SYNDICATED COLUMN: A President Who Doesn’t Even Try

Is Obama Kowtowing to the Right? Or Is He One of Them?

The President’s progressive critics blame him for continuing and expanding upon his Republican predecessor’s policies. His supporters point to the obstructionist, Republican-controlled Congress. What can Obama do? He’s being stymied at every turn.

The first problem with the it’s-the-GOP’s-fault defense is that it asks voters to suffer short-term memory loss. In 2009, you probably recall, Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. By a sizeable majority. They even had a filibuster-proof 60-seat majority in the Senate. His approval ratings were through the roof; even many Republicans who had voted against him took a liking to him. The media, in his pocket, wondered aloud whether the Republican Party could ever recover. “Rarely, if ever, has a President entered office with so much political wind at his back,” Tim Carney wrote for the Evans-Novak Political Report shortly after the inauguration.

If Obama had wanted to pursue a progressive agenda—banning foreclosures, jailing bankers, closing Guantánamo, stopping the wars, pushing for the public option he promised in his healthcare plan—he could have. He had ample political capital, yet chose not to spend it.

Now that Congress is controlled by a Republican Party in thrall to its radical-right Tea Party faction, it is indeed true that Obama can’t get routine judicial appointments approved, much less navigate the passage of legislation. Oh-so-conveniently, Obama has turned into a liberal-come-lately. Where was his proposed Buffett Rule (which would require millionaires with huge investment income to pay the same percentage rate as middle-class families) in 2009, when it might have stood a chance of passage?

Team Obama’s attempt to shore up his liberal base also falls short on the facts. Progressives were shocked by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling, along party lines, that legalized strip-searches and body cavity rapes by police and private security firms who detain people suspected of any crime, even minor traffic infractions.

“What virtually none of this…commentary mentioned,” reported Glenn Greenwald in Salon, “was that that the Obama DOJ [Department of Justice] formally urged Court to reach the conclusion it reached…this is yet another case, in a long line, where the Obama administration was able to have its preferred policies judicially endorsed by getting right-wing judges to embrace them.”

No wonder Obama stayed mum.

Which brings us to the biggest, yet least discussed, flaw in the attempt to pin Obama’s inaction on the heads of Congressional Republicans: the bully pulpit.

Whether Donald Trump likes it or not, Barack Obama is still president. If he calls a press conference to call attention to an issue, odds are that reporters will show up. But he’s not walking tall or even talking big.

Responding to fall 2011 polls that indicated softening support among the younger and more liberal voters who form the Democratic base, Obama’s reelection strategists began rolling out speeches inflected with Occupy-inspired rhetoric about class warfare and trying to make sure all Americans “get a fair shot.” But that’s all it is: talk. And small talk at that.

Instead of introducing major legislation, the White House plans to spend 2012 issuing presidential orders about symbolic, minor issues.

Repeating Clinton-era triangulation and micro-mini issues doesn’t look like a smart reelection strategy. The Associated Press reported: “Obama’s election year retreat from legislative fights means this term will end without significant progress on two of his 2008 campaign promises: comprehensive immigration reform and closing the military prison for terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Piecemeal presidential directives are unlikely to make a sizeable dent in the nation’s 8.6 percent unemployment rate or lead to significant improvements in the economy, the top concern for many voters and the issue on which Republican candidates are most likely to criticize Obama. In focusing on small-bore executive actions rather than ambitious legislation, the president risks appearing to be putting election-year strategy ahead of economic action at a time when millions of Americans are still out of work.”

Of course, Obama may prevail. Romney is an extraordinarily weak opponent.

For progressives and leftists, however, the main point is that Obama never tries to move the mainstream of ideological discourse to the left.

Obama has been mostly silent on the biggest issue of our time, income inequality and the rapid growth of the American underclass. He hasn’t said much about the environment or climate change, the most serious problem we face—and one for which the U.S. bears a disproportionate share of the blame. Even on issues where he was blocked by Congress, such as when Republicans prohibited the use of public funds to transport Gitmo detainees to the U.S. for trials, he zipped his lips.

