[Peace-discuss] An ally in the White House?

[Neil Parthun]

Lance Selfa was a pretty good article about the "liberal" arguments  
for voting for Obama

http://socialistworker.org/2008/10/24/ally-in-the-white-house

WITH THE presidential election two weeks away and momentum seeming to  
flow in only one direction--toward Barack Obama--the Democratic  
nominee's progressive supporters are worried.

Not worried about whether Obama will live up to the hopes that  
millions of people have placed in him. Instead, they're worried about  
the possibility that McCain could make a comeback. And so they're  
pulling out all stops to convince anyone who might be wavering to  
vote for Obama.

What has unfolded is a two-pronged approach. On the one hand,  
minimize or ignore Obama's gestures or actions that fly in the face  
of progressive values. On the other, accentuate the differences  
between him and McCain, no matter how small they might be on  
particular issues.

A good example of the former was the reaction of Progressive  
Democrats of America (PDA) to the recent Wall Street bailout bill and  
Obama's support for it.

To its credit, PDA opposed the legislation as a "sellout to greedy  
fat cats," as PDA National Director Tim Carpenter called it in an  
October 2 press release. Carpenter pointed out that Senate changes to  
the bill (what he called "lipstick") and renaming it a "rescue plan"  
didn't change its essence as a "blank check bailout."

Yet two days later, Congress passed that blank-check bailout. The  
administration's efforts to round up support got a boost from Obama,  
who campaigned for the bill and persuaded leading members of the  
Congressional Black Caucus to switch from "no" to "yes."

In many ways, Obama and the congressional Democratic leadership led  
the way to the bill's passage. And what did PDA say about that?  
Nothing. Its next official press release, dated October 10, quoted  
Carpenter as saying, "We're stepping up our efforts during these  
closing weeks to elect Obama and a more progressive Congress. We've  
already started. New-voter registration coordinator Bruce Taub and a  
team of Massachusetts volunteers just returned from a four-day trip  
to Pennsylvania."

Given that PDA and other progressive Democrats are invested in an  
Obama win and substantial Democratic coattails, it's unlikely they  
would have taken the opportunity to denounce Obama or the Democrats.

But then, that's not their modus operandi anyway. Progressives for  
Obama initiator Tom Hayden even explained: "I have no problem with  
Barack Obama supporting the bailout package as long as it keeps him  
on track to the presidency. He needs to be critical, to offer  
amendments, and to promise to return to the crisis the day after  
November 4."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

GROUPS LIKE PDA and Progressives for Obama pose themselves as a sort  
of conscience of the Democratic Party. They uphold values like single- 
payer health care and immediate withdrawal from Iraq that mainstream  
Democrats won't support.

And when the mainstream Democrats cross them--to accept Obama's lousy  
"individual mandate" health plan or vote to continue the occupation  
of Iraq--progressives express disappointment, while noting how many  
votes they received for their liberal alternative proposal. Then they  
move on to getting out the vote for Democrats, including those who  
just sold them out.

This is the way "progressive" politics oriented on the Democratic  
Party is played--because when all is said and done, it is no more  
than liberal gloss on the politics of the "lesser of two evils."

A good example of how this works was Hayden's response to Nation  
writer Robert Dreyfuss, when Dreyfuss criticized Obama's hawkish  
posture on foreign policy. It's a good representation of the second  
prong described above: magnify the differences between the Democrats  
and Republicans.

Reviewing the first McCain-Obama debate, Dreyfuss wrote:

     If, God forbid, foreign policy had to be the deciding factor in  
choosing between Barack Obama and John McCain, then last night's  
terrible showing by Obama would make me a Ralph Nader voter in a  
heartbeat. Obama's performance was nothing short of pathetic, and  
only Democratic-leaning analysts and voters with blinders on could  
suggest that Obama won the debate. More important, he utterly blew a  
chance to draw a stark contrast with John McCain on America's  
approach to the world.

Responding to his "respected friend" on the Progressives for Obama  
blog, Hayden criticized Dreyfuss for concentrating on all the places  
where McCain and Obama agreed (at least eight, by my count) rather  
than the crucial "Iraq difference."

As Hayden wrote, "Obama's pledge to withdraw combat troops in 16  
months, while not the 'out now' demand of the anti-war movement, is  
generally supported by most Americans and most Iraqis, and leaves  
Bush-McCain isolated in their opposition to deadlines."

Thus, a vote for Obama will be, according to Hayden, a "peace  
mandate." As Hayden continued:

     Belittling the Iraq difference reflects a much greater omission,  
ignoring the gaping differences between the two candidates with 36  
days until the election. On the basis of what he's written, Dreyfuss  
ignores this context.

     It is as if frustration with Obama is greater than anything some  
people on the left can feel towards McCain. I feel their pain, but  
let me offer this formula: no candidate will move further left than  
their base demands and public opinion allows.

In other words, it all boils down to the central lesser-evil logic.  
Obama may not be what we want, but McCain would be so much worse. And  
just to make sure we got the point, Hayden ended his response to  
Dreyfuss by calling up that old standby: the Supreme Court. "[W]hen  
the faith-based right has been promised a Supreme Court majority by  
McCain-Palin, I think the left should be in full battle mode" instead  
of, presumably, writing articles criticizing Obama's shortcomings.

In other parts of the response to Dreyfuss, Hayden proposes that  
Obama's hawkishness is just a political strategy intended to "close  
off any possible attacks from the right or the media on his national  
security policies and credentials."

Yet anyone who has been paying attention to Obama's foreign policy  
statements over the last two years (as Hayden has) can see that what  
he's saying today is pretty much consistent with what he was saying  
then. If that's the case, then why pretend that Obama's hawkishness  
is just a stratagem, with the implication that the "real" dovish  
Obama will emerge after he's safely elected?

Setting aside the objective fact that Obama agreed with McCain on  
foreign policy far more than he disagreed with him during the debate  
(which was Dreyfuss' point), would a vote for Obama really be a  
mandate for peace? Couldn't a victorious Obama also say, "The  
American people have endorsed my calls to launch missile strikes in  
Pakistan without the consent of the Pakistani government, to base  
withdrawal from Iraq on 'facts on the ground,' to kill Osama bin  
Laden, to stand up to Russia in Georgia, etc."?

In other words, couldn't Obama claim that a vote for him is really a  
"war mandate"?

Time will tell, but progressives for Obama shouldn't deceive  
themselves into believing that they will have a secret ally in the  
White House.

Its not the act of seeing with our own eyes alone; its correctly  
comprehending what we see,

      Neil

  We absolutely have to refuse to attribute any kind of permanency to  
that which is simply because it is.
[angela v. davis, 1944-]

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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