Published on Monday, April 11, 2011
by CommonDreams.org And Now, for the Kill
by David Michael Green
One of the more interesting developments in American history is something that actually didn’t happen. But if one wants to gain some appreciation of the degree to which our public sphere has deteriorated over time, it’s worth remembering this non-event.
When Dwight Eisenhower came to the presidency in 1953, it was the first time in an entire generation that a Republican had held the office. Prior to that time, the GOP had led the country into unparalleled economic destruction, refused to do anything about the nightmare they’d created, lost five presidential elections running, and sat on the sidelines while Democratic presidents guided the US through a few slightly consequential events like the Great Depression, World War II and the beginning of the Cold War.
The American Constitutional system – with its potential for divided power – isn’t so big on the notion of responsible government (as one finds in parliamentary systems), where authority, and thus responsibility for outcomes is clearly assigned to a given actor or political party. Nevertheless, we got pretty close to it in 1953, with the exhaustion of Democratic governance, the repudiation of Harry Truman, and the Republican Spring led by the grey, seemingly-above-politics new president, General Eisenhower.
What’s important here is what could have happened, but didn’t. The character of American government had changed radically – the most in the country’s history – during the two decades since Herbert Hoover had been in office. It was now much bigger in size, it did a lot more things than it used to do, and the federal government had usurped responsibility for policy domains formerly primarily in the hands of the states. Most importantly, the ethos underscoring the relationship between the American people and their government had completely changed. In the past, that relationship had been one characterized chiefly by libertarianism, on the one hand, and oligarchical corruption on the other. With the New Deal, the government was for the first time in the business of serving the public interest and providing Americans a much-needed social safety net. In short, the American welfare state was born.
These changes had been completely contrary to the politics of the Republican Party, and especially to the politics of the plutocrats in American society (for whom the GOP had long prior become an interest-serving vehicle). They saw Roosevelt as a “traitor to his class”, and they hated him so much they couldn’t even spit out his name. They actually referred to him as “that man”.
All of this is relevant and significant because the GOP had a choice to make in 1953. With their hands on the levers of power for the first time in a long time, they could have undone the New Deal. Some in the party wanted to do so. But by that time both Ike and the bulk of his party had left behind the Neanderthal tendencies of the pre-FDR days and had moved to the center-right. Eisenhower famously discussed his position – and that of others in the GOP – in a 1954 letter to his brother: “Should any political party attempt to abolish Social Security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
Ah, how very quaint such sentiments now seem in retrospect. Weren’t those just the days, back when even Republicans sorta had a heart with a detectable pulse? Now we live in a very different place. It is a place of destruction and despair. An abattoir where the little people go – all 99 percent of the country, let alone the fully dispensable “human resources” found outside our borders – to be sacrificed on the altar of unparalleled greed.
But that’s just the beginning of the story. We’d be in bad enough shape if it were only Republicans out to destroy us. Then there’s the “Democrats”, including the “socialist” leader of the party, Barack Obama. If we’re remotely honest about it, we’d have to acknowledge that today’s Obama, the former anti-war community organizer, is to the ideological right of yesterday’s Dwight Eisenhower, former five-star general, leader of the Normandy invasion, commander of NATO and head of the Republican Party. As today’s worst elements of the Republican Party (that is, almost all of them) seek to do exactly the things that Eisenhower called “stupid”, there is Obama, facilitating their efforts.
There are the Democrats, continually adding to the pile of tax giveaways for the rich, and therefore adding to the pile of debt which is now being used as a cudgel to force cuts on essential government services, programs despised by the oligarchy since the beginning. There are the Democrats, continually adding to the pile of stupid Middle Eastern wars being fought using resources so scarce that medical care must now be cut for the poor and elderly. There are the Democrats going even further than Republicans in smashing civil liberties and shredding the Bill of Rights. There are the Democrats, as absolutely unwilling as Republicans to remotely face the very real planetary peril of global warming. There are the Democrats, continuing to promulgate the failed Bush education policy of No Child Left Behind. There are the Democrats, turning yet again to corporate ‘solutions’ to health care, which enrich parasitical insurance companies but do nothing for sick people other than to deny them care. There are the Democrats (led by a black man, no less!), joining the chorus of Jesus Freak freaks in denying civil rights to gays.
I think the conservative Eisenhower would sooner have become a German storm trooper than a modern Democrat, let alone a Republican – and on far too many days I’m not sure I can see the difference.
I got a letter this week from my good friend, Barack. I call him by his first name because his note was addressed to “David” and signed “Barack”. I guess we’re old pals, though in my dotage I seem to have neglected to notice that the most powerful and prominent man on Earth somehow became my personal bud-bud. It was a letter to announce that he was launching his 2012 campaign for reelection. He seemed to be laboring under the misconception that I give a shit. He also seemed to think I hadn’t heard.
In fact, the media reported that Barack launched his campaign by announcing it over Twitter, that network of abbreviated bursts of inanity which is ground zero for our national epidemic of narcissism. I think that is totally appropriate that he would make such a momentous announcement in that fashion. Not, mind you, because he’s a cutting-edge sort of fellow, mobilizing the new social media technology for political purposes. But, rather, because that particular outlet of that medium speaks so perfectly to the impossible lightness of being that is our President Tweet.
Anyhow, Barack wrote to tell me that he wants to do a big old grass roots campaign again next year, one that doesn’t start with “expensive TV ads”, but with me – “with people organizing block-by-block, talking to neighbors, co-workers, and friends”. Now those would be some brief goddam conversations, I can tell you. “Hey neighbor, let’s do some organizing for Obama, ‘cause he capitulates so gracefully!” “Hey co-worker, would you like to pay more taxes so that rich people can contribute even less than they already do? Let’s give Barack another term!” I don’t think so.
Then he let me in on a little Team Obama secret that, “In the coming days, supporters like you will begin forging a new organization that we'll build together in cities and towns across the country. And I'll need you to help shape our plan as we create a campaign that's farther reaching, more focused, and more innovative than anything we've built before. We'll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year's fight.”
Wow! That’s awfully flattering. The President of the United States – ol’ Potus himself – wants my help in shaping his plan to create a people-driven, grassroots campaign for “the cause” of giving him a second term. If only I didn’t have other plans for, gosh, well, the entirety of every waking minute in 2012. Looks like, for some reason, that project he has in mind is going to be a big job, too. He goes on to tell me that, “We've always known that lasting change wouldn't come quickly or easily. [Oddly, I don’t remember this campaign slogan from 2008.] It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we've made – and make more – we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.”
There’s that word “fight” again. Ol’ Barack, he’s a real fighter, eh?! At least now that there’s an election where something that he wants is at stake. I noticed that he didn’t really seem to fight for anything during his first two years in office, least of all for anything progressive. Even his health care legislation, which is only partially progressive on a good day, didn’t seem to inspire any spunk from the president. Did you ever get the feeling that he wanted it real bad? Do you remember him ever pushing the public to rally hard behind this national necessity, making the urgent case for how it would make the country better off, in the same way that, say, Reagan or Bush pushed hard for their beloved tax cuts, or their wars based on lies? Do you even remember Obama standing up to the insane lies told about him and his legislation, the death panels and government rationing and socialism cant, and so on? For that matter, do you remember Obama ever even defining what shape his own signature bill had to take? Single payer? Public option? Money for stethoscopes?
Predictably, a president who stood for nothing during a period of multiple crises got routed in the midterm election. Even still, did it seem to you like he cared very much about that? I’m starting to develop a new theory about Obama. In 2008 I thought he might be a progressive. Then I thought he was such a wimp that it was just easier for him to capitulate at every turn, rather than to fight for progressive values. Now I think he’s truly regressive in his politics, and is purposefully altering his operating environment to allow him to pursue those policies while still remaining the nominee of a party that’s supposed to be devoted to the people’s interests. “Golly”, he can say to stupid Democratic voters, “I really wanted to be progressive on [Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, health care, education, gay marriage, the budget, the economy, the environment, civil liberties, whatever] but those mean right-wingers won’t let me. And now there’s even more of them than there used to be! What can I do but give in even more?” It’s a perfect formula for anyone with those priorities. Regressivism begets more regressivism, under cover of the long shadow of a genuinely liberal Democratic Party, thirty years dead.
