[Peace-discuss] Fw: Stanley Aronowitz: Obama at One Year

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----- Original Message ----- 
From: David Sladky 
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Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:38 AM
Subject: Fwd: Stanley Aronowitz: Obama at One Year








-----Original Message-----
From: Dunleamark at aol.com
To: usgp-media at gp-us.org
Sent: Sun, Jan 3, 2010 8:19 am
Subject: [usgp-media] Stanley Aronowitz: Obama at One Year


Stanley, among many things, was the Green Party nominee for Governor in NYS in 2002.

Obama at One Year Old

Stanley Aronowitz

People cannot live without hope. The long night of the eight Bush years were tolerated only because many of us believed they would come to an end. That Obama seized on that belief better than his Democratic primary opponents is a testament to the high expectations people had that regime change in Washington just might bring about a better life.  While Hillary Clinton, his main primary opponent  invoked the traditional symbols of military preparedness combined with liberal domestic policies, Obama steadfastly preached the gospel of peace and hope and carefully avoided making lavish promises.  She won the backing of most of Organized Labor, womens' organizatons and major Democratic politicians. But Obama, the only fresh face in the gallery of candidates, had a strategy capable of out -maneuvering the traditional party dons. With little support at the top, Obama went for the grass roots, correctly gauging the country's mood to be done with the old ties and old ideas. 

Obama had the advantage of being African American, even though many black politicians hopped on the Clinton bandwagon early in the campaign.  But Obama's not so secret weapon was his appeal among the tens of thousands of youth who, responding to his bold message of hope and change, literally came out of the woodwork to volunteer in his campaign, trudged door to door in the big and medium sized cities and tipped the balance in states like California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. They also delivered much of the West to the insurgent. What befuddled the pros and the pundits was Obama's ability to mobilize youth who chronically stay away from the polls, largely because they see little point in voting. He seemed to have the power to once again make them believe in the system. Although the overall vote count was not remarkable compared to past presidential elections, the proportion of voting youth and blacks helped give Obama a relatively easy victory over John McCain, the lapsed maverick. 

For many who voted for Obama, 2009 has been a year of deep disillusionment. The degree to which the Obama administration revealed its basic war and big business  orientation was first shown by his major  cabinet and staff appointees. Robert Gates, Bush's defense secretary, was held over; Hillary Clinton, perhaps the Senate's leading hawk, became secretary of state; the crucial position of Treasury Secretary went to a Federal Reserve bureaucrat and Wall Street ally, Tim Geithner; And Lawrence Summers, Bill Clinton's last Treasury head became Obama's chief economic advisor.. 

What was obscured by Obama's rousing campaign and nimble rhetoric has become brutally apparent in the aftermath. The Democratic Party has, since the end of World War Two, been the favored party of finance capital. Recall that mantle once belonged to the Republicans-the fabled party of the rich and wealthy. But the GOP has sunk into a right-wing party of opposition, and no longer pretends to be a party of government. Its cast, begun as far back as the Goldwater takeover in 1964, is anti-internationalist, narrowly ideological and administratively incompetent.

Meanwhile, the Democrats live a glaring contradiction: on the one hand, they rely on labor and the new social movements of feminism, ecology, and black freedom both for votes and for a large portion of their political cadres. On the other, they need the hundreds of millions to oil the party apparatus and run five hundred thirty five national election campaigns. Aside from the unions, most of this money comes from corporate sponsors and wealthy individuals. 

This contradictory existence accounts for several important political realities: despite a large "progressive" Congressional delegation, especially in the House, the weight of governance falls on its debts to, and alliances with, the leading financial corporations. For example, that the Democrats are forced to sponsor some version of health care "reform" cannot disguise the fact that the big insurance companies have called the tune on the legislation. Nor, are their ostensible commitments to dealing with global warming and climate change as powerful as the influence of the energy giants who have systematically thwarted any significance steps to address what may be the cutting edge public issue of this century. And as we have seen, the most profound economic crisis since the Great Depression has been met by the Obama administration by continuing the Bush policy of bailing out the banks and insurance companies and virtually ignoring rising joblessness, burgeoning foreclosures and deepening black and Latino poverty. In short, Obama is the perfect manifestation of the contradiction that rips across the DP bough

According to historical myth, during the Depression Roosevelt saved US capitalism by instituting vast regulation of capital. In this tale, the so-called "second" New Deal of social reform was a reflection of the administration's move to the Left. What this version of history usually fails to notice is that these reforms were preceded by a mass workers movement armed with the tools of direct action that within a few short years transformed the face of the American workplace. Roosevelt was both appalled and politically astute: from an open-throated voice of capital expressed chiefly in the National Industrial Recovery Act, aimed at reviving capitalism by throttling workers wages, he forged an image of a the Democrats as the party of the working people, the poor and the oppressed. That image was, to some degree, backed by concrete steps such as social security, but it did not take long before the Democrats, spurred by the imperatives of anti-communism and the Cold War, reverted to conservative policies, Except for the enactment of medicare in 1966, there have been no major social reforms since 1938 when the wage and hour bill became law. 

And as Obama has made plain, the Democrats have retained their character as the War party. Apart from World War Two, clearly a bi-partisan effort Korea, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, the opening rounds of the Iraq war in the late 1990s, and the escalation of the Afghanistan military intervention are their products Only the Bushes proved equally committed to aggressive foreign military intervention. 

Meanwhile, as the economy continued to sink, the administration asked Congress to emulate the Bush bank bailouts as the major weapon to combat the crisis. Under Fed chair Bernanke's, Summers' and Geithner's direction, Obama was prepared to transfer trillions in taxpayer funds to the leading institutions of the financial system, And a bundle went to General Motors and Chrysler, who were now free to chop jobs at will in order to save their corporations from bankruptcy.  Even as official joblessness kept climbing to more than 10%--and nearly 20% among blacks-the Obama emphasis remained to "stabilize" the financial system. 

Early in the new administration Obama told the country his first major priority was to enact a universal health care program. Congress and social health movements accepted the challenge and prepared themselves for the long battle ahead.  But Obama disappointed again. Instead of sending to Congress a single payer proposal that would have eliminated the power of the insurance companies, he allowed conservatives and insurance company lobbyists to write much of the bills that passed both houses. The final version will not include a public option, nor will it likely sanction the right of women to unambiguously obtain an abortion within the framework of their coverage. Under the legislation most Americans will be forced to buy private insurance and pay big Pharma's exhorbitant costs of prescription drugs. 

Obama is an ordinary, though talented, center -right president. While surrendering to the Right, he has maintained a sizeable constituency among liberals and even some on the Left. That a vigorous anti-war movement has not emerged to fight the escalations and betrayals of his war policies, there are no major direct actions against the phony health care bill about to become law and, equally important, we have seen no significant demonstrations for jobs and income testifies to the torpor that has overcome large sections of the American people, including a portion of the Left. Among the reasons for this apparent passivity is that we still labor under the illusion that the Democrats are, at least in part, the party of the people and have failed to recognize their vital role in perpetuating capitalist rule. Are we so pre-occupied with the myriad personal crises that afflict all subordinate social classes? Are we exhausted in the wake of the battering of the media, the flood of never-ending catastrophies, the defeats suffered by the popular forces?. Are the progressive forces ready to occupy the political space of the opposition rather than the "left-wing" of the possible that moves ceaselessly to the right? Events belie forecasts so, as America's wont, the explosion is likely to come as an unexpected Hurricane.  Perhaps the starting point would be the Left's clean break from the Democrats.
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