War Mind Set

The Nobel speech was Obama’s worst by far. It was an unqualified representation of the United States as forever saving the world from evil with the blood of its citizens.

Is that the full legacy and ongoing record from Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Iraq and Afghanistan? In contrast to his Cairo speech, even token “self-criticism” of the US record was totally absent. World War II was used as the prototype to label all our wars as “just”. Why cloud the message with any hint of selfish motivation, of interests of empire and super-power domination, or of intervention to sustain allied oppressive regimes?

Worst was the argument that wars are inevitable as far into the future as anyone can foresee. King and Gandhi were acknowledged, then condescendingly relegated to irrelevance. This was an exposition of war mentality from the man who was going to change the "mind set" of war. No wonder Gingrich, Palin, and Rove embrace this speech.

I try to focus on keeping hope alive, but this was an unqualified downer.

My “wrong course” blog got some contrasting responses. One respondent who has bashed Obama almost from the beginning said “right on”. But I have not changed my mind about the promise and possibilities brought about by the historic election of Barack Obama. Another respondent, “D”, was disappointed in my strong criticism of Obama. Here is D’s comment and my reply:

D wrote:

Dear Leon,

I'm sorry I haven't written sooner. I have read your blogs and I have been in agreement with your ideas and sentiments. In fact I was happy that you were still an optimist, until this last blog: “the wrong course”. I think Obama needs this next year for us to see the results of all his efforts. I'm going to remain an optimist until then.

Of course I didn't want him to send more troops to Afghanistan, nor I'm sure did he, but he did announce he has "benchmarks" for Karzai and he did announce to the people over there that we are not there to "win" or to "bring democracy" to their land. Only to help them get trained to fight the Taliban and hopefully the Al Qaeda bordering Pakistan.... This is the part you are not happy about, but I'm still on the fence thinking it may be the smart thing for now.

I agree that he must get jobs for people to improve the economy at home; then more Americans will rally around Obama again. Poor man, he inherited this cesspool of trouble and we all want him to fix it in his first year as President. It would be easy if only we had a united Congress. The ultra-right is truly troublesome.

D

Dear D,

As you can tell from my earlier blogs, it was hard for me to write the latest one. I have not given up on Obama, but I am worried about the way things are going. I'm sure he knows that he has to re-inspire his supporters, who can't be expected to remain enthusiastic as their hopes give way to disappointments on domestic issues and dismay over another war escalation. He may lose the wavering Senate in 2010 and his presidency will be at great risk in 2012 if unemployment is high and a serious drawdown of the wars is not in progress. Given the ongoing crusade of the ultra-right, what a disaster that would be! I hate to think of Patraeus or McCrystal as Obama's successor. I would like to share your optimism, but I can't support the war and imperial aspects of US policy that remain dominant. I still have optimism that Obama's supporters can encourage his generally progressive aims and reignite hopes for real change. This is such a complicated and tough time. I respect your attitude as we both (along with many others) struggle to figure things out.

Leon

ON THE WRONG COURSE

It’s taken me a while, longer than most of my friends, to face up to Barack Obama’s accommodation to the powers that be. He is the most powerful individual in the world — only within terms imposed by a system stronger than any president. So far, when his promises and proposals require confronting entrenched power, he bows to a pragmatic perception of “reality”. That means retreating and weakening chances for meaningful change on almost every critical issue. It now means being the standard bearer for escalating the disastrous war in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

I don’t question Obama’s desire for significant reform. Nor, as difficult as the struggles are, do I doubt the capacity of the people to achieve changes that a majority voted for with enthusiasm a year ago. The “Obama coalition” showed what was and is possible. On the other hand, the ultra-right is far more dangerous than ever and is counting on Obama’s failure. Preventing that failure and its consequences calls for a fight to change the Obama Administration’s self-defeating course of weakness toward Wall Street and compliance with the military-industrial complex.

The biggest problem for Obama, and for the country, clearly is the economy. That has compounded every difficulty in moving a progressive program forward. The great need is for a serious investment in putting people to work. There is no longer room for hesitation and timidity.

No one can know where things would stand if Obama risked being bolder on the stimulus and universal health care, or in defying rather than appeasing the war hawks. What we do know is that the course we're on is not headed to the promised land embraced by so many at the beginning of the "Obama era".

GUESSING ABOUT OBAMA AND AFGHANISTAN

Why all these meetings and deliberations about Afghanistan? I can't believe they are simply a charade that will end up with Obama giving McCrystal what the hawks demand.

