[Peace-discuss] Fw: [sf-core] Fwd: Obama's Victory and the Rage of
the Barbiturate Left
unionyes
unionyes at ameritech.net
Tue Nov 25 21:57:00 CST 2008
----- Original Message -----
From: unionyes
To: Belden Fields
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2008 3:12 PM
Subject: Re: [sf-core] Fwd: Obama's Victory and the Rage of the Barbiturate Left
" OBAMA'S VICTORY AND THE DENIAL OF THE PROZAC LIBERALS"
In resonse to Tim Wise's article ;
" Obama's Victory and the Rage of the Barbiturate Left ", one has to wonder just who Tim Wise is really criticizing ?
Granted Tim Wise tells a good humorous story about some strange characters he use to hang-out with in New Orleans, listening to Albanian Sheepherder music.
But from what I have been observing since the election of Barack Obama, are not rantings from " Stalinists " and " Albanian Sheepherders", but well founded concerns based upon substantial FACTS.
Not only from people like ; Naomi Klein, Michael Hudson, Adolph Reed and Jeremy Scahill, but from my friends and co-workers who are working class like me. Carpenters, Plumbers, Electricians, School Teachers, Nurses, Secretaries, etc.. All of whom voted for Obama.
So what are these facts that Wise wants to sweep under the rug and pretend they don't exist, and instead characterize anyone who is both aware and speaks out about them as
" humorless negative leftists " ?
To begin with, Obama won the election not because most voters thought it would be "cool " and " trendy " to have an African American man as President, but because he talked about CHANGE for the better for working people.
In particular, Obama spoke of the need to help Main street and not just Wall street, about re-negotiating the destructive corporate trade treaties like NAFTA, about ending the war in Iraq and making the U.S. a moral leader in the world, as well as initiating policies that would provide health care for every American.
The above reasons are why most people I know voted for Obama. They did not want another 4-years of George Bush type policies, nor did they want a re-run of the policies of Bill Clinton, who lets not forget, gave us ; NAFTA, The Telecommunications Act of 1996, the restricting of habeous corpus rights, the China Trade Bill, the repeal of the Glass Steigleman Banking Regulation Act, and an assortment of other policies that strengthened corporate power at the expense of working people.
So it seems as if these are the people Tim Wise is criticizing, accusing them of being "Stalinists" and what have you. Which shows just how out of touch with everyday working people Tim Wise is.
A few days after the election, I began seeing ; postings on various list-serves, blogs and web-sites, comments from guests on FSTV, as well as individual e-mails, that we the people need to begin making our voices heard. In terms of specific policies that Obama should do as well as suggestions for cabinet picks.
You know, fresh new Washington outsiders who will have the best interests of the people, as well as bold new intelligent ideas on how to govern EFFECTIVELY in these troubled times. A clean break with the past, cleaning-up the mess, and onward to a better tomorrow.
Exactley what most Obama supporters want and expect !
In These Times Magazine is the only liberal / progressive publication that I saw almost immediately after the election, that had 22 people who they recommended would be good if not excellent Obama cabinet appointees.
My favorite pick was Jim Hightower for Secretary of Agriculture.
Now there is someone who is a true champion of the people that Wise cannot say has no sense of humor !
But where were the rest of the liberal / progressive publications and commentators ?
Still drinking the Obama victory kool-aid I imagine.
It has been three weeks now since Obama was elected President, and what have liberals like Wise advocated ? ....
" Oh give Obama a chance " .....
" Wait until after the innaguration "....
" Pay no attention to those corporate lobbyists scurring behind the curtain ".
And what do we have to show for the above policy of denial and inaction, in terms of what the new Obama administration is beginng to look like ?
This is what the Obama administration looks like already ; Washington insiders, corporate hacks, re-treads from the Clinton administration, and many of the SAME ; neo-conservative, corporate free trade, Project for a New American Century and University of Chicago Friedmanite de-regulation fanatics, that have gotten us into the problems we are currently in.
NOT ONE real progressive.
But oh... they are talking about possibly keeping Robert Gates as a gesture of bi-partisanship. Doesn't that make you feel all warm and fuzzy ?
I like to laugh, go to parties and have fun with my friends and family, and in general try to find as much joy in life as possible. Most people do, unlike the weird crowd Tim Wise knew in New Orleans.
But many working people in this country right now are hurting and frightened !
People I know are losing their homes, many people I know do not have health insurance for themselves and or their families. Many people I know ( including my wife ) have lost decent paying jobs and are now having to take jobs at half the pay. Many people are not only having to take low-wage jobs, but jobs with no health or retirement benefits.
And on top of all of this, we are having to bail out the bankers with our hard earned tax money, while they keep living the good life, while an economic depression that they created is on the horizon and heading our way.
It is a little difficult to be merry and joyful when the above is your reality, and yes considering everything, it is easy to be angry.
The question is, what are we the people going to do about it ?
Are we the people suppose to keep our mouths shut like Tim Wise advocates and accept more of the same, as opposed to the " hope and change " that we were promised ?
We need advocates for the people, not apologists for corporations and their bought and paid for politicians, democrat and republican.
