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Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Netroots Clutching Their Pearls Again

Let the Republicans just try to filibuster the stimulus in a time of unprecedented foreclosures, layoffs, and financial failures. Give them a couple of days of complete spectacular self-immolation. Please, please, oh pretty please. All the while, Obama continues to marginalize wingnuts into a Confederate Rump while reinventing the Republican Party in a form with which he can more reasonably deal on his terms through his "bipartisanship." Here's Obama today, declaring with the best Presidential cat that ate the canary smile since FDR,
In the past few days, I've heard criticisms that this [stimulus] plan is somehow wanting, and these criticisms echo the very same failed economic theories that led us into this crisis in the first place, the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems, that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care, that we can somehow deal with this in a piecemeal fashion and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject those theories. And so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.

People, get a grip. Only if the marginal discredited disunited Republicans actually manage to stop or radically curtail the stimulus will all this nonsensical Netroots panic and hyperbole be justified. If that happens I will gladly concede that I was wrong to trust Obama in all this, but, to be frank, I think the good usually very sensible people who seem to fear this outcome are kinda sorta… nuts.

5 comments:

jimf said...

> Only if the marginal discredited disunited Republicans actually
> manage to stop or radically curtail the stimulus will all this
> nonsensical Netroots panic and hyperbole be justified. If that
> happens I will gladly concede that I was wrong to trust Obama
> in all this, but, to be frank, I think the good usually very
> sensible people who seem to fear this outcome are kinda
> sorta… nuts.

Have you seen Ran Prieur's article from last fall about the
election?

"The Fringe for Obama"
by Ran Prieur
October 21, 2008
http://ranprieur.com/essays/obama.html

"This year no third parties are in a position to sway the Democrats,
because the energy that was channeled by Nader in 2000 is being
channeled by Obama -- and not just into speeches and yard signs,
but into an extremely impressive political machine. Obama has
raised hundreds of millions of dollars from small donors, and
has built the largest and best organized network of local
volunteers in history. . . This alone should earn our support. . .,
Any change we imagine cannot even begin until we first establish
a precedent that ordinary people can engage the system and make
a difference.

Now, the fringe voters and non-voters are saying,
'But but but -- don't you know that Obama is tight with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
and that his foreign policy is indistinguishable from Bush Sr,
and that he has done nothing to oppose corporate rule or the war on drugs or...'

Of course I know all that. I can't even watch the debates because of
all the bullshit they take for granted: that it's good for America
to be much stronger than other nations, that there is a moral difference
between our military bombing other countries and their militaries bombing us,
that the real job of our troops is to spread democracy and not to
enforce a global domination system, that swarthy foreigners are
determined to strike us for vague hateful reasons, that we must
sacrifice autonomy and privacy for security, that we even need
this much security, that surveillance technologies should be used
from the top down before they're used from the bottom up, that
private sector fees are good and normal but public sector fees
are a terrible burden, that medical care should be paid for through
insurance, that the real job of the schooling system is to make
kids smart and not to make them submissive, that the economy should grow,
that it's normal and good to have an economy based on lending,
that material wealth is a good measure of success, that every technology
we have ever adopted is now a 'need'. . .

Suppose you could pick anyone in the world to run for president, but
you couldn't change the context your candidate had to run in:
not the biases and assumptions of the big media, not the power
of the elite, not the ignorance and political shallowness of the
American people. Who would you pick? Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich
did run, and they lost. Anyone with their positions who came close
to winning would be neutralized, if not by violence then by
humiliation in the media. . .

Obama is doing what anyone would have to do to be president, and
he's doing it with impressive skill to be able to overcome his race
and his name. All our complaints about Obama are really complaints
about the system he has to run in. So the key question is, if
we elect him, how will he change that system? Will he end subsidies
to factory farms? Free all the drug war prisoners? Restore the
Constitution and add a Privacy Amendment? Close all the foreign
military bases and spend the money on naturopathic hospitals? Transform
America into a nice European-style socialist country, or into a
rhizomatic network of permaculture communities linked by bike trails
and solar steampunk trains?

No. . . [But] where radical policy changes are needed, Obama will
tend to move toward them, as far as it's politically realistic.
If subsidies to factory farms are doing more harm than good, Obama
is a smart observer who will notice it, a good thinker who will
look for a different path, and a skilled leader who will persuade
others to work with him. . . The patience of Obama's vision is
less important than his skill in moving others in the right direction
without provoking a backlash.

Right now, Obama's most valuable asset is his adaptability. It makes
him seem weak to us because he has adapted to the requirements of
running for president. But if he becomes president, adaptability
means that as America's military dominance weakens, he will pull
back where McCain would push harder. It means that if your group
occupies an abandoned suburb and turns the lawns into gardens and
goat pastures, and the owning banks complain, Obama will negotiate a
compromise where McCain would send in the Blackhawks. We are entering
difficult, dangerous, and rapidly changing times, and it's better
to have a skilled observer and navigator in charge than a hard-driving
ideologue, even an ideologue who you agree with.