Meanwhile, the current condition of the United States is fantastical, the stuff of legend, the kind of absurdity that no one would find credible enough to buy were it presented as a work of fiction. We have genuine crises, but we ignore them. Instead we squabble about non-issues, while the ship of state rapidly sinks. And who is squabbling? The far left versus the far right? The reds against the blacks? We should be so lucky. No, it’s this faction of political whores carrying water for the oligarchy versus that almost identical faction of political whores carrying water for the oligarchy. Meanwhile, the only seemingly assured ticket to electoral success in our political system on any given day is to have enacted failed policy ideas the day before. And, most bizarre of all, no one will seek to reward the depredations of the political class more rapidly than those who are its victims. Wonderland would seem to Alice quite the paragon of rationality by comparison.
The current budget brouhaha is only the most recent and obvious example of this political pathology par excellence. Think about it. Here’s the real version of what has happened: A decade ago, the United States had the greatest budget surplus ever recorded in human history. Then the regressives came to power. They quickly slashed tax revenues, especially from the rich, borrowing like crack addicts in order to pay for their profligacy. They meanwhile spent gigantic sums on wars based on lies, on hugely increased military spending apart from the wars, on a new Medicare benefit which they insisted on setting up in a way that massively benefitted insurance and pharmaceutical corporations rather than the federal treasury, and on general pork barrel spending, thus driving the national debt up dramatically further, and creating the world’s greatest ever deficits. Let me repeat, it was the GOP who did this. Now these very same people are falsely claiming an electoral mandate to slash spending, screaming that borrowing is an urgent problem which must be addressed at all costs. At the same time, they continue each year to further slash revenues coming in to the government, massively exacerbating the very problem they claim to desperately want to solve.
Their solution is to cut spending on essentials for poor people and the middle class. They have completely taken any form of tax restoration off the table. They won’t dream of reducing military expenditures, which are bloated to an absurd degree. They cannot contemplate allowing the government to buy way cheaper drugs from Canada, or negotiating a bulk price discount for those drugs, let alone rescinding their (socialist) prescription drug benefit plan. They would never accept a reduction in the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on corporate welfare each year for agricultural or sugar or oil or other industries.
Instead, they’re right back at us again, with more of exactly the same formula. Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan continues his (only in über-Wonderland) multi-year run as a media darling, some sort of budgetary guru, some sort of brave truth-teller. He this week released a ten-year plan that is, in fact, astonishing for how cowardly and dishonest it is. It slashes almost every form of domestic spending imaginable, dramatically cuts Medicare for seniors, and turns control of Medicaid over to the fifty states, each of whom can of course then do whatever they want with it. Most amazing of all, while this entire draconian meat-axe of a budget proposal is predicated on the urgent necessity of slashing deficits, Ryan’s plan would gut revenues to the government by lopping almost 30 percent off of top individual and corporate tax rates, taking the top rate down from 35 percent to 25 percent. No wonder, then, that the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has calculated that Ryan’s plan would actually increase deficits, the direct opposite of the very rationale that supposedly justifies its existence.
Perhaps most ludicrous of all is the context in which this all arrives, along with the latest budget deal slashing $38 billion in federal spending on domestic programs. The two most urgent problems facing the United States today are global warming and a crappy economy for workers that is probably never going away. But the stuff we argue about has nothing to do with the former, and only exacerbates the latter (because cutting spending will kill the demand in the economy which is precisely what is needed now to stimulate a recovery). We, as a society, could not possibly be more irrelevant to ourselves. And that’s the good news. If only it was just irrelevance.
None of this is random, however. This has been a three decade long process to produce that which our unparalleled greedy rich have craved the most, namely, a return to the good old days when they had everything and the rest of us had nothing. They have been indignant at the very notion of the slight bit of economic egalitarianism America managed to maintain for a couple of generations. They sat on their hands, gnashing their teeth, from the 1930s through the 1970s, because they had to, but now they’ve come back with a vengeance.
Exporting jobs, slashing government programs, moving tax burdens, bankrupting the government, breaking unions, coopting Democrats, creating bogus news media, dumbing down education, fabricating scary bogeymen, stealing elections. It’s all there, man.
Remember when Nixon and Kissinger decided to kill socialism (not to mention lots of people) in Chile by “making the economy scream”?
Welcome to Chile Norte, amigo.
As Scott Walker and Paul Ryan and the rest apply the finishing touches, the job is today almost complete.
And now, for the kill.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive readers' reactions to his articles (mailto:dmg@regressiveantidote.net), but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
People Power | Happiness | The Good Life
Making a Difference Makes You Happy
A series of studies find that activism brings pleasant emotions, greater life satisfaction, and more experiences of freedom, competence, and connection to others.
by Tim Kasser
posted May 05, 2010
A new study found that activism leads to feeling more alert, alive, and satisfied with life.
Democracy depends on the time, energy, and engagement of ordinary people. But it remains quite difficult to motivate average citizens even to vote, much less to engage in the more intensive forms of political activism needed to counteract powerful forces that work against rule by the people.
That's why Malte Klar and I set out to determine whether people's engagement in political activity might be associated with the motivator of personal well-being. In other words, despite the struggles inherent in political activism, does being politically active brings its own rewards in terms of happiness and life satisfaction? Such a relationship seemed plausible to us, given past studies illustrating the well-being benefits of volunteering and of having pro-social attitudes and values.
To test this possibility, Klar and I surveyed one group of 344 college students, and then a larger group of 718 adults (all United States residents, half of whom were recruited from an online activism registry, and the other half of whom were community members recruited to match the activists on several demographic variables). Subjects’ political activism was assessed via measures like their commitment to activism (e.g., “I take the time I need to engage in activism”) and their sense of identity as an activist (e.g., “Being an activist is central to who I am”). Subjects were also asked how often they planned to or had participated in activist behaviors—ranging from sending “a letter or email about a political issue to a public official” to higher-risk activities like engaging “in a political activity in which you knew you will be arrested.”
Statistical analyses showed that after controlling for demographic factors like age, race, political orientation, and education, study participants who scored higher in political activism also reported higher levels of personal well-being. Specifically, political activism scores were associated with feeling more pleasant emotions, reporting greater life satisfaction, and having more experiences of freedom, competence, and connection to others. Our application of past research on “psychological thriving” further showed that 28 percent of the politically active adults had reached this highest level of well-being, compared to 18 percent of the community sample.
10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy
Because these correlational findings cannot establish whether being politically active actually caused increases in well-being, Klar and I conducted a third study. We asked students to write letters to the head of their college’s dining services; some students were assigned to write about “hedonistic” aspects of the food, commenting on the food’s taste and how enjoyable it was to eat, while other students were assigned to write about ethical and political aspects of the food, such as whether its production supported fair trade and social justice. Afterwards, students reported on their current personal well-being. Even with this relatively weak and short-term political action, results showed that subjects assigned to write about political issues reported feeling significantly more alert, energized, and alive than did those who wrote about the hedonistic aspects of food.
There are of course many limits to the three studies Klar and I conducted, including their use of only U.S. citizens and their short-term nature. Our results also have an important caveat: Engagement in “high-risk” activist behaviors that can lead people to get arrested or physically injured bore no systematic associations with personal well-being. Nonetheless, the results clearly suggested that being politically active is associated with higher levels of personal well-being, and may even cause improvements in vitality.
Politicians and activists typically attempt to motivate ordinary citizens to participate in democracy on the basis of moral appeals or attempts to fix a problem. Our results suggest that it might also be worthwhile to highlight the internal rewards citizens can obtain from being politically engaged: A sense of satisfaction, the experience of pleasant emotions and of connection with others, and a feeling of aliveness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Kasser, Ph.D., wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Tim is professor and chair of Psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. The paper this essay is based on was published in the journal Political Psychology under the title “Some benefits of being an activist: Measuring activism and its role in psychological well-being.”