We have seen this all before ; the change promised by Jimmy Carter and the last two years of his term he begins de-regulation. The change promised by Bill Clinton and that didn't even last to the end of 1994, with the passage of NAFTA.
So yes, we have every reason to be skeptical and suspicious.
The bottom line is this ; you are either for people enpowerment and real democracy or for corporate enpowerment and rule by the economic elite.
Which side are you on ?
Which side Barack Obama ultimately will be on depends upon us.
If we speak loud, and act now, and keep Obama's feet to the fire, as Cornell West has suggested we do, we MAY have a chance for real change.
If we do nothing, hope for the best, take a dose of prozac, forget and ignore all of the early warning signs, and go to a party like Tim Wise suggests, I can guarantee you that we will all wake-up with a political and economic hang-over asking ;
" what happened " ?
----- Original Message -----
From: Belden Fields
To: SFcore
Sent: Monday, November 24, 2008 11:37 PM
Subject: [sf-core] Fwd: Obama's Victory and the Rage of the Barbiturate Left
I'm forwarding this just because I think it is interesting, not to be preachy to anyone.
Belden
Begin forwarded message:
From: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
Date: November 24, 2008 8:47:05 PM CST
To: PORTSIDE at LISTS.PORTSIDE.ORG
Subject: Obama's Victory and the Rage of the Barbiturate Left
Reply-To: moderator at PORTSIDE.ORG
Some Cyanide to Go With That Whine? Obama's Victory and
the Rage of the Barbiturate Left
by Tim Wise
November 10, 2008,
http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/some-cyanide-go-with-that-whine-obamas-victory-and-rage-barbiturate-left
My political entry into the left (and by this I mean
the real left, beyond the Democratic Party) came a
little more than twenty years ago in New Orleans, when,
as a college student I became involved in the fight
against U.S. intervention in Central America. In
particular, the groups of which I was a part sought to
end military aid to the death squad governments in El
Salvador and Guatemala, and to block support for the
contra thugs our nation was arming in Nicaragua, who by
that time had already killed about 30,000 civilians in
their war with the nominally socialist Sandinista
government.
It was the first place where I came into contact with
folks who defined themselves as radicals (I had grown
up in Nashville, after all, where at that time, even
finding "out" liberals was sometimes a challenge), and
where I got to experience all the fascinating
permutations of Marxism that the left had to offer. In
addition to unaffiliated socialists (which I considered
myself to be at the time), there were Trotskyites,
old-line Leninists, Maoists, and even some bizarre
Stalinists in the bunch. Excluding from consideration
those among this number who turned out to be FBI spies,
there were still plenty of real and interesting
ideologues who had valuable insights to offer, even for
those of us who didn't swallow their particular party
line.
But despite being interesting, these folks also
managed, at least for me, to demonstrate one of the key
problems with the left in the U.S. Namely, for the sake
of ideological purity few within the professional left
expressed any joy about life, or any emotion whatsoever
that wasn't rooted in negativity. They were like the
political equivalent of quaaludes: guaranteed to bring
you down from whatever partly optimistic place you
might find yourself from time to time.
This was never so evident as the day I hopped into a
car with one of the Stalinoids (a member of something
called the Albanian Liberation League, which viewed the
brutal regime of Enver Hoxha as a worker's paradise),
and headed downtown for a rally to protest Contra aid.
Once in the car, I asked about the music playing from
his stereo. What was it? I wanted to know. He quickly
explained that it was Albanian folk music, and the only
music he listened to. I made some joke about how
strange it was to be living in one of the greatest
musical towns on Earth and yet to restrict oneself to a
single genre of music (especially that favored by
Albanian sheepherders), to which my revolutionary
friend responded with a grunt and a scowl. Of course,
because Comrade Stalin never much liked jazz.
The humorlessness of the far left--to which I remain
connected ideologically if not organizationally--has
always struck me as one of its greatest weaknesses.
People like to laugh, they like to smile, they like to
be joyful, and an awful lot of hardened leftists seem
almost utterly incapable of doing any of these things.
It's as if they have all taken a pledge that there
should be no laughter until the revolution, or some
such shit. No positivity, no hope, no happiness so long
as people are still poor and exploited and being
murdered by cops, and victimized by United States
militarism, or performing as wage slaves for global
capital, or eating meat, or driving cars. And they
wonder why the left is so weak?
Now, in the wake of Barack Obama's victory these
barbiturate leftists are back in full effect, lecturing
the rest of us about how naive we are for having any
confidence whatsoever in him, or for voting at all,
since "the Democrats and Republicans are all the same,"
and he supports FISA and the war with Afghanistan, and
all kinds of other messed up policies just like many on
the right. Those of us who find any significance in the
election of a man of color in a nation founded on white
supremacy are fools who "drank the kool-aid," unlike
they, whose clear-headed radical consciousness leads
them to recognize the superior morality of Ralph Nader,
or the pure "scientific wisdom of chairman Bob
Avakian," or the intellectual profundity of their
favorite graffiti bomb: "If voting changed anything it
would be illegal." Yeah, and if body piercings and
anarchy tats changed anything, they would be too, and
then what would some folks do to be "different?" (Note:
there is nothing wrong with either type of adornment,
but getting either or both doesn't make you a
revolutionary, any more than voting, that's all I'm
saying).