It isn’t hard to imagine a president launching media-friendly crusades against poverty or global warming. FDR and LBJ did it, touring the country, appointing high-profile commissions and inviting prominent guests to the White House to draw attention to issues they cared about.

In 2010, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez invited flood victims to move into his presidential palace. Seven years after Katrina, Gulf Coast residents are still waiting for help. What if Obama opened up the Lincoln Bedroom to a homeless family? The media couldn’t ignore a PR stunt like that.

Obama has mostly shunned the time-honored strategy of trapping your opposition by forcing them vote against your popular ideas. In 2009, for example, it would have been smarter politics—and better governance—to push for real socialized medicine, or at least ObamaCare with the public option he promised. He would either have wound up with a dazzling triumph, or a glorious defeat.

Liberals don’t blame Obama for not winning. They blame him for not trying. When he does crazy things like authorizing the assassinations of U.S. citizens without trial, progressives have to ask themselves: Is this guy kowtowing to the Right? Or is he one of them?

(Ted Rall’s next book is “The Book of Obama: How We Went From Hope and Change to the Age of Revolt,” out May 22. His website is tedrall.com.)

“Grumble About Obama Day”: May 2, 2012

Disappointed by Obama… but planning to reelect him, anyway?

There’s one day when you’re authorized to vent your dissatisfaction without anyone misconstruing you as someone who wants to change the status quo: “Grumble About Obama Day.”

Maybe your vote won’t feel as good as in the hopium-filled days of 2008. But at least you can (softly) get some of your concerns off your chest in advance of signing up for four more years of stuff you would have marched in the streets over if Bush had done it.

No Fiction Prize for the Pulitzer

I know too much about the judging process to endorse any decision by the Pulitzer Prize Committee—including the year they named me a finalist. But I do find it amusing that the literati are so upset that Columbia University chose not to choose winner among the three finalists in the fiction category.

Current literary fiction is an abomination.

There are, no doubt, many exceptions. But I can’t count the number of times I’ve leafed through highly-touted, award-winning books of contemporary American fiction at my local bookstore only to be appalled at their political irrelevance, pretentious writing styles and complete lack of insight. The louder the praise from middlebrow establishment types like the critics at the New York Times, the lamer the prose.

Maybe it’s because I grew up admiring the muscular prose of Anderson and Hemingway and Sartre and Fitzgerald, but the phrases “turn of phrase” or “lyrical writing” have become signifiers that scream: Do not buy me.

Thank God for nonfiction. I wouldn’t read books without it.

Please Bid on my Benefit Cartoon Auction for Rex Babin

I am auctioning off a BATCH OF A DOZEN (12) ORIGINAL CARTOONS from the last few weeks in honor of the award-winning cartoonist Rex Babin, staff cartoonist for The Sacramento Bee. Rex died recently after a two-year battle with stomach cancer. He was 49.

Rex leaves behind a wife and 10-year-old son.

All the proceeds from this auction will be donated to a trust fund to be established on behalf of Rex’s son by The Sacramento Bee and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. (To ensure transparency, I will provide proof of donated funds to the winning bidder.)

Please bid high and generously!

Sacramento Bee Cartoon: Rashomon: The UC Davis Cut

I did this cartoon for The Sacramento Bee. It’s about a new report about the UC Davis pepper-spraying of peaceful Occupy protesters, an incident that got widespread attention due to the video of a campus policeman casually dousing poison on human beings as though he was spraying for bugs.

You Can’t “Grow the Movement” by Dissing the Kids: On Chris Hedges and Occupy

Chris Hedges is on a mission.  That mission is to save the Occupy movement from anarchists who employ any tactic of which Hedges does not approve.  Apparently he never read, or gave credence to, anthropologist, anarchist, and sometime black bloc participant, David Graeber’s respectful and urgent open letter written in response to Hedges’ by now infamous article “The Cancer in Occupy.”   Despite Graeber’s patient explanation that black bloc is a tactic, not a movement, and that anarchists like himself were centrally involved in organizing the occupation of Zuccotti park, creating the General Assembly process, and originating the 99% slogan, Hedges continues to refer to black bloc as a group of people and to assert that their “cynicism” and “feral” acts of violence will destroy Occupy from within.