Interested?
Having a Voice Makes People Happy by Frances Moore Lappé
Most human beings are not couch potatoes and whiners. We are doers and creators. In fact, humans need to 'make a dent.'
Happiness-in-Action Heroes
Real people show how to live the good life and share their secrets to happiness.
Making a Difference Makes You Happy
A series of studies find that activism brings pleasant emotions, greater life satisfaction, and more experiences of freedom, competence, and connection to others.
by Tim Kasser
posted May 05, 2010
A new study found that activism leads to feeling more alert, alive, and satisfied with life.
Democracy depends on the time, energy, and engagement of ordinary people. But it remains quite difficult to motivate average citizens even to vote, much less to engage in the more intensive forms of political activism needed to counteract powerful forces that work against rule by the people.
That's why Malte Klar and I set out to determine whether people's engagement in political activity might be associated with the motivator of personal well-being. In other words, despite the struggles inherent in political activism, does being politically active brings its own rewards in terms of happiness and life satisfaction? Such a relationship seemed plausible to us, given past studies illustrating the well-being benefits of volunteering and of having pro-social attitudes and values.
To test this possibility, Klar and I surveyed one group of 344 college students, and then a larger group of 718 adults (all United States residents, half of whom were recruited from an online activism registry, and the other half of whom were community members recruited to match the activists on several demographic variables). Subjects’ political activism was assessed via measures like their commitment to activism (e.g., “I take the time I need to engage in activism”) and their sense of identity as an activist (e.g., “Being an activist is central to who I am”). Subjects were also asked how often they planned to or had participated in activist behaviors—ranging from sending “a letter or email about a political issue to a public official” to higher-risk activities like engaging “in a political activity in which you knew you will be arrested.”
Statistical analyses showed that after controlling for demographic factors like age, race, political orientation, and education, study participants who scored higher in political activism also reported higher levels of personal well-being. Specifically, political activism scores were associated with feeling more pleasant emotions, reporting greater life satisfaction, and having more experiences of freedom, competence, and connection to others. Our application of past research on “psychological thriving” further showed that 28 percent of the politically active adults had reached this highest level of well-being, compared to 18 percent of the community sample.
10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy
Because these correlational findings cannot establish whether being politically active actually caused increases in well-being, Klar and I conducted a third study. We asked students to write letters to the head of their college’s dining services; some students were assigned to write about “hedonistic” aspects of the food, commenting on the food’s taste and how enjoyable it was to eat, while other students were assigned to write about ethical and political aspects of the food, such as whether its production supported fair trade and social justice. Afterwards, students reported on their current personal well-being. Even with this relatively weak and short-term political action, results showed that subjects assigned to write about political issues reported feeling significantly more alert, energized, and alive than did those who wrote about the hedonistic aspects of food.
There are of course many limits to the three studies Klar and I conducted, including their use of only U.S. citizens and their short-term nature. Our results also have an important caveat: Engagement in “high-risk” activist behaviors that can lead people to get arrested or physically injured bore no systematic associations with personal well-being. Nonetheless, the results clearly suggested that being politically active is associated with higher levels of personal well-being, and may even cause improvements in vitality.
Politicians and activists typically attempt to motivate ordinary citizens to participate in democracy on the basis of moral appeals or attempts to fix a problem. Our results suggest that it might also be worthwhile to highlight the internal rewards citizens can obtain from being politically engaged: A sense of satisfaction, the experience of pleasant emotions and of connection with others, and a feeling of aliveness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Kasser, Ph.D., wrote this article for YES! Magazine, a national, nonprofit media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions. Tim is professor and chair of Psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. The paper this essay is based on was published in the journal Political Psychology under the title “Some benefits of being an activist: Measuring activism and its role in psychological well-being.”
Interested?
Having a Voice Makes People Happy by Frances Moore Lappé
Most human beings are not couch potatoes and whiners. We are doers and creators. In fact, humans need to 'make a dent.'
Happiness-in-Action Heroes
Real people show how to live the good life and share their secrets to happiness.
Making A Difference
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him; the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions. All progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: k8longstory@gmail.com
Sent: Apr 12, 2011 11:13 AM
To: katesmith2@earthlink.net
Subject: Making a Difference Makes You Happy
This link is sent to you from http://www.yesmagazine.org
You are receiving this mail because someone read a page at YES! Magazine
and thought it might interest you.
Making a Difference Makes You Happy
A series of studies find that activism brings pleasant emotions, greater life satisfaction, and more experiences of freedom, competence, and connection to others.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/making-a-difference-makes-you-happy
YES! Magazine Site Administrator
-----Forwarded Message-----
From: k8longstory@gmail.com
Sent: Apr 12, 2011 11:13 AM
To: katesmith2@earthlink.net
Subject: Making a Difference Makes You Happy
This link is sent to you from http://www.yesmagazine.org
You are receiving this mail because someone read a page at YES! Magazine
and thought it might interest you.
Making a Difference Makes You Happy
A series of studies find that activism brings pleasant emotions, greater life satisfaction, and more experiences of freedom, competence, and connection to others.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/making-a-difference-makes-you-happy
YES! Magazine Site Administrator
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Time for a Third Party? Peace and Freedom
Platform of the Peace and Freedom Party
The Peace and Freedom Party, founded in 1967, is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism and racial equality. We represent the working class, those without capital in a capitalist society. We organize toward a world where cooperation replaces competition, a world where all people are well fed, clothed and housed; where all women and men have equal status; where all individuals may freely endeavor to fulfill their own talents and desires; a world of freedom and peace where every community retains its cultural integrity and lives with all others in harmony. We offer this summary of our immediate and long-range goals:
Socialism
We support social ownership and democratic management of industry and natural resources. Under capitalism, the proceeds of labor go to the profits of the wealthy few. With socialism, production is planned to meet human needs.
To us, socialism is workers' democracy, including the principle that all officials are elected, recallable at any time, and none receives more than a worker's wage. Socialism can only be brought about when we, the working class, unite and act as a body in our own interests. Our goals cannot be achieved by electoral means alone. We participate in mass organization and direct action in neighborhoods, workplaces, unions and the armed forces everywhere.
While organizing for the future, we work in the present, challenging the system with the following immediate and transitional goals:
Labor and Full Employment
We demand a socially useful job at union pay levels or a guaranteed dignified income for everyone.
We support the establishment of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to alleviate poverty and homelessness.
We call for a 30-hour work week for 40 hours' pay and abolition of forced overtime.
We demand a legally mandated annual paid vacation of at least 4 weeks.
We demand expansion and enforcement of job health and safety laws. We call for the restoration of all labor rights previously won by women and their extension to men as well.
We demand paid parental leaves and time off work for childcare.
No prison labor for private profit. Living wage and full union rights for any prison labor.
Defend workers' rights to organize, form union caucuses, strike, and boycott.
No replacement of striking workers.
Federally-funded public works programs to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and restore the environment.
International solidarity of workers against international capitalist schemes such as NAFTA and WTO in defense of jobs, wages, working conditions and environmental laws.
International trade agreements must guarantee the protection of workers and democratic rights in all participating countries.
A rank and file socialist-oriented labor movement to mobilize working-class people to assume ownership and control of the economy.
Peace and International Justice
The drive for greater profits by multi-national corporations which direct U.S. foreign policy is a major cause of war. We stand for peace between nations and the right of all peoples to self-determination. We support an ongoing socialist transformation everywhere. We therefore call for:
The U.S. to renounce nuclear first strike, and take the initiative toward global disarmament by eliminating all of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
No U.S. intervention anywhere. End all support and aid to repressive regimes and all military and police training aid everywhere. End efforts to destabilize foreign governments. End U.S.-directed economic warfare against other countries. Abolish the CIA, NSA, AID and other agencies for interference inother countries' internal affairs. Withdraw all U.S. troops and weapons from all other countries.