We all want to see Utopia in our lifetimes, but the painful truth is
that your grandchildren's grandchildren will not see it. Good big
changes take a long time, and big changes that take a short time
are not good. . .

Here's [a comment] by an economic specialist smart enough to see
the financial collapse coming years ago, raving about Obama's economic
rescue plan: "For the first time in years, the American people are
not having their hands tied behind their back while the government
spits directly in their face." And here's [a comment from]
Seymour Hersh, America's most prominent investigative journalist,
who says if Obama wins, "You cannot believe how many people have
told me to call them on 20 January. 'You wanna know about abuses
and violations? Call me **then**."'

This is real shit. Do these differences trump, or are they trumped by,
the fact that Obama and McCain are the same on the core assumptions that
hold up industrial civilization and the American Empire? It depends
on how much you're going to have to deal with reality. . ."

Ryan said...

What do you think of Judd "free-trade rah rah rah the Commerce Department shouldn't exist" Gregg for Commerce Secretary? Brilliantly-executed super-stealthy paradigm-sifting rug-pulling triangulation of some kind? At what point does a pattern of conservative moves become a pattern? Could there ever be a hypothetical day that Dale Carrico says "okay, that's too far," and what would it take?

I mean the last question sincerely, no snark. For his talk of rejecting those theories in the quote provided, Obama has done a remarkable job of sticking with them so far. I don't fear Republican curtailing of the stimulus (though I do think it was woefully insufficient to begin with), but between all the already-treaded disappointments (Summers, Afghanistan, etc.), Gregg for Commerce, and word that the military budget will yet again rise at Bush levels for 2010, it's increasingly hard to see this all as some sort of strategy and not just business as usual dressed in progressive buzzwords and an occasionally tossed civil rights bone.

Must we wait until 2012 to get to the big reveal where it turns out that surrounding himself with conservatives and continuously bending over backwards to accommodate conservative concerns produced progressive results?

Dale Carrico said...

At what point does a pattern of conservative moves become a pattern? Could there ever be a hypothetical day that Dale Carrico says "okay, that's too far," and what would it take?

From what vantage is this question asked?

If, for example, all one can see in Obama's moves so far is a series of capitulations to corporate-militarism amounting to a decisive betrayal of progressive possibility, then I simply have to say that I see no sense at all in that viewpoint as anything but an essentially aesthetic viewpoint.

If Obama weren't making decisions I disapprove of as a person of the radical left I would assume he was likely to fail in the actually pragmatic effort of progressive enablement, to be honest.

What do I think of Judd Gregg? Isn't it obvious? I disapprove of him. Do I grasp the pragmatics of the decision? Yes, I do. Do I agree with them, not exactly, but I don't see it as a bridge too far, not by a long shot.

How can you ask me such an overwrought question (if I'm reading you aright), "could there ever be a hypothetical day that Dale Carrico says 'okay, that's too far,' and what would it take?" I've spent years relentlessly railing against injustices on this blog.

My values and principles and preferred policies are clear as daylight. Does this question indicate that you have reached your own level? Have you arrived at your "that goes too far" moment in respect to Obama? Have you decided you need to go underground or lose yourself in the black hole of Green Party "activism"?

If yes, then I have to wonder at your grasp of the terrain on which we are actinga bit. Do you like FDR? Do you think he managed the New Deal in two weeks? Do you think he didn't bend to the Republicans tactically, do you think his cabinet picks were ideologically perfect? Do you know what it takes to accomplish things in Washington? Obama is making incomparably more masterly moves in the service of progressive aspirations than Clinton, say, ever did.

People (this may not refer to you directly Ryan, I don't know with how much despair you penned your comment) of the left need to grow a goddamn backbone and get some perspective, and grasp what it means to live in a center-left country with actually existing shored-up incumbent institutions in the aftermath of the catastrophe of this Bush administration, if you ask me.

I'm actually flummoxed and a bit embarrassed for the unsupportive undercritical freakout of the left Netroots in the fact of Obama's efforts up to now. I'll eat crow if I'm wrong, but I don't think I am. Not at all.

Obama will be one of the greatest most progressive and accomplished Presidents in a century, and a progressive icon for as long as America exists.

Ryan said...

If Obama weren't making decisions I disapprove of as a person of the radical left I would assume he was likely to fail in the actually pragmatic effort of progressive enablement, to be honest.

Of course, but there's "I disapprove because this isn't far enough for me," and there's "I disapprove because this is dangerous and stupid." Obama has been erring on the side of the latter too often for my taste. If these were center-left moves, at least the ship would be heading in the right direction, but these are often center-right or even far-right moves.