Nor does it seem to matter to Hedges that his pronouncements do not reflect the spirit of a movement he claims to value and hopes to “grow.”  That spirit is epitomized by the General Assembly, a remarkably democratic institution, where all voices are allowed a chance to be heard.  Instead, the Harvard educated master of divinity continues to pound the pulpit, fulminating against what he describes as “black bloc anarchists,” and calling for the expulsion from Occupy of those who do not adhere to his extreme version of nonviolence.

In a video posted at Truthdig last week, of a question and answer period following a panel discussion at the April 2nd Control the Corporation conference, a self-identified anarchist asks Hedges how much he actually knows about Occupy, noting that many of the movement’s processes were authored by anarchists. Hedges responds that he, too, is an anarchist, a Christian anarchist, and that in his article he was not criticizing anarchy, but instead “stupidity.” Consider for a moment how it must feel to have someone not only telling you how the movement you helped to create ought to be run, but also demanding your expulsion from that movement, and calling your tactics “stupid.”  I marveled, watching the video, at the restraint of the anarchists questioning Hedges.  There was shouting at the end that I couldn’t make out, so perhaps they did ultimately respond with insults, but by then, who could blame them?

Central to the dispute between Hedges and the anarchists who helped to found Occupy is the issue of violence versus nonviolence – and how those are defined.  In general terms, anarchism refers to the absence of rulers (hence, the “leaderless” Occupy movement).  The idea is not lawlessness or general chaos, but rather, freedom from hierarchical authority and ruling power enforced by violence.  Anarchism has a long history in the United States and many anarchists were involved in the early labor movement.  Then, as now, anarchists sought to push back against police brutality.  One contemporary method for doing so is the black bloc.

The black bloc tactic originated in Germany in the 1980s in response to police brutality against peaceful protesters.  Participants dress in black and cover their faces to avoid identification and more easily evade police.  American anarchist David Graeber describes the attire as:

a gesture of anonymity, solidarity, and to indicate to others that they are prepared, if the situation calls for it, for militant action. The very nature of the tactic belies the accusation that they are trying to hijack a movement and endanger others. One of the ideas of having a Black Bloc is that everyone who comes to a protest should know where the people likely to engage in militant action are, and thus easily be able to avoid it if that’s what they wish to do.

Graeber also notes that anarchists are not the only activists who participate in black blocs.

Christian anarchism similarly rejects secular rulers, but embraces submission to god and the teachings of Jesus; in particular, the Sermon on the Mount.  For the unchurched among us, these are the teachings that include the verses about the meek inheriting the earth, turning the other cheek, loving your enemies, praying for those who persecute you, and calling peacemakers blessed. Nonviolence and pacifism are central tenets of Christian anarchism.

In the video cited above, Hedges calls for “a rigid adherence to nonviolence,” including “linguistic violence.”  The “violence” that motivated Hedges’ original impassioned denunciation of “black bloc anarchists” was an action in Oakland on January 28th, during which, Hedges writes, some protesters “thr[ew] rocks, carried homemade shields and rolled barricades.”  When protesters in New York took to the streets in solidarity with their comrades in Oakland, Hedges continues, “a few demonstrators” threw “bottles at police and dump[ed] garbage on the street. They chanted ‘Fuck the police’ and ‘Racist, sexist, anti-gay / NYPD go away.’”

Only in America would we see such hand-wringing and condemnation for such petty and isolated infractions – especially considering the length of the Occupy activity in the fall, the number of groups involved around the country, and the violence inflicted on peaceful protesters by the police.  Hedges invokes Tahrir Square as an example Occupy should follow, yet some Egyptian protesters threw rocks and still considered themselves nonviolent.  On March 29th, Spain saw a hugely successful general strike, (despite the union leadership), with nearly 80% of workers participating, and concurrent rioting in Barcelona, to protest privatization and austerity measures there.  What happened in Oakland was child’s play in comparison.  Oddly enough, Hedges himself praised Greek rioters in a May 2010 article in Truthdig:

Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it. (Emphasis added.)

