November 5, 2008 archive

I originally got a “gig” on the front page here at DD because I made an attempt to write a weekly roundup of some of the discussions going on in the diversosphere called Blog Voices. Over the months, I’ve veered off that course, but I thought that the day after the United States elected the first Black President, it might be time to check in and see what folks are saying. This is definitely not an exhaustive look, but I checked in with some of the folks whose writing has had an impact on me and would like to share some of what I found with you.

First of all, Kai over at Zuky wrote an amazing piece before the election that he titled The Palin’ Identity that captures the message of this campaign in a very powerful way. I’ll give you a taste, but mostly encourage you to go take in the whole thing.  

1. And so it begins; the challenging task of governing in difficult times, or as the New York Times reports Now the hard part. “No president since before Barack Obama was born has ascended to the Oval Office confronted by the accumulation of seismic challenges awaiting him… Now falls the responsibility of prosecuting two wars, protecting the nation from terrorist threat and stitching back together a shredded economy.”

   While Roosevelt refused to get involved in prescribing economic medicine between his election in 1932 and his inauguration, advisers said Mr. Obama had concluded that he could not follow that example and remain silent until he was sworn in. At the same time, they said, Mr. Obama understands he should not overstep his bounds and wants his inauguration to mark a clean break from the past…

   But there are limits to Mr. Obama’s capacity to act in the short term. The politics of assembling a stimulus package in this netherworld between administrations could be difficult to overcome as he tries to balance pent-up demand from now-victorious Democrats eager to use their power of the purse with the reality that Mr. Bush still holds the veto pen for 77 more days…

   Whatever collaboration there may be in the short term, Mr. Obama represents the end of the Bush era in the long term. Yet he will find himself dealing with the Bush legacy for years to come. He promised on the campaign trail to close the detention facility at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but analysts in both parties expect that to be more difficult than he imagines. He will inherit a deficit that could approach $1 trillion next year, which could curtail his ambitions, like expanding health care coverage…

   Even as Mr. Obama focuses initially on the economy, he faces a perilous moment abroad… The Obama transition team has made more extensive pre-election preparations than any other previous president-elect. Thanks to a new law signed by Mr. Bush, some of Mr. Obama’s transition advisers should have interim security clearances starting on Wednesday.

   The LA Times reports Afghan war to loom large for Obama. “President-elect Barack Obama will inherit a war in Afghanistan that is certain to play a central role in his presidency, a conflict whose cost in blood and money is escalating even as many Afghans speak of a growing sense of peril in their daily lives.” The war has been waged for the past seven years. U.S. and NATO military commanders say “they are struggling as never before to find a winning strategy against an insurgency that has amply proved its determination and durability.”

   The NY Times reports that Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in a news conference today that his first request to Mr. Obama would be “to end the civilian casualties.”

   While In Iraq, U.S. troops watch the election from afar. And according to the anecdotes reported by the Washington Post, the troops interviewed favored McCain and believed a lot of Republican disinformation about Obama, however, this quote I though was telling.

   “I don’t have time for it,” company commander Capt. Ryan Edwards said earlier in the day. “I don’t worry about it. All I have time for is what happens in this country now.”

   The NY Times also reports that Obama moves ahead with transition planning. “The three co-leaders of Mr. Obama’s transition team are expected to be announced sometime on Wednesday – John D. Podesta, the former Clinton chief of staff; Valerie Jarrett, a longtime Obama adviser; and Pete Rouse, Mr. Obama’s Senate chief of staff.”

   Also, these are the ‘voices’ speaking for Obama’s transition team. “Dan Pfeiffer, who served as the Obama campaign’s communications director, is to become the communications director for the transition, with Stephanie Cutter, a senior Obama adviser and former aide to Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, serving as spokeswoman for the transition, according to Democrats close to the process.”