I have no doubt that Obama himself is thinking along the lines of which you so often speak, but I have serious doubts about his ability to pull it off. I do not think he is capitulating. I think his is triangulating, but I think his math is off. Mostly I think he is setting himself up for a Republican comeback because those things that work at all will be close enough to Republican positions (being crafted in large part by Republicans and in response to Republican criticism), and those things that don't work can be handily blamed on the Democrats.

I've spent years relentlessly railing against injustices on this blog. ... My values and principles and preferred policies are clear as daylight.

That's precisely why I can ask that overwrought question! I don't see how one can stand for certain values while supporting the systematic reversal of them, even if one believes it is some sort of shell-game that will right itself later. The Democrats have the voting ability to make actually center-left choices now, and indeed the populace voted overwhelmingly to support platforms that would do so. I am saying that I think Obama's taking a huge risk that doesn't have a big enough payoff in the end -- because he could just as easily cut to the chase and get essentailly the same payoff now before the tide shifts.

People (this may not refer to you directly Ryan, I don't know with how much despair you penned your comment)...

Oh, I don't despair much, but mostly because I set the bar at Clinton levels of expectation to begin with. If I had been active in the campaign and saw Obama as anything but a run of the mill Democrat (much less as a near-savior) I may well have been as up in arms as those that did are. Well, the half that are. The other half seem to get by on blind faith that he can do it all. And then there's you, a charming anomaly. It's really the fact that you don't fit into either of those categories that I read your posts with such interest.

Dale Carrico said...

[T]here's "I disapprove because this isn't far enough for me," and there's "I disapprove because this is dangerous and stupid." Obama has been erring on the side of the latter too often for my taste.

I approve of your distinction, but disagree with you that Obama is making too many errors of the kind you describe. I don't think he is making many errors of that kind at all.

He drew on insiders in his haste to address problems in a way that clashed with his effort to make some structural changes in corrupt DC politics, and the confirmation speedbumps over lobbying and taxes were the result. To his credit, he is mostly opting to take the hit and keep the better principle, so I can't stay mad about it.

He also focused on setting up bipartisan groundwork for future effective governance to the cost of making a forceful public case for stimulus -- probably thinking the urgency of the crisis and his madate gave him a little wiggle on that -- which he began to correct yesterday.

There, two errors. Both understandable, both presently under address.

these are often center-right or even far-right moves.

I couldn't disagree more. Do you realize what a shift to sanity (not to mention the left) the lifting of the gag rule, the new lobbying restrictions, the end of extraordinary rendition, the "diplomatic surge," so-called, the reanimation of FOIA, the infrastructure support in the stimulus, the emerging politics around card check, renewable energy, and healthcare reform are? What kind of world are critics living in that they expect so much more than this that they would regard this as right-wing movement? I honestly don't get it.

I have serious doubts about his ability to pull it off.

So did I earlier in the campaign. Then I observed carefully what he was doing. Nobody with sense wouldn't have serious doubts about anybody managing what needs to be done. But I consider Obama more equal to the task than I would ever have expected in an actually-elected President.

I do not think he is capitulating. I think h[e] is triangulating

I disagree that this is the lens through which to understand Obama's "bipartisanship." Clinton triangulated with the right both because he had to do so (the numbers were worse for him than for Obama), but also because Clinton was himself more center-right than Obama is. Obama is moving the center back to the center-left in the name of bipartisanship, Obama is pressuring the Republican Party to reinvent itself in the face of new realities by forcing the remaining Movement Republicans to self-marginalize into a Confederate Rump and extending a hand to the more Eisenhowerish Republicans who offer a hand rather than a fist. This isn't triangulation.

I think he is setting himself up for a Republican comeback

Reality is shifting beneath Republican feet. Demographics are against them, Washington Consensus is under pressure both internationally and domestically, p2p formations have transformed the media terrain, America is a secular nation, the left won the culture wars (even if refighting them is the only way the right can summon anything like enough discipline or money or attention to appear even remotely relevant). Obama is riding a wave, he didn't summon the ocean.

I don't see how one can stand for certain values while supporting the systematic reversal of them

I think it is a serious error to perceive anything even remotely like "the systematic reversal of [progressive democratic] values" in Obama's moves. I just don't. I see a lot of tactical compromises, I see a lot of symbolic gestures to rivals (appointments aren't policy -- survey the long history of Presidential cabinets and your perspective may change a bit), I see a lot of early stage-setting for immediate, medium, and longer-term legislative agenda implementation.

Everything is going better than I expected. I think the Netroots is still awkwardly adjusting to the changed realities of what it means to push a sane center-left President with a Democratic Congress and an energized progressive majority base effectively from the left, just as they had to learn how to be an effective opposition to a lunatic authoritarian reality-denying clown college eight years ago. These things take time. I should learn to be more patient with my friends.