Stop all U.S. arms exports and trade.
Dissolve all military pacts.
Convert from military to peaceful production; reallocate the resulting "peace dividend" for social benefit.
Abolish the Selective Service System.
No weapons in space.
Equal Rights and Liberties
The capitalists use every difference in society, including sex, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, and physical abilities to divide workers in order to depress wages, maintain a surplus labor pool, and prevent working-class unity. We demand equal treatment of all people by employers, businesses and government. We stand for a world free from all forms of oppression.
Women
We demand full equality for women in all aspects of life. Sexism is a major instrument for teaching relations of domination and inequality and for keeping one-half of the workforce underpaid or unpaid. We work to end oppressive sex roles in society. We must ensure equal rights and responsibilities in child raising. Unions must do more to organize women and promote women's leadership. We demand:
Adoption of an equal rights amendment.
Equal pay for equal work, and for work of comparable worth.
Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion with affirmative action where necessary.
Provision of free, high-quality, community-controlled child care.
Convenient provision of safe, free birth control information and materials to men and women of any age.
Free abortion on demand.
No forced abortions or sterilizations.
Safe prenatal care.
End violence against women.
Ending Racism and National Oppression
Accompanying the continuing economic crisis, we see a rise in racial discrimination, increased terrorism against racially and nationally oppressed people, and retrenchment in civil rights. Minority families are disproportionately victimized by cutbacks in health care, education, child care, welfare, food stamps and jobs. We demand:
End all forms of racial discrimination.
Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion withaffirmative action where necessary.
Prosecute and punish police and prison officials who brutalize and murder.
Language Rights
Restore to the State Constitution co-equal status for Spanish as an official language of California in recognition of its cultural, historical, economic and demographic importance to the people of this state.
Abolish all English-only laws and policies, including those of private employers.
Undocumented Workers
Immigrant workers are hounded by government authorities, worked and housed in substandard conditions by unscrupulous bosses, and blamed by Republican and Democratic demagogues for society's problems.
We call for open borders.
We demand an end to deportations of immigrants.
We demand full political, social and economic rights for resident non-citizens.
Native Americans
We support self-determination of indigenous peoples and sovereignty for Native nations. We demand:
Honor treaty obligations with Native American nations and recognize California tribes.
Stop the theft of natural resources located on reservation lands.
Honor Native American water, hunting and fishing rights.
Free the prisoners of the FBI/BIA war against Native Americans, end all harassment.
Stop destruction of sacred burial sites.
Sexual Orientation
Equal treatment and benefits under the law for all families. Guarantee equal child custody, adoption, visitation privileges, and foster parenthood rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Equal treatment for all people in the military regardless of sexual orientation.
The right to gay marriage and partners' benefits.
Accurate sex education courses in public schools. Truthful information about sexuality in society and history.
People With Disabilities
People with disabilities are entitled to equal rights to education, housing, health care, recreation, and transportation. Attendant care and other services or adaptations must be provided to enable fuller participation in all aspects of society.
Retired Workers
Retired workers must be guaranteed a decent living at union wage levels. We demand:
Immediate improvements in economic benefits and social services.
Free, quality, multi-lingual and multi-cultural medical and home health care.
Accessible transportation.
An end to all forced retirement.
Stop the segregation and isolation of senior citizens.
Defense of the Environment
The same corporate forces and economic system that exploit and brutalize the world's working class people are destroying the world's biosphere. These social policies and ecollogical destruction often overlap. Socialism is necessary to end the ecological destruction caused by capitalism. Our goal is a society that is in harmony with nature as it is in harmony with its own people.
We therefore favor:
Planning for urban and regional environment based on principles of sound ecosystems management.
Create public open spaces in all communities.
Tighter regulation of pesticides, herbicides, industrial wastes and genetically modified foods to protect human food, air and water, employees in the workplace, and species habitat. No release of genetically engineered or transgenic organisms into the wild. No patenting of life forms.
A multi-source energy system, development of solar technology and other renewable, non-polluting energy sources. Eliminate nuclear power plants. End fossil fuel dependence.
Public ownership of public utilities.
Protect species habitat such as old-growth forests to preserve biodiversity.
Massive development of free public transportation.
International trade agreements must guarantee the protection of the environment in all participating countries.
End environmental racism, including the immediate cessation of nuclear testing and toxic waste dumping on reservation lands, the disproportionate creation of landfills in poor communities of color and eliminate the mass development of maquiladora plants.
Transportation
Massive development of public transportation systems that are reliable, frequent, free or at nominal fares and environmentally sound.
Expand safe routes for foot and bicycle traffic.
Agriculture
We want an agricultural system that ensures enough food and other farm products to meet human needs, guarantees a high standard of living to farmers and farm workers, protects humans and the ecosystem from environmental degredation and encourages organic farming. To that end, we call for:
An end to subsidies and tax breaks for corporations.
Food distribution by farm and consumer cooperatives.
Extension of all labor rights to farm workers, including wage and hour regulations.
An end to cruel methods of animal husbandry.
No use of recominant bovine growth hormone (RBGH) in meat or dairy cattle.
No genetically engineered organisms in food production.
A ban on "terminator" seeds.
No export of chemicals banned in the U.S. or import of agricultural products treated with them.
Science and Technology
We need scientific and technological research to benefit ordinary people, not the capitalists.
Education
Education is critical to individual survival and civilized human values, but U.S. capitalism is dismantling public education. Inadequate and unequal funding of schools perpetuates racism, crime and inequality. We demand:
Integrated, democratically-run schools with up-to-date plant and equipment and smaller classes.
Teach the history of workers' struggles and labor's creation of society's wealth and progress.
Multi-lingual and multi-cultural education at all levels.
A federal law requiring and funding equal average per-pupil expenditures by every public school district, with extra funds for students with special needs such as disability or economic deprivation.
Tuition-free higher education available to all.
Restore cutbacks in public education and public library services.
No school voucher schemes.
Arts and Culture
Provide uncensored government funding for ordinary people to create and enjoy art.
Housing and Rent Control
We recognize the right of everybody to quality, secure housing. We demand:
Production and rehabilitation of non-profit, community-controlled housing through public financing with immediate emphasis on housing the homeless.
Rent and eviction control laws and collective bargaining for tenants.
Resident-controlled community renovation programs to create, not destroy, low- and moderate-income housing.
Enforce local affordable housing quotas.
Freedom, Justice and Crime
We call for the defense and extension of the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, press, assembly and association, and the right to keep and bear arms for individual and collective defense. The ultimate guarantee of those rights is the organized strength of the working class.
Capitalism and poverty breed crime and repression. Working class people are the primary victims both of street crime and of police reaction to it. The bosses use laws against victimless activities, "legal" and illegal expansion of police powers, military and paramilitary occupation of poor and minority communities, and diversion of resources to police and jails, to keep workers intimidated and dependent. We demand:
Stop state-sponsored spying on and violence against progressive organizations.
Democratically-controlled police review boards with powers of subpoena and discipline.
Abolish the death penalty.
Repeal the Three Strikes law.
Stop trials and imprisonment of juveniles as adults.
Treatment of prisoners as human beings; rehabilitation, not vengeance.
Decriminalize victimless activities including drug use and consensual sex. Legalize marijuana. End the "war on drugs," which is primarily directed against poor and working-class people.
Stop unwarranted searches and seizures of persons and property. Restore constitutional rights.
Prosecute crimes of the wealthy and powerful against workers and the environment.
Freedom for all political prisoners.
Voting and Elections
Proportional representation to promote legislative representation of the wide variety of political viewpoints.
Enact instant runoff voting (IRV) to eliminate runoff elections and provide for genuine majority support for those elected.
Election should be by direct vote of the people. Eliminate the Electoral College.
Enforce and extend voting rights for people of color, non-English speakers, and homeless people.
Resident non-citizens should have the right to vote, particularly in local and school elections.
Free and equal access to radio and television for all candidates.
