Is Obama on the Left? what _is_ the "Left" anyway? The best working definition at any one time would be that the US "Left" consists of those political forces which are more liberal or progressive than the current US President.[*] This is because the President has more political power than any other individual and thus can define the terms of debates. By this definition, the President is neither Left-wing nor Right-wing, but is instead Middle of the bird.
But he or she could be "Leftist" in another, dynamic, sense of the word, i.e., making an active effort to move the current political Middle to the Left, taking up liberal or progressive programs and trying to put them into practice. One variant is that a Leftist would use his or her power at the helm of the state to empower and mobilize the working class and other dominated sectors of society, which would create power to back up liberal or progressive programs. Obama doesn't seem to fit either of these dynamic definitions at all. [*] of course, that begs the question "what are liberal or progressive positions, anyway?" another topic, another day. On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 6:59 AM, Julio Huato <[email protected]> wrote: > http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/02/1002524/-Why-I-am-not-disillusioned-with-Barack-Obama > > “When you are in a coalition and you’re comfortable. You know you are > not in a broad enough coalition.”—Bernice Reagon > > The fractious and divided American left should get used to the idea > that the non-revolutionary Left and the revolutionary Left should > really be on the same team, just playing different positions. The > non-revolutionary Left tends to get caught up in the day to day grind > of slow incremental reform and legislation. That needs to be done and > that’s their main job anyway.The revolutionary Left is supposed to > have the vision thing, generating and propagating the ideas and > strategies that sound crazy now, but will be considered commonplace > 5-10-20 years from now. The revolutionary Left is also supposed to be > experts on strategy when mass uprisings break out, which they do with > the unpredictable power of a Midwest tornado. If everybody does their > jobs with reasonable competence, the American Left grows stronger and > genuine reform becomes more possible. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
