[Peace-discuss] some things AWARE might call on the Obama ...

[Stuart Levy]

On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 12:06:40AM -0600, Neil Parthun wrote:
> All -
>
> First, I definitely agree that everything that needs saying in a succinct 
> way is a very difficult task.
>
> I don't believe I was condemning actions of the Obama administration here 
> before they acted.  I tried to put it as a healthy warning of "Don't do X, 
> Y or Z." as a healthy warning after suffering eight long years of idiocy, 
> dipshititude and absolute asshattery from the Bushistas in regards to 
> foreign policy, domestic policy, et al.

Yes -- good.

> My patience at this point is very 
> thin for most any politician, so I may have come off a bit stern.  But when 
> one looks at the polls and sees such dissatisfaction with our government 
> and the way the country is moving, perhaps a little (okay a lot in my case) 
> sternness is justified and appropriate.  As with any President, the public 
> needs to be rabble-rousing and putting on pressure to make the President do 
> anything.

Absolutely.

I'd been thinking about how to begin the leaflet, and after listening to
Frances Fox Piven this morning have an idea.  (Ricky pointed us at her
Nation article, "Obama Needs a Protest Movement",
    http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/15-0
)

Too many people (of the generally-sympathetic-but-not-active kind
that we'd want such a leaflet to impress) are thinking that Obama will
just come in and fix everything that's broke, or try to.   But as Naomi Klein,
Francis Fox Piven, and others have pointed out, there are lots of powerful
actors working to maintain the status quo, and *needs* popular pressure
to resist it.  (Comparing Obama's presidency to FDR's, Piven writes:
    FDR became a great president because the mass protests among the unemployed,
    the aged, farmers and workers forced him to make choices he would otherwise
    have avoided. He did not set out to initiate big new policies. The Democratic
    platform of 1932 was not much different from that of 1924 or 1928. But the rise
    of protest movements forced the new president and the Democratic Congress to
    become bold reformers.
)

Anyway I think we should open by making some reference to this.
Without our protests, even Obama's campaign promises will go by the wayside.


> I personally do not hold out much hope for Obama to do certain 
> things, but I also see him very susceptible to the public pressures inside 
> the country.
>
> I think this flyer assists in giving concrete things we demand from an 
> Obama administration and could educate people on what we're FOR rather than 
> what we're against.  Plus, with so much messed up in this country right 
> now, any pamphlet would be a little long. :)


> Live without dead time,
>
>      Neil
>
>  With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; 
> I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful because that's 
> what really happens...It's time for America to get right.
> [fannie lou hamer, 1917-1977]
>
> Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some 
> blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. 
> Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a 
> spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
> [ralph waldo emerson, 1803-1882]

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