Health Care
We believe that access to quality medical and dental care is a basic human right. We stand for a democratically-controlled, publicly-funded health care system. We support health practices that emphasize education, prevention and nutrition. We demand:
Free, high-quality health care for everyone.
Eliminate for-profit health care.
Free immunization programs.
No private patents on drugs developed through publicly-funded research.
Price controls on drugs and medical technology.
Safe pre-natal care, including women's choice of birth alternatives.
More medical facilities to provide services and education in low-income neighborhoods and rural areas.
More substance abuse treatment and needle-exchange programs.
More research into diseases and disorders caused by man-made substances.
More community health care facilities.
Support non-standard proven methods.
Special attention to preventing epidemics of communicable diseases, such as AIDS.
Taxes
Public services and infrastructure have deteriorated as government has increasingly shifted the tax burden from corporations to workers. Our long-range goal is a socialist society without conventional taxes, with public services to be funded from the proceeds of social production. We demand:
Repeal Proposition 13. Tax property for profit, not property for personal use. Remove property taxes on modest owner-occupied homes.
Repeal the sales tax.
Include aggregate of real property and stocks, bonds, etc. in a steeply-graduated property tax.
Restore the renters' tax credit.
Double registration fees on luxury vehicles.
Tax unearned income at a higher rate than earned income.
Eliminate or reverse income tax on low- and moderate-income families.
Re-enact California's unitary tax on multi-national corporations.
Tax the business activities of churches on the same basis as other organizations.
Take the cap off social security taxes, make the rates progressive so burden falls on the wealthy.
Mass Media
Ownership of television and radio stations, print media, and other forms of communication has been increasingly concentrated into the irresponsible hands of fewer corporations, and any checks and balances previously available to the people have been eliminated.
We call for public control of the public airwaves.
We demand restoration of a strengthened Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time Provision.
We oppose the legislated extinction of the VHF spectrum, which should be used for public monitoring of legislative bodies and for other civic purposes.
We defend the Internet from censors and commercial interests.
We call for enforcement of antitrust laws on media conglomerates.
We support new media for grassroots communication to enhance freedom of self-expression and information distribution.
Religion
We demand strict separation of religious and government institutions and activities.
(The Platform of the Peace and Freedom Party was adopted March 23, 2003, reaffirmed August 1, 2004, and revised May 21, 2006.)
The Peace and Freedom Party, founded in 1967, is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism and racial equality. We represent the working class, those without capital in a capitalist society. We organize toward a world where cooperation replaces competition, a world where all people are well fed, clothed and housed; where all women and men have equal status; where all individuals may freely endeavor to fulfill their own talents and desires; a world of freedom and peace where every community retains its cultural integrity and lives with all others in harmony. We offer this summary of our immediate and long-range goals:
Socialism
We support social ownership and democratic management of industry and natural resources. Under capitalism, the proceeds of labor go to the profits of the wealthy few. With socialism, production is planned to meet human needs.
To us, socialism is workers' democracy, including the principle that all officials are elected, recallable at any time, and none receives more than a worker's wage. Socialism can only be brought about when we, the working class, unite and act as a body in our own interests. Our goals cannot be achieved by electoral means alone. We participate in mass organization and direct action in neighborhoods, workplaces, unions and the armed forces everywhere.
While organizing for the future, we work in the present, challenging the system with the following immediate and transitional goals:
Labor and Full Employment
We demand a socially useful job at union pay levels or a guaranteed dignified income for everyone.
We support the establishment of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to alleviate poverty and homelessness.
We call for a 30-hour work week for 40 hours' pay and abolition of forced overtime.
We demand a legally mandated annual paid vacation of at least 4 weeks.
We demand expansion and enforcement of job health and safety laws. We call for the restoration of all labor rights previously won by women and their extension to men as well.
We demand paid parental leaves and time off work for childcare.
No prison labor for private profit. Living wage and full union rights for any prison labor.
Defend workers' rights to organize, form union caucuses, strike, and boycott.
No replacement of striking workers.
Federally-funded public works programs to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and restore the environment.
International solidarity of workers against international capitalist schemes such as NAFTA and WTO in defense of jobs, wages, working conditions and environmental laws.
International trade agreements must guarantee the protection of workers and democratic rights in all participating countries.
A rank and file socialist-oriented labor movement to mobilize working-class people to assume ownership and control of the economy.
Peace and International Justice
The drive for greater profits by multi-national corporations which direct U.S. foreign policy is a major cause of war. We stand for peace between nations and the right of all peoples to self-determination. We support an ongoing socialist transformation everywhere. We therefore call for:
The U.S. to renounce nuclear first strike, and take the initiative toward global disarmament by eliminating all of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
No U.S. intervention anywhere. End all support and aid to repressive regimes and all military and police training aid everywhere. End efforts to destabilize foreign governments. End U.S.-directed economic warfare against other countries. Abolish the CIA, NSA, AID and other agencies for interference inother countries' internal affairs. Withdraw all U.S. troops and weapons from all other countries.
Stop all U.S. arms exports and trade.
Dissolve all military pacts.
Convert from military to peaceful production; reallocate the resulting "peace dividend" for social benefit.
Abolish the Selective Service System.
No weapons in space.
Equal Rights and Liberties
The capitalists use every difference in society, including sex, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, and physical abilities to divide workers in order to depress wages, maintain a surplus labor pool, and prevent working-class unity. We demand equal treatment of all people by employers, businesses and government. We stand for a world free from all forms of oppression.
Women
We demand full equality for women in all aspects of life. Sexism is a major instrument for teaching relations of domination and inequality and for keeping one-half of the workforce underpaid or unpaid. We work to end oppressive sex roles in society. We must ensure equal rights and responsibilities in child raising. Unions must do more to organize women and promote women's leadership. We demand:
Adoption of an equal rights amendment.
Equal pay for equal work, and for work of comparable worth.
Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion with affirmative action where necessary.
Provision of free, high-quality, community-controlled child care.
Convenient provision of safe, free birth control information and materials to men and women of any age.
Free abortion on demand.
No forced abortions or sterilizations.
Safe prenatal care.
End violence against women.
Ending Racism and National Oppression
Accompanying the continuing economic crisis, we see a rise in racial discrimination, increased terrorism against racially and nationally oppressed people, and retrenchment in civil rights. Minority families are disproportionately victimized by cutbacks in health care, education, child care, welfare, food stamps and jobs. We demand:
End all forms of racial discrimination.
Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion withaffirmative action where necessary.
Prosecute and punish police and prison officials who brutalize and murder.
Language Rights
Restore to the State Constitution co-equal status for Spanish as an official language of California in recognition of its cultural, historical, economic and demographic importance to the people of this state.
Abolish all English-only laws and policies, including those of private employers.
Undocumented Workers
Immigrant workers are hounded by government authorities, worked and housed in substandard conditions by unscrupulous bosses, and blamed by Republican and Democratic demagogues for society's problems.
We call for open borders.
We demand an end to deportations of immigrants.
We demand full political, social and economic rights for resident non-citizens.
Native Americans
We support self-determination of indigenous peoples and sovereignty for Native nations. We demand:
Honor treaty obligations with Native American nations and recognize California tribes.
Stop the theft of natural resources located on reservation lands.
Honor Native American water, hunting and fishing rights.
Free the prisoners of the FBI/BIA war against Native Americans, end all harassment.
Stop destruction of sacred burial sites.
Sexual Orientation
Equal treatment and benefits under the law for all families. Guarantee equal child custody, adoption, visitation privileges, and foster parenthood rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Equal treatment for all people in the military regardless of sexual orientation.
The right to gay marriage and partners' benefits.
Accurate sex education courses in public schools. Truthful information about sexuality in society and history.
People With Disabilities
People with disabilities are entitled to equal rights to education, housing, health care, recreation, and transportation. Attendant care and other services or adaptations must be provided to enable fuller participation in all aspects of society.
Retired Workers
Retired workers must be guaranteed a decent living at union wage levels. We demand:
Immediate improvements in economic benefits and social services.