It is difficult to reconcile Hedges’ celebration of rioting in Greece with his angry screed against isolated incidents of rock and bottle throwing in response to police brutality in the United States.  Hedges says his goal is to “grow the movement” and that the “violence” that occurred in Oakland alienates the mainstream.  In other words, he wants middle-class Americans, including “parents with strollers,” to feel safe and comfortable in joining Occupy.

Who in their right mind would take a child in a stroller to places where police kettle, beat, and pepper spray peaceful protesters?  That would be like taking a black child in a stroller to a lunch counter in Woolworths during the Civil Rights movement.  Hedges himself says the Occupy strategy should follow that of the Civil Rights movement, of drawing out and exposing the violence that enforces an unjust system.  By definition, that’s no place for a toddler – or for anyone expecting a risk-free day at the protest parade.

Then, as now, young people took the brunt of the violence.  Certainly many people of all ages were involved in the Civil Rights movement and are participating in Occupy.  But those at the forefront of the violence, at the lunch counters, on the Freedom rides, and at Occupy actions are primarily young people.

That’s why it’s so difficult to stomach Hedges’ arrogant attitude toward the anarchists and other young people who are the heart and soul of Occupy.  At one point in the video, in response to a question from a young anarchist about diversity of tactics, Hedges reiterates that “nonviolence is the route” and asserts that  “people in groups like Veterans for Peace or Code Pink, they’ve been doing this a really long time and we’d be very smart to listen to the lessons they’ve learned.”

Although Hedges did not speak harshly, in the context of the discussion, the comment reads as a sort of “sit down, shut up, and listen to your elders” type of response.  Adding insult to injury, the moderator followed up by inviting Dorli Rainey, the 84 year old activist who was pepper sprayed in Seattle, onstage to voice probably the most ignorant opinion expressed in the video.  “The anarchists are really not anarchists,” she declared. “They’re hoodlums!”  The crowd of primarily white and middle to senior aged people gave her a standing ovation.

Hedges claims that “black bloc anarchism” is the “portal into the movement” by which agent provocateurs will undermine it; that “the goal is to sever the Occupy movement from the mainstream.”  But black bloc or no black bloc, the movement has been and will be infiltrated – as have all social movements.

Hedges’ intransigent attitude and apparent unwillingness to engage in true dialogue with young activists at the center of the movement, whose views differ with his, constitutes a greater threat to the movement than any government infiltrator.  Dismissing and alienating the brave and spirited young people who created Occupy will not “grow the movement” – though it may allow other entities to co-opt, and ultimately, kill it.

Hedges has written of the so-called “black bloc anarchists” that:

The Black Bloc movement bears the rigidity and dogmatism of all absolutism sects. Its adherents alone possess the truth. They alone understand. They alone arrogate the right, because they are enlightened and we are not, to dismiss and ignore competing points of view as infantile and irrelevant. They hear only their own voices. They heed only their own thoughts. They believe only their own clichés. And this makes them not only deeply intolerant but stupid.

Mr. Hedges, I respectfully suggest that you take a look in the mirror.  Or, at the least, heed Matthew 7:5 and “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Related Post:  Reconsidering Violence and Nonviolence in the Age of Occupy

Katherine M Acosta is freelance writer currently based in Madison, Wisconsin.  Contact her at kacosta at undisciplinedphd dot com.  Her blog is UndisciplinedPhD.

Kickstarter Update: 10% There

The revolution may be televised, but will it be funded? That’s up to you. My Kickstarter campaign is only 10% funded, but the clock is ticking.

Of course, it’s always easier to fund books about subjects that aren’t as difficult or challenging as trying to figure out the politics of the future. If you have a favorite blog or news outlet, please spread the word about this unique attempt to use capitalism to game out the collapse of the capitalist system.

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