Jul 14 2008

Obama CAN’T save you….Remedial Politics

In fact he has rather explicitly asked that YOU save HIM.

When he asks for citizens to become involved in the political process, in his campaign, that is what he is asking you for.

Here is how our government works, and ….surprise!…. Obama knows this. Politicians are individual human beings, (surprise again!) individual human beings, even Obama, are not gods. We, each and every one of us, including Obama, are subject to temptation, failure of will in the face of adversity, and yes, corruption. Not dirty back room money under the table corruption, but corruption as a process, over time, that saps integrity and will.

Washington DC and the strange dances of culture, pressure, and politics there are literally MADE to corrupt. To put it cutely, they have a whole street there (named K) that exists for one reason, to corrupt public servants. There is the culture of the Senate, (need I say more Harry Reid?) there is the culture of The Villagers, the cocktail party culture…..and then their are the real bad guys! Photobucket

And then there are your ‘friends,’ who just need a little favor, just need you to bend your principles a little bit just this once, to help them out. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Relentless and pervasive and designed to push every button of human weakness. This pressure has ‘corrupted’ nearly every politician that has gone to DC. This pressure is exactly why things are as they are, in our government that is allegedly by, for and of The People….but instead exists to serve the aims of the Powers That Be. The Powers That Be use that power to corrupt the system to serve their ends. Not yours, not mine.

And it works.

Obama’s FISA vote was as a result of these pressures. Who knows which one got to him…but one did.

That is why he needs YOU to save him.

Obama is (surprise!) only human, not some shining incorruptible godling. How would YOU stand up under all of that pressure? He needs us to provide the counter-pressure.

And do some of the heavy lifting, as thereisnospoon wrote, It’s OUR job to move the Overton Window, NOT Obama’s …see also I Thought I Was Helping Obama by Chris Bowers. THAT is how politics works in this country. This is NOT American Idol.

Obama wants to serve The People. In order to do that The People have to fulfill there basic role in government: Pressuring politicians to do the RIGHT thing, not the easy thing. To pressure him to not give in to the OTHER pressures.

Sure we have to support him, to let him know that we have his back when push comes to shove vs. the bad guys…and most importantly, lol…to vote for him! Everybody needs ‘love.’ That is a deep personal human thing we all need to survive in a harsh world.

But what Obama really needs to do what he wants and needs to do and what we need him to do……..is NOT Fanboyz and Girlz! He needs, and we need to become, an informed and active citizenry.

Obama is now our guy, for better or worse, lol. He is the Champion…

The original meaningof the word partakes of both these senses: in the Feudal Era, knights were expected to be champions of both prowess in combat and of causes, the latter most commonly being either patriotic, romantic or religious in nature. This reaches its most literal in a trial by combat, in which each combatant champions the cause of one side of the trial.

…of the democratic cause. OUR human impulse will be to support him at all costs and against all comers.

I repeat….this is NOT what he needs from us, at least not all he needs from us. He needs us to provide cover for him to do the right thing. He needs us to pressure him. He needs us to be yelling at him so he can point at us and say….they are my base, what can I do? He needs us to bolster him politically…not personally.

As a relative outsider and newcomer to DC and the nominee, he is currently under the most pressure a politician can be under, the pressure from the insiders to change, to conform to their way of doing things. Folks will be coming to him now and whispering in his ear, telling him that this is how it really works…’sharing’ insider knowledge. Turning the screws of corruption.  If Obama is who he says he is, and wants to do what he says he wants to do, the PTB will stop at nothing to stop him. And who is his only real ally? The People. Not people saying…”don’t be mean to Obama!” People telling him to live up to his promise. Tough love.

Obama needs The People to hold him to the highest standard possible, so that he can then can maintain that standard in the face of the corruption of DC. He needs US to save HIM. The People must lead, so that he can follow

Anything less is letting not just ourselves down, but him…and democracy…as well.

57 comments

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  1. Photobucket

    and think. This is a critical election at critical pivot point of history. Not a just a popularity contest.

  2. … whatever holds people like us, people here at DD

    whatever holds us to this urgency to protect life

    diversity, freedom

    whatever it is that makes us care

    we have to pass it onto this man who made a speech four years ago

    and swept us away

    now. it is our turn.

    to sweep him away.

    with our love for the very least among us.

    the homeless. the hungry. the confused.

    the apathetic. the aimless. and all creatures.

    it’s our job. to capture his heart and loyalty.

    and let him know we get it…  we all have to do it better,  if we want a better world.

    we can reach him, this Barack Obama. if we want to.

    we can bring him with us.

    that was pre-FISA. post-FISA, i’m pretty much lost.

    you’re right, buhdy. he’s just one man. he knows what is at stake. FISA was the wrong vote. if he wants my vote, then he should have stood on his oath and protected the Constitution with a NAY. if his bent is to pander to fear, instead of testing our values and principles, we are screwed.

    it doesn’t work. because nobody is trusted in that kind of world. if we want to make history, then let’s talk about how we live next door to one another. and how do we stop the few from taking all the wealth and leaving the mess to the rest of us…

    just how progressive are we? are we progressive enough for real change? like leaving the Democrats? how serious are we?

    why do we insist on allowing these politicians to tie us to only two parties? why?

    if we want Obama to listen, then we need to un-elect Nancy Pelosi. we need to cut off supply routes to corporations like Wal-Mart with real progressives on planning boards. if we are serious about making history, then let’s do something fucking different.

    and instead of relying on Obama, as I think is part of your point, let’s look to ourselves. let’s stop electing politicians to power and start electing them to political office to do a job.

    btw… how’s it been for you back in the states?

