Sheldon says:
I suppose I was also reacting to many other accumulated cases of what I consider holier than thou attitude on the list that occasionally grate on my nerves, which is unfair to you.
John writes:
I appreciate the spirit in which you write this. I can be a naysaying jerk sometimes (as those who've been on the list for years like I have can attest) and now is no time to be small- minded... the stakes are too high. No need to apologize but thanks anyway. Peace, bro!
S says:
While I wholeheartedly agree that the left needs to criticize Obama, we also need to defend him from the far right.
J writes:
The far right may still have its Fox News, talk radio, and mega-church platforms, but for now it is in disarray and widely unpopular. We know Obama and company are corporate centrists; we gotta push push push and not worry about the cave-dwellers. This does not mean not trying to win the battle of ideas, but it doesn't mean cutting corners on principles either. IMO. More on which below.
S says:
Obama plans to discontinue the draconian ICE mass round ups of undocumented workers... haven't the Dems just passed the expansion of SCHIP?
J writes:
If true, credit where credit is due. Even though they ain't amnesty and single-payer (as you say), they're not to be wholly belittled.
But I'm thinking about bigger fish to fry. Let me put it this way. My frustration is not with Obama and the Congressional majority. I know who they are and with a relative degree of confidence I know how they'll act. My frustration is with left/left-liberal/progressive activists and intellectuals. There are those who've been astonishingly passive in the face of the spectacle. And there are those who keep on wringing their hands and insisting that no good can come out of an Obama administration unless pressure is applied... and then don't apply any pressure, save saying that pressure needs to be applied. (To be fair, I could easily be accused of the latter! My lame excuse is that I live in the US only four months out of the year.)
What is more, the popular masses need to get organized not only to extract goodies from elected officials, but to make forward progress on the radical democratic project of moving toward a more self-administered society. (The only ultimate guarantee of a society that is simultaneously ecologically rational and not an authoritatian technocracy or worse.) In the face of tanking economy there are so many squandered chances for this! Why are not there dozens and dozens of Republic Windows and Doors? Or at least why are not leftists/left-liberals/progressives working toward creating conditions where dozens and dozens of Republic Doors are plausible, instead of celebrating one pathetic case (where all the workers got was their back pay) and pretending that a modern-day replica of the fusion between FDR & the 1930's factory takeover movement is right around the corner? Because in the overdeveloped countries we live in a mega-simulated environment, where flights of fancy all too easily outstrip an unpleasant reality?
Let me give you (and the other LBO-talk readers hopefully!) another example. Some kind of campaign involving popular education and civil disobedience could force Obama and the DP majority to devote a relatively tiny but nonetheless substantive chunk of stimulus package money to supporting community -based agriculture. Foreclosed residential property could be turned into organic gardens and the unemployed could be put to work, learning farming skills, earning needed income, and growing healthy food for otherwise underserved communities. One can even envision ensuing competition between careerists and leftists to take over ground-level administration and participation in this sort of endeavor, such as happened with some of the War on Poverty programs. (A radicalizing experience for many New Leftists and grassroots people of color!)
But this (or anything like it) isn’t even close to happening. It (or anything like it) is not even on the radar screen, as far as I know. All the usual suspect NGO’s and pressure groups have been thoroughly coopted (as with Clinton in early 1993) and those fragmented masses outside the loop are either mesmerized by Obama worship, too busy with surviving in the near-depression conditions, or cynically withdrawn (or more likely some combination of the three).
Maybe I am horribly misreading what is going on and what is not going on, but in some respects I’m more dismayed than I’ve been in a long time. I feel like an opportunity for human beings to take a small step toward making their own history is potentially being lost.
S says:
What I object to is this snide attitude towards the masses who have voted for Obama and Democrats without recognizing how they understand our social-political reality. The fact of the matter is, they got no other fuckin alternative that will make much of an immediate difference.
J writes:
To the extent that anyone here was bashing on individuals for selling out or for their stupidity, it was directed at activists and intellectuals who should behave better or know better... not "ordinary folks." But you are right, there are some very deep structural problems and they're far more than merely political, they're profoundly cultural (as in the culture of hyper-mediated late capitalism).
This list used to be filled with compelling "what is to be done?" debates between anarchists, a few sectarian Marxists, many ecumenical Marxists, left Democrats, etc. Now it's filled with "how shall we interpret this conjucture?" spats between Obama enthusiasts (OK, a simplification) and demoralized wallflowers... like myself. That's not a hopeful degeneration. You'd think that the list energy now would resemble Nov-Dec 1999 or Jan-Feb 2003, but it doesn't, faintly. That's not a problem with the list per se but it is reflective of some worrying trends in the politico-cultural environment, despite all the hype about this being a moment ripe with prospects for the left, unseen in decades, etc etc etc.
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