The Strategy
of Relying on
‘Good Faith’?

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
BlackCommentator.com

It has been interesting to watch and listen to a debate unfold among many progressives regarding how to assess the initial direction of President-elect Obama. I have, however, found a particular tendency a bit unsettling. It is a tendency to make certain assumptions regarding Obama’s actual intent and then to project his decisions, for instance on appointments, as shrewd tactics to mask an otherwise progressive objective. With all due respect, I would offer: not so fast.

It is worth considering the facts on the ground, so to speak. And these facts are a bit complicated and somewhat contradictory. Obama’s initial appointments (and unconfirmed appointments) have tended to be cut from the Bill Clinton cloth. Thus, on the face of it, one can accurately, and with no caricature, say that Obama is building a center-right administration. At best, one could say that it is socially liberal, but the depth of this liberalism is far from clear.
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Tags: Bill Fletcher, Pushing Obama

New Tasks of the
Left Following
Obama’s Victory

By Carl Davidson
Progressives for Obama

American progressives have won a major victory in helping to defeat John McCain and placing Barack Obama in the White House. The far right has been broadly rebuffed, the neoconservative war hawks displaced, and the diehard advocates of neoliberal political economy are in thorough disarray. Of great importance, one long-standing crown jewel of white supremacy, the whites-only sign on the Oval Office, has been tossed into the dustbin of history.

The depth of the historical victory was revealed in the jubilation of millions who spontaneously gathered in downtowns and public spaces across the country, as the media networks called Obama the winner. When President-Elect Barack Hussein Obama took the platform in Chicago to deliver his powerful but sobering victory speech, hundreds of millions-Black, Latino, Asian, Native-American and white, men and women, young and old, literally danced in the streets and wept with joy, celebrating an achievement of a dramatic milestone in a 400-year struggle, and anticipating a new period of hope and possibility.

Now a new period of struggle begins, but on a higher plane. An emerging progressive majority will be confronted with many challenges and obstacles not seen for decades. Left and progressive organizers face difficult, uncharted terrain, a bumpy road. But much more interesting problems are before us, with solutions, should they be achieved, promising much greater gains and rewards. for the America of popular democracy.

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Tags: Carl Davidson, Hegemonic Blocs, Pushing Obama

Photo: Peak Moment

Avoiding Cynicism
and Overconfidence
in the Age of Obama

By Tim Wise

November 5, 2008 - Tonight, after Barack Obama was confirmed as the nation’s president-elect, I looked in on my children, as they lay sleeping.  Though they are about as politically astute as kids can be, having reached only the ages of 7 and 5, there is no way they will be able to truly appreciate what has just happened in the land they call home.  They do not possess the sense of history, or indeed, even a clear understanding of what history means, so as to adequately process what happened this evening, as they slumbered.

Even as our oldest cast her first grade vote for Obama in school today, and even as our youngest has become somewhat notorious for pointing to pictures of Sarah Palin on magazines and saying, “There’s that crazy lady who hates polar bears,” they remain, still, naive as to the nation they have inherited.

They do not really understand the tortured history of this place, especially as regards race.  Oh, they know more than most–to live as my children makes it hard not to–but still, the magnitude of this occasion will likely not catch up to them until Barack Obama is finishing at least his first, if not his second term as president.
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Tags: Barack Obama, Tim Wise

Photo: Early Voters in Florida

Early Voting:
It Empowers
Many People

By Pam Kapoor
AlterNet

Nov, 2, 2008 - “I’ve thought of more excuses why not to vote, why not to do this,” Bobby told us. “And each time, it has cost me more than it would have cost me to get up off my a** — excuse my French — and try to make a change.”

So said Bobby Johnson in the back of one of our Vote Today Ohio shuttles. When he spotted our van at the Bishop Cosgrove Centre, a food pantry in Cleveland, he climbed right on in. He hadn’t voted in years, but on October 4th, 2008, Bobby became one of the 67,408 Ohioans who cast a ballot during the first week of Ohio’s new Early Voting period.

