| What really reoriented my plan was the combination of two different things, which certainly don't exhaust what these comments had to say: First, smcclurk powerfully reminds us--in the midst of very deep disappointment, even anger at what Obama has done with his second mass escalation in Afghanistan--why the Obama candidacy genuinely was a great step forward for us, even if it wasn't everything it was ballyhooed to be. Second, Querent's reference to Sartre and being "authentically human" provides a very simply put, but quite profound grounding for everything that is before us to discuss and to do.
We do not always have the option of doing the ideal thing, but we can honestly engage in a partial step that sets us on the right path, or even just a better path, provided we remain guided by and committed to the destination that itself is "true to the part of what we are which we choose to affirm". It is how we can partake in the compromised process of politics as we find it, without being of that process. And of course, actually doing that is a hell of a lot more difficult than simply saying it. It is all too easy to convince oneself that one is still true to one's ideals as one trades them all away. So remaining engaged critically, being challenged, as well as challenging others, is absolutely vital, otherwise we are almost certain to lose our way, convincing ourselves we have not strayed from our own authentic selves.
One thing that these two comments made me think of was a post by Digby this week, one of the few times I really feel at odds with her--even though I think she has a point, I also think she misses something quite important--something that smcclurk captured perfectly.
Digby wrote:
Fergawdsake
by digby
I can excuse some college kid for this but it is completely absurd coming from a man of Tom Hayden's age and experience:
Tom Hayden, the liberal activist best known for his work in the 60's, when he helped found Students for a Democratic Society, was once pretty enthusiastic about Barack Obama. Back in March of 2008 he had the first byline on an article in the Nation -- also attributed to Bill Fletcher Jr., Danny Glover and Barbara Ehrenreich -- that began, "All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama."
Now, though, after the president announced his decision to send an additional 30,00 troops to fight in Afghanistan, Hayden's had enough. His latest piece for the Nation begins with a very different sentiment than the one he expressed not two years ago. Now, Hayden says, "It's time to strip the Obama sticker off my car."
Hayden's fanboy endorsement was an embarrassment of giddy projection even at the time. But there were a lot of people who were caught up in campaign fever on all sides so he wasn't unique. To have a fit and claim "betrayal" because Obama is fulfilling his campaign promise to send more troops to Afghanistan, however, is just puerile....
Of course, I never endorsed Obama, because I never joined in the sort of projection Digby talks about, which I was quite aware of at the time. And I remained very skeptical that Obama was more of an anti-war candidate than Clinton, Edwards or anyone else, just because he gave a provisionally anti-war speech as a state senator. I was much more concerned by what a go-along-to-get-along sort he had been in his brief tenure as a US Senator.
And yet, I had found Hayden's argument for Obama the most persuasive of any I heard--his argument in support of the movement that supported Obama. You know the movement I'm talking about--the one that Obama dissolved immediately upon winning the election. I always knew that it would be tricky getting that movement to take Obama farther than he wanted to go. That's what happened with JFK, the politician I've repeatedly said Obama seemed to resemble most. But Kennedy was far more specific in what he stood for than Obama was, and there were vast differences between the nation then and now. Still, it seemed there was some possibility, and smcclurk has described the logic of it better than I could have myself.
Recall my recent diary, "Open Left:: Naomi Klein nails brand 'Obama'". I quote Klein at length from her Democracy Now! interview, including this key passage:
And I'm afraid, I think, that that's where Obama fits in, that he really is a super brand on line with many of the companies that I discuss in No Logo. And he has many of the same problems as the companies that I discuss in No Logo, like Nike and Apple and all of these-Starbucks-all of these, sort of 1990s, sort of, lifestyle brands that co-opted many of the, you know-the iconography of the transformative political movements like the civil rights movement, the women's movement. And that was really the hallmark of 1990s branding.
One of the things in this-you know, a large part what I write about in No Logo is the absorption of these political movements into the world of marketing. And, you know, the first time I saw the "Yes, We Can" video that was produced by Will.i.am, my first thought was, you know, "Wow. A politician has finally produced an ad as good as Nike that plays on our, sort of, faded memories of a more idealistic era, but, yet, doesn't quite say anything." We think we hear the message we want to hear, but if you really parse it, the promises aren't there, it's really the emotions.
And, you know, I think that that explains in some sense the paralysis in progressive movements in the United States where we think, Obama stands for something because we-our emotions were activated on these issues, but we don't really have much to hold him to because, in fact, if you look at what he said during the campaign, like any good super brand, like any good marketer, he made sure not to promise too much, so that he couldn't be held to it.
What's good about the Afghanistan escalation is precisely that it's a wakeup call. Before, it was possible to think that Obama believed in what he projected, but was just being smart in marketing himself in the commercial language of the day--or better yet, allowing, even encouraging others to do so for him. It was possible to say, "Well, he'd like to do better, but he's constrained." I didn't buy these arguments at all. The fact that he never seriously considered using his mass base to pressure Snowe and Collins on the Stimulus was all the proof I needed--and more--that he was an insider true believer, not the man he sold himself as. From then on, my only hope had been that reality would give him a wakeup call that he needed to at least partially be who he had pretended to be simply for his own political well-being.
No dice. No dice. No dice.
That was the message he repeatedly sent after that. That was the message he screamed with his Afghanistan escalation speech.
And so now we know.
But smcclurk's comment remains all the truer for it:
We could have gone with Dean because we believed in his message but were too afraid he wouldn't win. And that's what is destroying us right now. Our leadership could choose to believe in the Public Option or even Single Payer and fight for it all the way, but they keep choosing to follow the path they think is "smarter" and "more achievable," but which is really more cowardly. We need to have more courage of faith.
Obama needs to have more courage of faith. He needs to actually believe in not fighting dumb wars. Because Afghanistan is not WWII. Afghanistan is not the Civil War. And everyone this side of Versailles knows that as plain as they know 2+2=4.
I'll have much more to say broadening out from here in part 2 later on. |
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