These are people who think being agitators is about
pissing people off more than reaching out to them. So
they pull out their "Buck Fush" signs at their
repetitively irrelevant antiwar demonstrations, or
their posters with W sporting a Hitler mustache,
because that tends to work so well at convincing folks
to oppose the slaughter in Iraq. But effectiveness
isn't what matters to them. What matters to them is
raging against the machine for the sake of rage itself.
Their message is simple: everything sucks, the earth is
doomed, all cops are brutal, all soldiers are
baby-killers, all people who work for corporations are
evil, blah, blah, blah, right on down the line. It's as
if much of the left has become co-dependent with
despondency, addicted to its own isolation, and
enamored of its moral purity and unwillingness to work
with mere liberals. In the name of ideological
asceticism, they spurn the hard work of movement
building and inspiring others to join the struggle,
snicker at those foolish enough to not understand or
appreciate their superior philosophical constructs, and
then act shocked when their movements and groups
accomplish exactly nothing. But honestly, who wants to
join a movement filled with people who look down on you
as a sucker?
If we on the left want those liberals to join the
struggle for social justice and liberation, we're going
to have to meet people where they are, not where
Bakunin would want them to be. For those who can't get
excited about Obama, so be it, but at least realize
that there are millions of people who, for whatever
reason, are; people who are mobilized and active, and
that energy is looking for an outlet. Odds are, that
outlet won't be the Obama administration, since few of
them will actually land jobs with it. So that leaves
activist formations, community groups and grass-roots
struggles. That leaves, in short, us. Just as young
people inspired by the center-right JFK candidacy in
1960 ultimately moved well beyond him on their way to
the left and made up many of the most committed and
effective activists of the 60s and early 70s, so too
can such growth occur now among the Obama faithful. But
not if we write them off.
At some point, the left will have to relinquish its
love affair with marginalization. We'll have to stop
behaving like those people who have a favorite band
they love, and even damn near worship, until that day
when the band actually begins to sell a lot of records
and gain a measure of popularity, at which point they
now suck and have obviously sold out: the idea being
that if people like you, you must not be doing anything
important, and that obscurity is the true measure of
integrity. Deconstructing the psychological issues at
the root of such a pose is well above my pay grade, but
I'm sure would prove fascinating.
The simple fact is, people are inspired by Obama not
because they view him as especially progressive per se
(except in relation to some of the more retrograde
policies of the current president, and in relation to
where they feel, rightly, McCain/Palin would have led
us), but because most folks respond to optimism,
however ill-defined it may be. This is what the
Reaganites understood, and for that matter it's what
Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement
knew too. It wasn't anger and pessimism that broke the
back of formal apartheid in the south, but rather,
hope, and a belief in the fundamental decency of people
to make a change if confronted by the yawning chasm
between their professed national ideals and the bleak
national reality.
In other words, what the 60s freedom struggle took for
granted, but which the cynical barbiturate left refuses
to concede, is the basic goodness of the people of this
nation, and the ability of the nation, for all of its
faults (and they are legion) to change. Look at
pictures of the freedom riders in 1961, or the
volunteers during Freedom Summer of 1964 and notice the
dramatic difference between them and some of the
seething radicals of today--whose radicalism is almost
entirely about style and image more than actual
analysis and movement building. In the case of the
former, even as they stared down mobs intent on
injuring or killing them, and even as they knew they
might be murdered, they smiled, they laughed, they
sang, they found joy. In the case of the latter, one
most often notices an almost permanent scowl, a dour
and depressing affect devoid of happiness, unable to
appreciate life until the state is smashed altogether
and everyone is subsisting on a diet of wheatgrass,
bean curd and tempeh.
Hell, maybe I'm just missing the strategic value of
calling people "useful idiots," or likening them to
members of a cult, the way some leftists have done
recently with regard to Obama supporters. Or maybe it's
just that being a father, I have to temper my contempt
for this system and its managers with hope. After all,
as a dad (for me at least), it's hard to look at my
children every day and think, "Gee, it sucks that the
world is so screwed up, and will probably end in a few
years from resource exploitation...Oh well, I sure hope
my daughters have a great day at school!"
Fatherhood hasn't made me any less radical in my
analysis or desire to see change. In fact, if anything,
it has made me more so. I am as angry now as I've ever
been about injustice, because I can see how it affects
these children I helped to create, and for whom I am
now responsible. But anger and cynicism do not make
good dance partners. Anger without hope, without a
certain faith in the capacity of we the people to
change our world is a sickness unto death. It is
consuming, like a flesh-eating disease, and whose first
victim is human compassion. While I would never counsel
too much confidence in far-right types to join the
struggle for justice--and there, I think skepticism is
well-warranted--if we can't conjure at least a little
optimism for the ability of liberals and Democrats to
come along for the ride and to do the work, then what
is the point? Under such a weighty and pessimistic load
as this, life simply becomes unbearable. And if there
is one thing we cannot afford to do now--especially
now--it is to give up the will to live and to fight,
another day.
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