I think Obama wants desperately to avoid being locked into a military escalation that spells quagmire for many years ahead. I think he hopes to open a window to a change of course that will provide more room for political and diplomatic maneuver and a possible escape route from commitment to endless war.

Of course the pressures are enormous, and he'll probably end up adding some troops and still trapped in a hopeless war. Nevertheless, the war in Afghanistan has finally come into question, with a majority of the public now opposed. The Obama Administration's own uncertainty, it's insistence on deliberation in defiance of demands from top generals and Republican hawks, underscores the growing anxiety and public counter-pressure for an end to the war.

As in the past, popular anger over the toll that a winless war exacts is what will prove decisive — sooner, let's hope, rather than disastrously later.

TROUBLED RELATIONSHIP

Obama and the Establishment

A remarkable thing about Obama's election is that he had support from all progressives and a big grass-roots majority, while at the same time he earned the favor of much of the rich and powerful establishment. He probably could not have won without substantial establishment support, and it's not hard to figure out why he received it. After eight years of Bush-Cheney, the ship of state was so deeply mired in trouble that Obama's call for reform reached eager ears even among the high and mighty. Obama was able to inspire a people desperate for change, while assuring establishment supporters that he would be "responsible" and not turn things upside down.

Thus began a historic presidency, electrifying in its shattering of shameful Jim Crow precedents, full of hope for a bright new day of progressive reform.

So why is Obama having such a hard time? Why are so many initiatives stymied or watered down by compromise?

An obvious reason is the depth of the economic crisis that defies a quick fix. The hypocrites of the defeated Right blame all the accumulated ills on Obama. They work for and bank on his failure as their way back to political control.

Another dynamic is at work that makes change so difficult. The general support Obama gets from much of the establishment fractures when it comes to any particular measure of significant reform. It breaks on the rocks of any perceived threat to corporate profits. The welfare of the health insurance industry comes before universal health care. Oil and coal profits pay off in congressional sabotage of efforts to deal with alternate energy and climate change. Wall Street wants no regulation to interfere with its unsavory no-holds-barred financial gambling.

The same dynamic operates with regard to foreign policy, matters of war and peace. Despite widespread recognition that the US position in the world can no longer be based on the discredited assumption that "we" are the all powerful superpower, even limited efforts to adjust to reality run up against the military-industrial complex and entrenched imperial interests. So the commitment to the disastrous war in Afghanistan remains, and the general goes outside the chain-of-command to pressure a wavering White House to dig in even deeper. When Obama joins Latin-American governments in denouncing the military coup in Honduras, that position is undercut in compromise with demands of cold war die-hards of Yankee Imperialism. Similar vested interests rail against modest efforts to rein in settlements aimed at making Israel's occupation of Palestine permanent.

When it comes to moving forward on the promise of change, the common sense and "enlightenment" of some in the establishment is countered by the norms of the system of greed, privilege and power for the few over the many.

Where does that leave Obama and the groundswell that put him in the White House? A determined push back from the bottom up is the only way to keep the promise of change from being squandered issue by issue. That's being played out now on health care as the demand grows to reject and reverse deals that would surrender the public interest to the tyranny of the health insurance conglomerates.

Reform may have some shaky support in high places, but the only assurance is in the fight put up by the people who must have it.

ON THE LEFT

Embarrassed by the extreme antics of ultra-Right inciters like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and Joe Wilson, intellectual conservatives and the mainstream media paint a mythical landscape of American politics. David Brooks, guest pundit on virtually every TV news panel, is master of the art: the extremists and crazies on the Right are a fringe element that doesn't represent the GOP; the Left is the equivalent extreme on the fringe of American politics; the great majority of Americans occupy the Center, leaning Right.

What's wrong with that picture?

First, when it comes to die-hard opposition to every single facet of change that Americans voted for in electing Obama, the GOP is as stubbornly united as any political party ever was. On policy and on determination to bring Obama down, there is no crack in the ranks from Rush Limbaugh, Sara Palin and Newt Gingrich to Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and Tim DeMint.

Second, the big majority that elected Obama clearly rejected the GOP and endorsed the progressive change that was promised. Within that majority, there is a strong, though very diverse, Left — one that is neither extremist nor a marginalized fringe. It bears no resemblance to the dangerous vigilantism that has become the hallmark of the ultra-Right.

The Left in American politics is not confined or defined by a political party. Nor is there a self-conscious recognition of the Left by all its diverse constituencies. Given that left and right are relative terms, is there a reasonable description of the American Left?

I think there is. The picture is becoming clearer as the fight for progressive change encounters huge systemic resistance. The Left's common denominator is the recognition that progress — every single step forward in the public interest — has to be won in struggle against corporate wealth and power.