  3. … there’s another kind of pressure going on here as well, and it’s from his own “handlers.”

    Each candidate has an army of “strategerists” telling them how to act and what to say.

    I agree there’s also the insider pressure as well.

    I won’t say anyone should vote against their conscience, that’s every citizen’s right.  I won’t slam anyone who votes for a third party candidate or who doesn’t vote at all.  This is an individual choice we all have to make.

    But I agree with you that Obama needs us to save him.  And for us as citizens that’s where, as NL says, the rubber meets the road.

  4. When a social movement adopts the compromises of legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians, not to fall in meekly behind them.

    . . .

       I am reminded of the situation at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, when the black delegation from Mississippi asked to be seated, to represent the 40 percent black population of that state. They were offered a “compromise” – two nonvoting seats. “This is the best we can get,” some black leaders said. The Mississippians, led by Fannie Lou Hamer and Bob Moses, turned it down, and thus held on to their fighting spirit, which later brought them what they had asked for. That mantra – “the best we can get” – is a recipe for corruption.

      It is not easy, in the corrupting atmosphere of Washington, D.C., to hold on firmly to the truth, to resist the temptation of capitulation that presents itself as compromise. A few manage to do so. I think of Barbara Lee, the one person in the House of Representatives who, in the hysterical atmosphere of the days following 9/11, voted against the resolution authorizing Bush to invade Afghanistan. Today, she is one of the few who refuse to fund the Iraq War, insist on a prompt end to the war, reject the dishonesty of a false compromise.

      Except for the rare few, like Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey, and John Lewis, our representatives are politicians, and will surrender their integrity, claiming to be “realistic.”

      We are not politicians, but citizens. We have no office to hold on to, only our consciences, which insist on telling the truth. That, history suggests, is the most realistic thing a citizen can do.  –Howard Zinn

    The state cannot be liberal except in so far as the traditional privileges and hierarchies which it stands for are respected. It also has to be said that the democratic transfiguration of the state is construed as mere camouflage. As far as the state has been concerned, democracy has simply been a necessity foisted upon it by circumstances and, in its hands, an effective instrument in ensuring that is caste interests of absolute power and indisputable authority are better served and spared from interference. The state is always attended by a caste mentality.

    Collaboration with the state has already yielded fruits that are attractive to the eye but bitter to the taste. Those fruits are known as reformism, that is to say, superficial reforms, endless promises, procrastination and adulteration.  –Jose Peirats

    The compromises of politicians do not have to be our compromises. They own them; we don’t. They are building careers in a corrupt system. We should be tearing down that system.

  5. If Obama is a politician (even a good one) first, then he’s part of the problem.

    He isn’t our only choice (unless you are wedded to the party with the D after the candidates name).

    As for pressure, the only pressure he’ll understand is 1) not donating to his campaign, and 2) not voting for him.

    Now, he is likely to get elected (and let’s face it, if a Dem can’t win in this climate, they should disband as a national party, and Obama will prove to suck as a candidate).  And then we’ll get to find out what ‘hope’ and ‘change’ are worth.

  6. with two types of people on the internets:

    1) Hardcore Obama supporters. Any criticism is bad, it will destroy Obama’s chances, it will give us President McCain, blah blah blah. They’re angry because they have so much hope and desire invested in an Obama presidency that they will flip out and attack anyone who even possibly could hamper that;

    and

    2) Former Obama supporters, who somehow never thought to research what sort of politician Obama was in State Senate or to read his books and see his philosophies about life. They’re angry as a myth, at a puffed-up demi-god that they along with the hardcore supporters have created, and now that Obama voted poorly on FISA (in people’s opinions), he’s failed, he’s sullied, he’s “just a normal politician” and not worth anything.

    As you say, it is up to US to keep the pressure on, up to us to understand that Obama was never “more than human,” nor is he “just like every corrupt politician ever”. Obama is who he is. Any projection from us is meaningless and above all, self-defeating.

    We’ve got to remember that it’s not enough to just punch some holes in a ballot and then go watch TV, waiting for some authority figure to fix things for us.

    • robodd on July 14, 2008 at 21:12
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    While there are substantial, important differences between Republicans and Democrats, critical political debates are at least as often driven not by the GOP/Democrat dichotomy, but by the split between the Beltway political establishment and the rest of the country. As the above-chronicled events demonstrate, all of these assaults on our core civil liberties and the rule of law are not Republican attacks with Democrats fighting against them. They are attacks launched by the political establishment against the citizenry, and they ought to be responded to as such.

    http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…

    • kj on July 16, 2008 at 04:05
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    Budhy, really great essay.

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