Free, quality, multi-lingual and multi-cultural medical and home health care.
Accessible transportation.
An end to all forced retirement.
Stop the segregation and isolation of senior citizens.
Defense of the Environment
The same corporate forces and economic system that exploit and brutalize the world's working class people are destroying the world's biosphere. These social policies and ecollogical destruction often overlap. Socialism is necessary to end the ecological destruction caused by capitalism. Our goal is a society that is in harmony with nature as it is in harmony with its own people.
We therefore favor:
Planning for urban and regional environment based on principles of sound ecosystems management.
Create public open spaces in all communities.
Tighter regulation of pesticides, herbicides, industrial wastes and genetically modified foods to protect human food, air and water, employees in the workplace, and species habitat. No release of genetically engineered or transgenic organisms into the wild. No patenting of life forms.
A multi-source energy system, development of solar technology and other renewable, non-polluting energy sources. Eliminate nuclear power plants. End fossil fuel dependence.
Public ownership of public utilities.
Protect species habitat such as old-growth forests to preserve biodiversity.
Massive development of free public transportation.
International trade agreements must guarantee the protection of the environment in all participating countries.
End environmental racism, including the immediate cessation of nuclear testing and toxic waste dumping on reservation lands, the disproportionate creation of landfills in poor communities of color and eliminate the mass development of maquiladora plants.
Transportation
Massive development of public transportation systems that are reliable, frequent, free or at nominal fares and environmentally sound.
Expand safe routes for foot and bicycle traffic.
Agriculture
We want an agricultural system that ensures enough food and other farm products to meet human needs, guarantees a high standard of living to farmers and farm workers, protects humans and the ecosystem from environmental degredation and encourages organic farming. To that end, we call for:
An end to subsidies and tax breaks for corporations.
Food distribution by farm and consumer cooperatives.
Extension of all labor rights to farm workers, including wage and hour regulations.
An end to cruel methods of animal husbandry.
No use of recominant bovine growth hormone (RBGH) in meat or dairy cattle.
No genetically engineered organisms in food production.
A ban on "terminator" seeds.
No export of chemicals banned in the U.S. or import of agricultural products treated with them.
Science and Technology
We need scientific and technological research to benefit ordinary people, not the capitalists.
Education
Education is critical to individual survival and civilized human values, but U.S. capitalism is dismantling public education. Inadequate and unequal funding of schools perpetuates racism, crime and inequality. We demand:
Integrated, democratically-run schools with up-to-date plant and equipment and smaller classes.
Teach the history of workers' struggles and labor's creation of society's wealth and progress.
Multi-lingual and multi-cultural education at all levels.
A federal law requiring and funding equal average per-pupil expenditures by every public school district, with extra funds for students with special needs such as disability or economic deprivation.
Tuition-free higher education available to all.
Restore cutbacks in public education and public library services.
No school voucher schemes.
Arts and Culture
Provide uncensored government funding for ordinary people to create and enjoy art.
Housing and Rent Control
We recognize the right of everybody to quality, secure housing. We demand:
Production and rehabilitation of non-profit, community-controlled housing through public financing with immediate emphasis on housing the homeless.
Rent and eviction control laws and collective bargaining for tenants.
Resident-controlled community renovation programs to create, not destroy, low- and moderate-income housing.
Enforce local affordable housing quotas.
Freedom, Justice and Crime
We call for the defense and extension of the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, press, assembly and association, and the right to keep and bear arms for individual and collective defense. The ultimate guarantee of those rights is the organized strength of the working class.
Capitalism and poverty breed crime and repression. Working class people are the primary victims both of street crime and of police reaction to it. The bosses use laws against victimless activities, "legal" and illegal expansion of police powers, military and paramilitary occupation of poor and minority communities, and diversion of resources to police and jails, to keep workers intimidated and dependent. We demand:
Stop state-sponsored spying on and violence against progressive organizations.
Democratically-controlled police review boards with powers of subpoena and discipline.
Abolish the death penalty.
Repeal the Three Strikes law.
Stop trials and imprisonment of juveniles as adults.
Treatment of prisoners as human beings; rehabilitation, not vengeance.
Decriminalize victimless activities including drug use and consensual sex. Legalize marijuana. End the "war on drugs," which is primarily directed against poor and working-class people.
Stop unwarranted searches and seizures of persons and property. Restore constitutional rights.
Prosecute crimes of the wealthy and powerful against workers and the environment.
Freedom for all political prisoners.
Voting and Elections
Proportional representation to promote legislative representation of the wide variety of political viewpoints.
Enact instant runoff voting (IRV) to eliminate runoff elections and provide for genuine majority support for those elected.
Election should be by direct vote of the people. Eliminate the Electoral College.
Enforce and extend voting rights for people of color, non-English speakers, and homeless people.
Resident non-citizens should have the right to vote, particularly in local and school elections.
Free and equal access to radio and television for all candidates.
Health Care
We believe that access to quality medical and dental care is a basic human right. We stand for a democratically-controlled, publicly-funded health care system. We support health practices that emphasize education, prevention and nutrition. We demand:
Free, high-quality health care for everyone.
Eliminate for-profit health care.
Free immunization programs.
No private patents on drugs developed through publicly-funded research.
Price controls on drugs and medical technology.
Safe pre-natal care, including women's choice of birth alternatives.
More medical facilities to provide services and education in low-income neighborhoods and rural areas.
More substance abuse treatment and needle-exchange programs.
More research into diseases and disorders caused by man-made substances.
More community health care facilities.
Support non-standard proven methods.
Special attention to preventing epidemics of communicable diseases, such as AIDS.
Taxes
Public services and infrastructure have deteriorated as government has increasingly shifted the tax burden from corporations to workers. Our long-range goal is a socialist society without conventional taxes, with public services to be funded from the proceeds of social production. We demand:
Repeal Proposition 13. Tax property for profit, not property for personal use. Remove property taxes on modest owner-occupied homes.
Repeal the sales tax.
Include aggregate of real property and stocks, bonds, etc. in a steeply-graduated property tax.
Restore the renters' tax credit.
Double registration fees on luxury vehicles.
Tax unearned income at a higher rate than earned income.
Eliminate or reverse income tax on low- and moderate-income families.
Re-enact California's unitary tax on multi-national corporations.
Tax the business activities of churches on the same basis as other organizations.
Take the cap off social security taxes, make the rates progressive so burden falls on the wealthy.
Mass Media
Ownership of television and radio stations, print media, and other forms of communication has been increasingly concentrated into the irresponsible hands of fewer corporations, and any checks and balances previously available to the people have been eliminated.
We call for public control of the public airwaves.
We demand restoration of a strengthened Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time Provision.
We oppose the legislated extinction of the VHF spectrum, which should be used for public monitoring of legislative bodies and for other civic purposes.
We defend the Internet from censors and commercial interests.
We call for enforcement of antitrust laws on media conglomerates.
We support new media for grassroots communication to enhance freedom of self-expression and information distribution.
Religion
We demand strict separation of religious and government institutions and activities.
(The Platform of the Peace and Freedom Party was adopted March 23, 2003, reaffirmed August 1, 2004, and revised May 21, 2006.)
We're in Deep Doo-Doo
The Nowhere Man
by William Rivers Pitt
Truthout, April 5, 2011
So, yeah, Obama is in. The President of the United States officially threw his hat into the 2012 election ring on Monday morning, and the nation reacted with a resounding, “Oh.”
What a mess.
It wasn’t even two and a half years ago. Can you believe it? Two and a half years ago, there was a detonation of optimism that echoed across the country once the returns were in on that November night. People took to the streets here in Boston, literally banging pots and pans together as they danced and shouted in celebration. The scene was repeated in city after city and town after town, and even the “mainstream” media gushed from election night to Inauguration Day about the spectacular moment in American history we were all witnessing together.
