much patience as it does a fundamental understanding of the balancing act and slight-of-hand required of any politician.  Our response never changes, but what does change is how quickly we forget that these struggles are not exactly unique to our times.  

Crossposted at Daily Kos

     For those who will automatically balk at the Obama = Bush charge, I submit to you the fact that by Geneva Law, if Bush/Cheney is not held accountable for the War Crimes they have committed, than the Obama Administration is complicit in those crimes and guilty of covering them up.

   

The Obama administration has clung for so long to the Bush administration’s expansive claims of national security and executive power that it is in danger of turning President George W. Bush’s cover-up of abuses committed in the name of fighting terrorism into President Barack Obama’s cover-up.

NYTimes.com

Bold text added by diarist

You say you want to change the world?  Or even some small part of it?  Everyone says to do that you must take power.  State power is the appropriate tool for making change we’re told, on all sides, by parties and politicians of left, center and right.

But if the world is run by people chasing after power to remake the world in their own image by taking power, then how does pursuing power to change things and remake them in our image introduce any true change in the system?  That’s the question John Holloway asks in his book Change the World Without Taking Power.

In the beginning, he advises, we must take an action every DDBlogger knows quite well: yell louder.  In fact, scream.

Democrats, particularly Progressive Democrats, have been collectively incredulous.  The motives  and tactics driving the rancor and bile spewing forth from Republican politicians, Fox News, talking heads, pundits, entertainers, and conservative citizens seems so unjustified and so irrational.  Looking back to what we recently came through might be the best way to understand this reactionary response.  We must believe that one election cycle or one President can undo the blight upon the human psyche or the sustained abuse upon our sacred institutions, sense of safety, and peace of mind.  President Obama has been Chief Executive for less than a year, but what we’ve all learned, much to our chagrin, is that change that you can believe in is slow and incremental.

The reaction of conservatives is directly proportional to the massive amount of fear-mongering, manipulative tactics, and irresponsible governing perpetrated by the Bush Administration.  That we on the left are not as affected by this steady barrage of fear and loathing is merely a reflection of the fact that we were hardly the ones to believe in it in the first place.  We were the target of scorn, not the targeted audience.  One cannot discount for a second the combined evil we were all exposed to for eight long years and that this degree of emotional torture cannot be whisked away with the stroke of a pen, an award, or a sizable agenda.  It did not arrive overnight, nor will it depart like a thief in the night.  

The old adage of how to cook a frog comes to mind.  As the story goes, one doesn’t place the frog immediately into boiling water, else the animal would jump out.  Instead, one places the frog in lukewarm water and incrementally increases the temperature, allowing the animal to slowly adjust.  Eventually the frog is tricked into staying in water hot enough to kill and then thoroughly cook it.  This is what has happened to the conservative movement and why we face such a challenge in reversing course.  They have been subtly and not-so-subtly manipulated by the doctrine of opportunist neo-conservative thought to the point that conservatives cannot see any common ground with the left.  What made this strategy particularly effective and insidious is that it was implemented little bit by little bit until the combined evil was much greater than any individual part.

It should surprise no one then that we’ve seen this degree of nonsensical, uncompromising, petty, sheer hatred of liberals and President Obama.  The Bush/Rove Doctrine might as well have been a a commandment to despise that which opposes you, forsake common humanity for single-minded gain, use any means necessary to win, and never accept the blame for mistakes.  We on the left have mentioned this battle plan upon the American public in oversimplified, outline form so frequently that it borders on platitude, but we haven’t gone much deeper.  For Republicans and conservatives, however, Bush Administration tactics have left a devastating legacy than will not easily be corrected.  We need to ask ourselves if there is anything much we can do to refute it.  The GOP itself must recognize the damage and make ends to reverse it.  If they do not, then this perspective will further calcify and we ought to expect more of these ridiculous nontroversies and petty partisan attacks.  Shelving our skepticism for a moment, we need to understand that humans are much more impressionable and easily duped than our frustration with immediate results will allow.  We are clamoring for systemic change, but that comes with time.  No President ought to have to clean up messes he or she didn’t create, but that’s the foremost challenge facing our current President, and one that has and will continue to impede what he wants accomplished.  

The Ancient Greek fable of Pandora’s Box is an allegory to explain the paradox human nature.  Simultaneously blessed and cursed with the gift of curiosity, Pandora opens a particularly tempting box and unwittingly unleashes a plethora of ills upon the human race.  However, it must be mentioned that what is last to leave the box is the gift of hope.  A more Biblical illustration would be that of Adam and Eve, who ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and in so doing were banished from the Garden of Eden.  I find a Jewish interpretation to be most instructive in this instance.

According to the Jewish tradition God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree that was to give free choice and allow them to earn, as opposed to receive, absolute perfection and intimate communion with God at a higher level than the one on which they were created. According to this tradition, Adam and Eve would have attained absolute perfection and retained immortality had they succeeded in withstanding the temptation to eat from the Tree. After failing at this task, they were condemned to a period of toil to rectify the fallen universe. Jewish tradition views the serpent, and sometimes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil itself, as representatives of evil and man’s evil inclination.

Perhaps each of us must toil to rectify our own sin or even take the time to rectify someone else’s sin.  I believe this to be a function and a role we must all take on as part of being human.  It might not be fair, but life is rarely just as we would wish it to be.  In this instance, the President, the Congress, and we ourselves are going to have to first reverse trends that have now become entrenched.  Some of them have their Genesis eight years prior to today, some of them came into being in 1980, and some of them date back to the 1960’s.  The hope lies, I firmly believe, with a strategy of persistence and steady pressure that ought not to be perceived as a failure if it does not garnish immediately discernible results.  Sometimes it doesn’t take an Act of Congress to make a major impact on someone or even on the debate itself.

Yes, there are two paths you can go by

But in the long run

There’s still time to change the road you’re on.

And it makes me wonder.

It is conventional to express the political spectrum in a linear fashion, running from “far left” to “far right”.  This conventional view thus requires that if you are trying to “reach out” to people on the other side of the median, to try to bring them over to your side, one must necessarily do so by building a path through that middle ground.  Thus the Democratic political establishment spends a great deal of time shushing the liberals and the left for fear that we might scare off center-rightists being gently escorted through that moderate minefield.

But reality is that the political spectrum isn’t so one-dimensional.  It is more a circle, or even a sphere, and as an online column published today by a former Reagan Administration official illuminates, there is another path you can go by, a back way, a hidden portal, when you decide to change the road you’re on.  It’s the path that takes you from far right to far left, and it’s a path I know well, the one I myself traveled to become a leftist.  Come on over, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

h/t to rjones2818 for the link that inspired this piece.