We have seen and heard Bobby’s story repeated from Cincinnati to Youngstown, from Athens to Toledo. So many unlikely voters we drove to Ohio Early Voting Centers represent this truth: elections are changing. You might even say democracy itself, in fact, is changing. For the better.

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Tags: Early Voting, Pam Kapoor

Hard Times,
War Times:
Are We Ready?

By Max Elbaum
War Times/Tiempo de Guerras

October 28, 2008 - Six years ago it was Mission Accomplished, the World’s Sole Superpower, Free Market Reigns Supreme, and Karl Rove salivating over the prospect of one-party Republican rule for a generation.

Today Mission Accomplished is a joke punch line, Multipolar World is the reality of the globe, Free Market Fundamentalism has crashed spectacularly, and the right-wing is scrambling desperately to avoid a huge beating November 4.

We’re also entering an economic downturn likely to be longer and deeper than any since the early 1970s if not the Great Depression of the 1930s.

As these hard times take hold, the Sarah Palin wing of U.S. politics says it’s all because of an unholy alliance of Eastern elites, Blacks, immigrants and Muslim terrorists who are out to destroy all that hard-working (white) Americans have earned by the sweat of their own brows.

On the other side, a much wider but not-yet-coherent array of constituencies are exploring ideas about a “New New Deal/Green New Deal/21st Century New Deal.” These would shift national priorities, rebuild the infrastructure, tackle both economic problems and the environmental crisis, and step back at least somewhat from the most disastrous U.S. wars abroad.
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Tags: Financial Crisis, Iraq Quagmire, Max Elbaum

Photo: Eminem, 8-Mile and New Identity in Macomb

The Economy vs Race
Among the “Original”
Reagan Democrats

By Chris Christoff
Free Press

It appears that the Reagan Democrats of Macomb County might be waking up after all. Eight Mile Road divides the city of Detroit from its northern suburbs. North and west of Detroit is Oakland county. Oakland county tends to be more diverse than its eastern counterpart, Macomb county. Oakland county is one of the most wealthy counties in the nation. The suburbanization of northwest Detroit reflected a largely Jewish population to Oakland county, as well.

The northeastern suburbanization was largely a working class migration from Hamtramck, a largely Polish city that had been surrounded by the city of Detroit. It was this demographic that populated the northern and eastern migration to the cities of Warren and Sterling Heights in Macomb county. When I was an employee of the Michigan Civil Rights Commission in the late ’60s, it was clear that Warren was likely the most racially hostile communities in the Detroit Metropolitan area.

As we have been warned, for the older white vote, Obama’s race is likely to be a factor. Recall that the Reagan Democrats were largely working class who had turned to Reagan as a result of his appealing to their racism and the opposition of their union, the UAW’s support for King and the Civil Rights Movement. While race is and has been salient for these Reagan Democrats, this report by Chris Christoff of the Detroit Free Press shows that the state of the economy shows that Obama is breaking down some of the barriers. Their self-interests may be trumping their racism. Consequently, more and more Reagan Democrats are coming home to Barack. RGN
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Tags: Detriot, Obama, Racism, Reagan Democrats

Photo: Fascist Signs in Ohio

McCain-Palin
And The
‘Lucifer Effect’

By Dawn Teo
Huffington Post

In recent weeks, as the McCain-Palin campaign has increasingly been called out for leveraging — at rallies and in its notorious robocalls — words of division, suspicion, and contempt, the emotions and tempers of McCain-Palin supporters have been heated beyond the boiling point. The language of the McCain-Palin campaign now goes far beyond the divisive language typical of modern American political campaigns. John McCain and Sarah Palin are actively promoting a perception of Barack Obama as an enemy, not as an opponent.

Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said that John McCain and Sarah Palin are “sowing the seeds of hatred and division” through hostile rhetoric. Indeed scientific research by psychologists has shown that the type of framing used by McCain, Palin, and their surrogates can create and foster disunity, hostility, and even violence. The resulting societal tensions may be more lasting and severe than John McCain and Sarah Palin realize.

In The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, famous psychologist and researcher Philip Zimbardo discusses his lifelong research into the psyche of good people who engage in evil acts. He warns first about the dangers of psychological constructions that imbue people with “otherness” and then issues even stronger warnings about the dangers of psychological constructions that transform “others” into “the enemy.”
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Tags: Dawn Teo, Lucifer Effect, Violence

Photo: A Cover That Should Have Been

Defining The
‘Real America’

By Robert Creamer
Huffington Post

Sarah Palin is right about one thing: this election is in fact a battle between the “real America” and a pretender.

But it’s not quite the battle she imagines. Palin couldn’t be more wrong when she asserts that one group of Americans is more “American” than another — or when she implies that “real Americans” favor division and fear, or the right of one person to “make it” at the expense of his neighbors. And her soul mate Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (MN-6th) was downright frightening when she called on the media to root out “anti-Americans” — whoever they may be.

Division and fear are not American values. In fact the “real” American values are the traditional progressive values that have defined the soul of America from the moment that Thomas Jefferson crafted the words of the Declaration of Independence.
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Tags: American Values, Robert Creamer

Photo: Protecting the Vote in Houston

Blocking
the Vote,
GOP Style

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
and Greg Palast

Rollingstone.com

October 30, 2008 - These days, the old west rail hub of Las Vegas, New Mexico, is little more than a dusty economic dead zone amid a boneyard of bare mesas. In national elections, the town overwhelmingly votes Democratic: More than 80 percent of all residents are Hispanic, and one in four lives below the poverty line. On February 5th, the day of the Super Tuesday caucus, a school-bus driver named Paul Maez arrived at his local polling station to cast his ballot. To his surprise, Maez found that his name had vanished from the list of registered voters, thanks to a statewide effort to deter fraudulent voting. For Maez, the shock was especially acute: He is the supervisor of elections in Las Vegas.

Maez was not alone in being denied his right to vote.

On Super Tuesday, one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists. The numbers were even higher in precincts like Las Vegas, where nearly 20 percent of the county’s voters were absent from the rolls. With their status in limbo, the voters were forced to cast “provisional” ballots, which can be reviewed and discarded by election officials without explanation. On Super Tuesday, more than half of all provisional ballots cast were thrown out statewide.
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Tags: Greg Palast, Protect the Vote, Robert Kennedy Jr.

Can Obama
See the
Grand Canyon?

By Mike Davis

Let me begin, very obliquely, with the Grand Canyon and the paradox of
trying to see beyond cultural or historical precedent.

The first European to look into the depths of the great gorge was the
conquistador Garcia Lopez de Cardenas in 1540. He was horrified by the
sight and quickly retreated from the South Rim.

More than three centuries passed before Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives of the U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers led the second major expedition to the rim. Like Garcia Lopez, he recorded an “awe that was almost painful to behold.” Ives’s expedition included a well-known German artist, but his sketch of the Canyon was wildly distorted, almost hysterical.
Neither the conquistadors nor the Army engineers, in other words, could make sense of what they saw; they were simply overwhelmed by unexpected revelation. In a fundamental sense, they were blind because they lacked the concepts necessary to organize a coherent vision of an utterly new landscape.

Accurate portrayal of the Canyon only arrived a generation later when the Colorado River became the obsession of the one-armed Civil War hero John Wesley Powell and his celebrated teams of geologists and artists. They were like Victorian astronauts reconnoitering another planet. It took years of brilliant fieldwork to construct a conceptual framework for taking in the canyon. With “deep time” added as the critical dimension, it was finally possible for raw perception to be transformed into consistent vision.
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Tags: Capitalism, Derivatives, Mike Davis