   The Washington Post reports that Rahm Emanuel is mulling Obama job offer “to serve as White House chief of staff, according to Democratic sources… In pursuing Emanuel, Obama is also sending a message to Capitol Hill that he recognizes the need to work with them by selecting one of their own but that he also will not be afraid to play tough — Emanuel’s trademark.”

   Lastly, there is this bit of good news. According to The Guardian, Obama victory signals rebirth of US environmental policy. Obama will “introduce a major climate change bill in an attempt to bring the US back into the international environment fold according to his senior advisers… He will now send his own energy representatives to the UN’s climate change talks in Poznam, Poland, in three weeks’ time. He is also expected to announce a goal of reducing US greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and then cutting them by 80% by 2050.”

Four at Four continues with Russia warns of EU border missile deployment, the Tornado in England, and urban cowboys in India.

Virtually everyone, it seems, is cheering the electoral victory of Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race. The obvious exception is the Republican Party, which is likely to shift even further to the right in the halls of power due to moderate and semi-moderate GOPers losing out to Democratic challengers, but that’s a given.  You can count on them being the most obstructionist minority party in Congress since the Gingrich revolution in 1994, laying the groundwork for a similar event in 2010.

That’s to be expected.  What seems to be going ignored in the victory celebration is that the increased Democratic majority is prepared to waste the next two years accommodating this obstructionism.  Nancy Pelosi, who fended off a challenge from independent Cindy Sheehan, proudly boasted that Democrats would legislate from the right, not the left (though she called it the “middle”).

This should be the first sign that progressives frittered away their chance to shape the political landscape.  Don’t count on Senate capitulation leader Harry Reid to suddenly grow a pair or the Democratic Caucus to cease coddling Joe LIEberman now that the majority has been expanded; electoral fraud is likely responsible for the failure to win the filibuster-proof number of sixty senators, but even if Democrats had gotten it, Reid has bent over backwards to please GOPers and refused to enforce party discipline within his own ranks.  The result, as it was in 2006, is a Senate paralyzed by Republican obstructionism and Democratic appeasement.

We have a president-elect who is prepared to name Rahm Emanuel, a top-ranking Bush Dog, as his chief of staff.  Robert Rubin, a top architect of Clintonian economics and welfare-gutting, is on Obama’s economic advisory team, as are a number of other corporate marketeers.  Don’t expect sound environmental, health care, economic, or energy policy from the White House.  Nor should you expect an end to the occupation of Iraq, the unconditional support of the Israeli apartheid state, the lifting of the embargo on Cuba, or a shift away from imperialism.  There has been nothing in Obama’s campaign or his legislative record to suggest he’ll suddenly do a 180 now that he is prepared to inherit the presidency.

Nothing is more indicative of this than the popular vote.  Obama received a pitiful 51% to Republican John McCain’s 48%, a mere three percent difference.  The new president is smart; he knows just as much as the Republicans do that this election was not a huge repudiation of Bush policies.  Obama did not win so much as McCain lost, and he knows it.  He’ll govern from the right to appease his corporate backers.

We had what was probably our last, best chance this year to force Democrats back to the left.  We blew it.  Neither Obama or the Democrats have any incentive now to even listen to us, to say nothing of governing from the left.  What, then, is our recourse?

We can still walk away from the Democratic Party, and we must do so if we are to have any hope of salvaging the progressive movement.  We must build locally, work our way up to state-level, and finally, organize at the national level.  At this point it’s all we’ve got left.  Enjoy your celebration, for the hangover we’re about to suffer is going to be a long one.

Originally posted at dKos, where a lot of people just don’t get it.

Imagine how different our world would be if Thomas Jefferson penned these words:

We hold these truths to be somewhat apparent, that some men are created more or less equal, that they are endowed by their leaders with certain alienable Privileges, that among these are Life, Malaise and the pursuit of Melancholy.

Sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it? Certainly not the kind of rousing rhetoric with which to declare the founding of our country. Fortunately, Jefferson wrote this instead:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.