Louis Proyect wrote: > How about true liberal in the sense > of George McGovern or even Jimmy > Carter (in some respects)? What's > obvious now is that he is a true > Clintonite. Frankly, if Hillary had > been elected, you'd see the same > people and the same policies Obama > is pushing. As her husband once said, > we are all Eisenhower Republicans.
You're so blinded by your infantile anti-Obama, anti-Democrats rage that you don't even consider the ABC of Marxism. In the big scheme of things, individuals are the products of historical conditions, largely not of their own choosing. Yes, individuals can shape things up by design, but it is the action or omission of large masses of people that restrict or enable their designs. Obama cannot be another Clinton just like an apple cannot be an orange. The Soviet Union is not going to collapse again. The U.S. is not what it was in the 1990s. The world is not the same after what happened in the last 8 years. The occasion for another Clinton is gone. Obama will not be another FDR either. I don't even think that Obama has ever called himself a liberal. The tasks that -- by groping, by trial and error -- large masses of people in the U.S.are setting out to carry out may be similar to those expressed in the past, but they have to be carried out under different conditions. Those masses of people are different. The conditions are different. The leaders are different. Therefore, the real agenda is different. You cannot drive forward while keeping your eyes on the rear-view mirror. Or you can, but you'll keep crashing your tricycle. At a given time, individual leaders may be more or less fit to help to carry out the tasks that large masses of people set for themselves. But the engine that sets change in motion is the masses themselves. And what fuels them is their needs as they understand them. Is Obama fit to advance the interest of working people in the U.S. in our times? You have decided that he is the immediate obstacle. But who the hell knows for sure. All we can do is keep pushing. Obama is not a complete blank slate. Like everybody else, he is susceptible to change one way or another, under the pressure of circumstances. But he starts off with something. He is black, with all that the experience of being a male black in the U.S. entails. He has been very open about his agenda and his moves. His two books, his speeches, his public (and a few private) pronouncements are out there. His agenda is not socialist by any stretch of the imagination, but it is *progressive* in many ways. And methodologically, for what we have been able to observe, he's shown to be a progressive. On top of that, he's proved to be a brilliant tactician. He defeated the Clintons and then the Republicans. By the way, the people you associate with Clinton, because they served under Clinton -- as if that entirely predetermined their future behavior -- are not going to do what Clinton tells them to do -- or would tell them to do if he were Obama. Furthermore, they are not going to be passive agents of Barack Obama either, although they'll owe him a favor and will be under his supervision. Should we consider their baggage? Of course. Things are what they are, and we better ponder them as such. But the baggage is only part of it. But back to Obama's political method? How did Obama defeat the Clintons and the Republicans? He didn't do it alone. He didn't alienate the traditional Democratic Party mafias, constituent groups, etc., what can only offend the sensibilities of the superficial left. But that wasn't his main move. His most brilliant tactical move was to effectively bypass the DP apparatus, appeal directly to the motion of masses, and build an organization practically from scratch. The grassroots support to his campaign was unprecedented in recent U.S. history, not only for the level of energy unleashed, but for its organization and competence. If we don't care for Obama for any other reason, the lessons to be learned from that experience should interest us. Since he's seen that it works, Obama is not less likely than others to rely on mass mobilization to advance his agenda. In politics, appealing to mass mobilization has its rules. Obama knows that in order to keep his wagon hitched to mass energy, there has to be something in the game for the masses. Or else. Yes, Obama can turn around and use the power he has amassed against the people who helped him win. Or he can squander that power by being ineffective in pursuing even his own agenda. Betrayals and stupidity are common in history. Too common. But, at this point, it's idle to speculate about it or to pretend that we know exactly what will happen, because the fact is that we don't know. And another fact is that we, collectively, will influence the outcome. Better by action than by omission. What we need now is to keep the motion going, to engage in the battle for the hearts and minds of people, and build pressure. Hint: Do not use support/rejection of Obama as your litmus test. That, in and by itself, puts you at odds with me and -- much more importantly -- with an overwhelming majority of Black and Latino workers. What we need now is to help all those people make sense of what's going on, articulate their needs clearly. Again, mass political energy flows from mass needs. Focusing that energy politically requires that we articulate those needs properly, that we frame them properly, in ways adequate to conditions. Just to reinforce this point: Politically active working people nowadays, particularly Blacks and Latinos, those most susceptible to socialist ideas, are nowadays very likely to be Democrats and to support Obama. If we want to shut off any communication with those people, by all means we can continue to pretend that we have a crystal ball, just because we can burp out a few bits of undigested history. Can't edit now. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