Hindsight, however, tells us today that much of that optimism was wildly misplaced. The long shadow of George W. Bush still hung low and dark over the land, as it does even now. That was part of it, of course, part of the sense of expiation and purgation so many felt once the deal went down; on that November night, the national nightmare of Mr. Bush’s presidency was writing its final pages, and then came January, and he was gone. Despite all the failures and disappointments that have since come, those were two very good days.
And there have been disappointments. A great, great many of them. The words we heard were beautiful back then, soaring and sure, and many believed. How could they not? Here was this new president who could sing the birds down from the trees, who was introduced to the country in 2004 by way of a convention keynote address that blew the roof off the joint. Some years later, along the jagged, wending path of a brutal primary campaign, candidate Obama was carried to the nomination by the power of his words, and yes, many believed, even in spite of themselves.
But then he won it all, and two and a half years later, many of his most ardent supporters now hear his words and taste ashes in their mouths. You campaign in poetry, someone once said, but you govern in prose. The poetry was magnificent. The prose, in far too many ways, has been dreck, and those who believed now find themselves more demoralized than they can easily describe.
He and his fellow Democrats all but folded on health care, leaving us with less than half a loaf. He backtracked on Guantanamo, and doubled down on Afghanistan. He promised to erase Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and broke his oath shamelessly, to his party’s great lament in 2010. Wall Street stands unmolested at the center of his counsel, while Main Street withers on the vine. He is flipping missiles into Libya while flipping off the American people by racing to “compromise” with brigands and thieves on the matter of how many billions to cut. He has, to be sure, had his share of victories, but in so many critical ways, he has been the Nowhere Man, the absence of what was so seemingly present when he was elevated to his current station.
What galls the most, what infuriates and confounds, is the brazen clarity of the situation at hand. Mr. Obama has not been losing policy arguments to reasonable people. He has been losing policy arguments to people who are, in many instances, absolutely and unabashedly barking mad. He is losing policy arguments to people who sought elected office in government in order to denude and destroy that very government. Listen to them talk and the matter is plain: they got the job to destroy the job, and are so blinded by the fervor of their political catechism that they cannot be reasoned with under any circumstances. They are destroyers and usurpers, but Mr. Obama has time and again bared his neck to them, and we have all suffered with their sundry victories, and his sundry defeats.
They cannot be reasoned with, but can only be defeated, and after two and a half years, it is the President of the United States alone who appears to have not received the memo. Now he’s running for re-election – not that anyone suspected he would do otherwise – and the machinery of campaign war is grinding to life in Chicago and Washington DC. Last time around, Mr. Obama’s vast campaign war chest was filled with donations from millions of regular folks all across the country. The Obama campaign took money from the big boys, too; lots and lots of money. But what ultimately brought him to victory came from average Americans who could not afford to give but did. That, as much as anything else, was part of that sense of optimism felt by so many at the beginning.
Now?
Well, now is a different story. A great many of those who gave willingly the last time are two and a half years older today, two and a half years poorer, and two and a half years wiser. They will not be as quick to reach for their wallets and checkbooks when the piper calls them to campaign charity with his well-worn cadence. The Obama 2012 brain trust seems to know this, and are preparing a financial strategy far more dependent on big money than last time. They aim to raise a billion dollars this time. Thus, the political DNA of campaigner Obama and President Obama will even more closely resemble the CEOs and bankers that tore this nation to shreds and tatters.
The feeble fiction of the Democrats vs. Republicans paradigm has been falling to dust for a long time now, inexorably being replaced by a simple truth. There is but one paradigm in this reality, one core fact to be reckoned with: the struggle in America is between the Have’s and the Have Not’s, between towering wealth , towering greed and everyone else. It is about a class struggle that has been three centuries in the making, and even those who are today moderately comfortable will not be able to escape calamity. When it comes down, it will come down on all of us…all, of course, except the fortunate few who caused it all in the first place.
But who knows? Mr. Obama could choose to steer back into the wind, challenge his demented opposition with a will, and prevail in a way that inspires those who have waited all this time for the man they gave to and voted for to show up. The odds of re-election favor him in any case; it is hard to defeat an incumbent, and when considering the ludicrous carnival of nonsense that is the presumed Republican field, Mr. Obama’s chances only improve. In many battlefield states, demographics favor the president in ways the GOP is not prepared to deal with. The 2012 election campaign promises, above all else and with absolute certainty, to be one of the most deranged political affairs to be seen since time out of mind.
It is tempting to comfort oneself with the notion that there are worse things in the world than a second Obama term, and there is a fat, cynical dollop of truth in that. After all, given the array of challenges this administration has faced since taking office, it is daunting to imagine the sorry condition we would be in under a President McCain. Now imagine watching Vice President Michele Bachmann, tapped by the Republican nominee in two years to shore up the Tea Party vote, taking the oath a heartbeat shy of the biggest chair in the country. Think it can’t happen that way? Want to bet on it?
I don’t.
Two and a half years ago, it was all about hope and change. Remember that? I am, personally, waiting with bated breath for the next battery of slogans to be deployed by the Obama campaign. No, seriously, I am. Nowhere Man 2012: Because Everyone Else Is Worse. That’ll send them racing to the polls.
Yup. Here we go.
Again.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Print This Post
Email This Post
4 Responses to “The Nowhere Man: William Rivers Pitt’s Lament about the Disappearing Leadership of Barack Obama”
mczilla Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 10:41 am
“many believed. How could they not?”
Well, anyone who lived through the disappointment of the Clinton years as an adult should have at least been a little more circumspect. But the emotion of the moment almost always seems to trump reason in the clutch. No doubt Obama will steer back into the wind, but it will only be rhetorically, and he’ll return to the present course should he manage to be re-elected. And if he is actually so sure of Obama’s second term, why does Pitt offer the bet on Bachmann?
At least Nader is not being pilloried again for having the nerve to run.
Andrew Bard Schmookler Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 10:56 am
At least Nader is not being pilloried again for having the nerve to run.
Is Nader saying he’s going to run again? I’ll tell you, if Nader does run, and if his impact gives us another president from THIS Republican Party, I will be eager to pillory him.
Richard H. Randall Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 11:54 am
President Obama is a creature of the wealthy class and Wall Street. He doesn’t work for us, we the people.
I have been pondering the question of what concretely to do. I intend to be involved in a candidate’s run if and only if itis not Obama.
Perhaps this is too cynacal, but he is in a position of win-win. If he won, it would be his last 4 years, and so, he would likely continue to feather his nest with the lobbiests and GOP: if he lost, his friends might possibly hire him: probably he could get a job teaching, as he is so young.
Truly what a dissapointment.
Joan Kelly Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
“I’ll tell you, if Nader does run, and if his impact gives us another president from THIS Republican Party, I will be eager to pillory him.” – ABS -
Evil grin – - – me, too, Andy.
“President Obama is a creature of the wealthy class and Wall Street. He doesn’t work for us, we the people.” – Richard H. Randall -
I disagree with you, Richard. He, for sure, didn’t come from wealth and as far as I can tell he cares deeply for the common welfare. I feel it’s more his attempt to compromise to end up on the right side for the “lesser among us” that has led to his more unpopular decisions.
The CEOs of GE, ExxonMobil, etc. are telling him they can’t increase employment if he increase their taxes, Petraeus is telling him he has to “Win” in Afghanistan, etc, ad vomitum. The voice of his Mom is telling him he has to prevent genocide in Libya. We have to remember this is still a “black” man in a “white” society. If you’ve read Dreams Of My Father, you’ll understand some of the dichotomies.
I write to him at whitehouse.gov frequently Frankly, I don’t think it does any good to bitch about anything unless you rage at the source. I feel he deserves to hear from us
by William Rivers Pitt
Truthout, April 5, 2011
So, yeah, Obama is in. The President of the United States officially threw his hat into the 2012 election ring on Monday morning, and the nation reacted with a resounding, “Oh.”
What a mess.
It wasn’t even two and a half years ago. Can you believe it? Two and a half years ago, there was a detonation of optimism that echoed across the country once the returns were in on that November night. People took to the streets here in Boston, literally banging pots and pans together as they danced and shouted in celebration. The scene was repeated in city after city and town after town, and even the “mainstream” media gushed from election night to Inauguration Day about the spectacular moment in American history we were all witnessing together.
