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Last Updated: Jun 30, 2009 - 8:39:09 AM |
The end of liberalism as a meaningful ideology came with
the nomination of Bill Clinton. The argument was - although hardly
phrased so accurately - that it was far better for liberals to dump
their policies and become the indentured servants of an elected
Democrat than to continue to press for their beliefs and miss out on
all the power and the parties.
This same willingness to go with icons rather than ideas drove liberals
quickly into the Obama camp, especially since he had the added
advantage of looking the way he was supposed to believe.
It was apparent from the start, however, that Obama wasn't what the
liberals thought. During the campaign, for example, I listed over two
dozen positions and statements of Obama's that clearly were in conflict
with what liberals once believed.
But of course, belief was no longer the issue. Liberalism had long ago
become more of a secular church than a cause, and based more on
socio-economic demographics than on actual politics. To the extent it
had issues, these issues were, like abortion and gay rights, ones that
appealed to its core demographics. Long gone was the liberal concern
for doing the most for the most; economic issues had faded; and the
base that had helped build the New Deal and Great Society were now
dismissed as red necks, racists, gun nuts and crazy church goers.
The factor of class was both immense and silent. But you could tell it
by listening to liberals talk. The little folk had simply disappeared
from their concerns.
Thus it is that we came to have a Democratic Congress and president
that pressed a bailout for bankers with virtually no help for
homeowners, who promised to leave one war but then escalated another
and who couldn't bring themselves in majority to support the sort of
universal healthcare the rest of the western world had long adopted.
As Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report put it the other day: "The
first Black president has racked up some impressive victories. Barack
Obama has quarantined single-payer healthcare advocates, crushed
dissent against the war in Congress, and transferred more money to the
finance capital class than at any time in planetary history. Not bad
for just five months in office."
Liberals became part of the new center right; they became the modest
conservatives the Republican reactionaries had kicked out of their own
party. Instead of going to hell noisily in the manner of Rush Limbaugh,
you were to proceed thoughtfully, cautiously, and in a measured manner
inspired by a thoughtful, cautious, and measured president. But we are
still going to hell.
Tom Hayden caught a moment of the measured madness, noting in the
Nation:
"MoveOn.org resumed its historical antiwar stance this week,
symbolically breaking with the Obama administration for the first time.
"After being criticized for abandoning the antiwar stance that won it
millions of activist supporters, the organization sent targeted
mailings supporting the demand for an Obama administration exit
strategy report contained in HR 2404, by Rep. Jim McGovern of
Massachusetts. . .
"Despite its modest nature, MoveOn's entry into the debate could be an
important factor in legitimizing antiwar criticism of the Obama
policies among Democrats. Antiwar sentiment at the grassroots is
smothered by the unwillingness of several organizations to openly
oppose the war escalation, despite their roots in the antiwar movement
against Iraq.
"The silent organizations thus far include Democracy for America and
its founder, Howard Dean, Ben Cohen's True Majority, and the Obama
campaign's offshoot, Organizing for America. The Feminist Majority even
supported the $80 billion war supplemental with an amendment supporting
women's programs in Afghanistan."
This lethargy, cowardice and compliance to the top dogs has been
repeated with issue after issue. The sell out on the bailout and single
payer perhaps top the list, but the failure of liberals to defend
public education from control freaks like Arne Duncan or Obama'
replication of the Bush war on civil liberties, while getting less
attention, are just as bad.
If liberals had paid more attention to what the far right was up to,
rather than just using it as a punching bag to make themselves feel
better, they might have noticed that the GOP reactionaries hardly ever
caved into their party's mainstream. Instead they redefined that
mainstream. Liberals, on the other hand, surrender before they even
enter the ring.
Our political labels are largely assigned for us by the media. There is
thus hardly an inch of space allowed between center right liberalism
and socialism. Proposing policies of the sort that gave America its
greatest days over the past century is dismissed as radical.
But that doesn't change reality, which is that the liberal power
brokers are essentially following traditional conservative policies,
that Obama is the most conservative Democratic president since Woodrow
Wilson, and that there is a growing gap between what liberals are today
and what they were when they were truly making a better America.
That doesn't mean there isn't an alternative. It would help if we made
a clear distinction between indentured liberals and independent
progressives - a major difference being that the latter understand that
ideas are still more important that icons.
To an independent progressive, the issue is not support of Obama but a
set of policies that Obama may or may not support. My scorecard, for
example, finds me agreeing with Obama about 30% of the time, which is
pretty dismal, especially when you consider that it is among the
alienating 70% that much of American history will be written. And why
is Obama so alienated from the progressive path (and so much more so
then when he was just representing Illinois in the Senate)? Simply
because he is driven not by conscience but by calculation. And in
Obama's calculations, liberalism now equals zero.
The media insists that we define what is happening in terms of whoever
is in the White House. Here's how I put it in "Shadows of Hope" fifteen
years ago:
"Congress has lost power relative to the White House not merely for
various political reasons, but because 535 legislators are simply too
many for the media to handle. TV, in particular, treats politics much
as it does wide screen movies; it snips off the right and left sides
until the frame fits comfortably within the more equilateral shape of
its eye. The edges of our experience are lost and we find ourselves
staring at a comfortable center -- which in the case of politics, means
we find ourselves endlessly watching the President while much of the
rest of American democracy passes unnoticed.
"This preoccupation with the presidency not only exaggerates the
importance of the position, it distorts the constitutional division of
political power, denigrates the significance of state and local
government and creates pressures for presidential action when such
action may be neither wise nor even lawful. We can not, even out of
seemingly harmless celebrity worship, imbue our president with
supra-constitutional virtues or powers without simultaneously damaging
the Constitution and the democratic system it was established to
protect.
"Besides, our presidential fetish badly skews our view of our country
and the changes occurring within it -- not only elsewhere in government
but beyond politics entirely. It trivializes our own collective and
individual roles in creating social and political change. And,
conversely, it can create the illusion of great change when far less is
really happening."
Independent progressives understand this instinctively and struggle -
with sadly little help - to help keep our eyes on the real game, which
is the change that is occurring as a result of the political puppet
show we watch on the nightly news yet which are usually ignored or
treated as of minimal importance. An example: the foreclosure crisis is
enormous but you would never know it listening to the news or the
Democrats.
You can tell independent progressive groups because they will actually
challenge the Democrats in power on their policies. They will oppose
imperial wars even if a Democrat is leading them. They will fight the
coddling of the welfare fathers of Wall Street even if the chief
coddler doesn't look the part. They will worry about how our politics
affect the weak and not just the comfortable, and they will spend more
time opening doors for the powerless than in cracking glass ceilings
for the few.
No one in the conventional media is going to tell you about these
distinctions, but they are real. The independent progressive story is
not about how bad some reactionary politician or commentator is, but
how good we all could be if we did things differently and if we pursued
real policies of true worth rather than worshiping false heroes.
Source:Ocnus.net 2009
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