That conviction is not universal in the overall majority that constitutes the Obama coalition, nor is it the philosophy of President Obama and his Administration. Still in practice, Obama and the entire progressive majority are pressed into conflict with corporate power over even modest reforms in health care, job stimulus measures, climate and alternate energy policy. The broad American Left has to be the engine that pushes the struggle forward. That outlook is crucial not only on domestic issues, but in the pursuit of peace against powerful pressures for war and persistent ambitions of imperial dominance.

Measured by the standard of struggle for human needs in deliberate opposition to anti-democratic corporate power, who and what is the American Left? It is a political conglomeration with no single leading center and with many different voices. There is no messianic component that is wiser than all the rest. Its public intellectuals include economists like Krugman and Steiglitz, analysts and journalists from Noam Chomsky to Bob Herbert, Rachel Maddow, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman and many, many others. There are strong trade union voices, especially Richard Trumka. The most dynamic leaders are community organizers fighting injustice at ground level in areas devastated by joblessness and foreclosures. There are a multitude of Left organizations, movements and publications. There are legislators such as Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Barney Frank and like-minded members of Congress.

The diversity of the Left is a great strength, but it also makes for problems. Its place in the political landscape lacks definition, so it is readily misrepresented by those who seek to marginalize its influence. Also, particular organizations and individuals can be targeted for slander and frame-ups while others are silent and the entire Left is smeared. (Cases-in-point: the assault on Acorn and the forced resignation of White House Adviser Van Jones.)

It would be impossible to merge all of the Left into one formation, and foolish to try. But a developing strategy of unity and cooperation is essential, as is the defining theme: fighting for the public interest, for basic democratic reforms, against corporate greed and power.

The Left has an impressive place in our country's history. Its legacy is in anti-monopoly and farmer-labor coalitions; in every battle for progressive social legislation; in pioneering advances for trade unionism, for human, civil and immigrant rights, for racial and gender equality. A hallmark of the Left was its early consciousness of fascist danger and commitment to overcoming Jim Crow. Within the Left, advocates of socialism have been a significant presence, highlighted by the great popularity of Eugene V. Debs while imprisoned for opposing the First World War. The Left included, but never was limited to, socialists and communists of varying convictions, who contributed much though often diverted by ideological combat with each other.

Today the part of the American Left in various socialist and Marxist organizations is much smaller than in other times. That's another discussion, but it's a mistake — and demoralizing — to view the strength and impact of the Left through that narrow window. As the current severe crisis of Capitalism reminds us, Marxist analysis and socialist ideals have much to offer toward understanding and coping with the world we live in. But that's significant only in the context of openness to the total experience and thoughts of a broad and influential Left.

IT'S THE SYSTEM

Shortly after Obama's election, Fidel Castro is said to have commented: "He's a good guy, but the system is stronger than he is."

Nine month's into Obama's presidency, that judgment is validated. The bigger question remains: is the system stronger than the will of the majority of Americans who voted for Obama and delivered a historic mandate for progressive change.

So far, every initiative for significant reform has been blocked, delayed, diverted or watered down. There are things that Obama may have done or should do differently, and some criticism is justified and necessary. But the heart of the problem is not "Obama". In fact, his qualities of intelligence, energy, accessibility and eagerness to communicate surpass those of any president since FDR. The problem is indeed "the system".

The essence of reform is curbing the power of big financial and corporate oligarchies. Measures that advance human rights to health care, employment, education and housing are all resisted as threats to the profits of various staked-out corporate domains. So protection of the heath insurance industry trumps affordable health care for everyone. Securing coal and oil profits trumps progress toward alternate energy and coping with climate change. The solidarity of the financial and corporate world against government "intrusion" in the public interest brings enormous wealth and power to bear against social progress. That power dominates the media. It taps into fear of insecurity in this crisis-ridden economy and feeds on legitimate distrust of politicians, many being beholden to corporate patronage. It befuddles issues, propagates lies, and blinds millions to their self-interest and to a shared concern for fellow beings. An ultra right minority, rallied by racist demogogues from talk radio and Fox TV, has fashioned a vigilante strategy to demonize Obama, shout down his supporters and frighten politicians away from any liberal or progressive position.

Progress can come only by wresting it from the system. That requires firming up the popular majority that embraced Obama's bold call for change. That in turn demands that a broad array of voices within the Obama majority serve as an effective political left, taking deliberate aim at the system and its controlling economic royalists. The terms of the universal health care battle need to be reset, putting an elementary human right above corporate greed.