Hindsight, however, tells us today that much of that optimism was wildly misplaced. The long shadow of George W. Bush still hung low and dark over the land, as it does even now. That was part of it, of course, part of the sense of expiation and purgation so many felt once the deal went down; on that November night, the national nightmare of Mr. Bush’s presidency was writing its final pages, and then came January, and he was gone. Despite all the failures and disappointments that have since come, those were two very good days.
And there have been disappointments. A great, great many of them. The words we heard were beautiful back then, soaring and sure, and many believed. How could they not? Here was this new president who could sing the birds down from the trees, who was introduced to the country in 2004 by way of a convention keynote address that blew the roof off the joint. Some years later, along the jagged, wending path of a brutal primary campaign, candidate Obama was carried to the nomination by the power of his words, and yes, many believed, even in spite of themselves.
But then he won it all, and two and a half years later, many of his most ardent supporters now hear his words and taste ashes in their mouths. You campaign in poetry, someone once said, but you govern in prose. The poetry was magnificent. The prose, in far too many ways, has been dreck, and those who believed now find themselves more demoralized than they can easily describe.
He and his fellow Democrats all but folded on health care, leaving us with less than half a loaf. He backtracked on Guantanamo, and doubled down on Afghanistan. He promised to erase Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and broke his oath shamelessly, to his party’s great lament in 2010. Wall Street stands unmolested at the center of his counsel, while Main Street withers on the vine. He is flipping missiles into Libya while flipping off the American people by racing to “compromise” with brigands and thieves on the matter of how many billions to cut. He has, to be sure, had his share of victories, but in so many critical ways, he has been the Nowhere Man, the absence of what was so seemingly present when he was elevated to his current station.
What galls the most, what infuriates and confounds, is the brazen clarity of the situation at hand. Mr. Obama has not been losing policy arguments to reasonable people. He has been losing policy arguments to people who are, in many instances, absolutely and unabashedly barking mad. He is losing policy arguments to people who sought elected office in government in order to denude and destroy that very government. Listen to them talk and the matter is plain: they got the job to destroy the job, and are so blinded by the fervor of their political catechism that they cannot be reasoned with under any circumstances. They are destroyers and usurpers, but Mr. Obama has time and again bared his neck to them, and we have all suffered with their sundry victories, and his sundry defeats.
They cannot be reasoned with, but can only be defeated, and after two and a half years, it is the President of the United States alone who appears to have not received the memo. Now he’s running for re-election – not that anyone suspected he would do otherwise – and the machinery of campaign war is grinding to life in Chicago and Washington DC. Last time around, Mr. Obama’s vast campaign war chest was filled with donations from millions of regular folks all across the country. The Obama campaign took money from the big boys, too; lots and lots of money. But what ultimately brought him to victory came from average Americans who could not afford to give but did. That, as much as anything else, was part of that sense of optimism felt by so many at the beginning.
Now?
Well, now is a different story. A great many of those who gave willingly the last time are two and a half years older today, two and a half years poorer, and two and a half years wiser. They will not be as quick to reach for their wallets and checkbooks when the piper calls them to campaign charity with his well-worn cadence. The Obama 2012 brain trust seems to know this, and are preparing a financial strategy far more dependent on big money than last time. They aim to raise a billion dollars this time. Thus, the political DNA of campaigner Obama and President Obama will even more closely resemble the CEOs and bankers that tore this nation to shreds and tatters.
The feeble fiction of the Democrats vs. Republicans paradigm has been falling to dust for a long time now, inexorably being replaced by a simple truth. There is but one paradigm in this reality, one core fact to be reckoned with: the struggle in America is between the Have’s and the Have Not’s, between towering wealth , towering greed and everyone else. It is about a class struggle that has been three centuries in the making, and even those who are today moderately comfortable will not be able to escape calamity. When it comes down, it will come down on all of us…all, of course, except the fortunate few who caused it all in the first place.
But who knows? Mr. Obama could choose to steer back into the wind, challenge his demented opposition with a will, and prevail in a way that inspires those who have waited all this time for the man they gave to and voted for to show up. The odds of re-election favor him in any case; it is hard to defeat an incumbent, and when considering the ludicrous carnival of nonsense that is the presumed Republican field, Mr. Obama’s chances only improve. In many battlefield states, demographics favor the president in ways the GOP is not prepared to deal with. The 2012 election campaign promises, above all else and with absolute certainty, to be one of the most deranged political affairs to be seen since time out of mind.
It is tempting to comfort oneself with the notion that there are worse things in the world than a second Obama term, and there is a fat, cynical dollop of truth in that. After all, given the array of challenges this administration has faced since taking office, it is daunting to imagine the sorry condition we would be in under a President McCain. Now imagine watching Vice President Michele Bachmann, tapped by the Republican nominee in two years to shore up the Tea Party vote, taking the oath a heartbeat shy of the biggest chair in the country. Think it can’t happen that way? Want to bet on it?
I don’t.
Two and a half years ago, it was all about hope and change. Remember that? I am, personally, waiting with bated breath for the next battery of slogans to be deployed by the Obama campaign. No, seriously, I am. Nowhere Man 2012: Because Everyone Else Is Worse. That’ll send them racing to the polls.
Yup. Here we go.
Again.
This entry was posted on Friday, April 8th, 2011 at 9:04 pm and is filed under Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Print This Post
Email This Post
4 Responses to “The Nowhere Man: William Rivers Pitt’s Lament about the Disappearing Leadership of Barack Obama”
mczilla Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 10:41 am
“many believed. How could they not?”
Well, anyone who lived through the disappointment of the Clinton years as an adult should have at least been a little more circumspect. But the emotion of the moment almost always seems to trump reason in the clutch. No doubt Obama will steer back into the wind, but it will only be rhetorically, and he’ll return to the present course should he manage to be re-elected. And if he is actually so sure of Obama’s second term, why does Pitt offer the bet on Bachmann?
At least Nader is not being pilloried again for having the nerve to run.
Andrew Bard Schmookler Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 10:56 am
At least Nader is not being pilloried again for having the nerve to run.
Is Nader saying he’s going to run again? I’ll tell you, if Nader does run, and if his impact gives us another president from THIS Republican Party, I will be eager to pillory him.
Richard H. Randall Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 11:54 am
President Obama is a creature of the wealthy class and Wall Street. He doesn’t work for us, we the people.
I have been pondering the question of what concretely to do. I intend to be involved in a candidate’s run if and only if itis not Obama.
Perhaps this is too cynacal, but he is in a position of win-win. If he won, it would be his last 4 years, and so, he would likely continue to feather his nest with the lobbiests and GOP: if he lost, his friends might possibly hire him: probably he could get a job teaching, as he is so young.
Truly what a dissapointment.
Joan Kelly Says:
April 9th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
“I’ll tell you, if Nader does run, and if his impact gives us another president from THIS Republican Party, I will be eager to pillory him.” – ABS -
Evil grin – - – me, too, Andy.
“President Obama is a creature of the wealthy class and Wall Street. He doesn’t work for us, we the people.” – Richard H. Randall -
I disagree with you, Richard. He, for sure, didn’t come from wealth and as far as I can tell he cares deeply for the common welfare. I feel it’s more his attempt to compromise to end up on the right side for the “lesser among us” that has led to his more unpopular decisions.
The CEOs of GE, ExxonMobil, etc. are telling him they can’t increase employment if he increase their taxes, Petraeus is telling him he has to “Win” in Afghanistan, etc, ad vomitum. The voice of his Mom is telling him he has to prevent genocide in Libya. We have to remember this is still a “black” man in a “white” society. If you’ve read Dreams Of My Father, you’ll understand some of the dichotomies.
I write to him at whitehouse.gov frequently Frankly, I don’t think it does any good to bitch about anything unless you rage at the source. I feel he deserves to hear from us
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)