Health care costs continue to rage out of control, and tens of millions of Americans lack coverage. Some doors to a renewed financial crisis may have been barred, but options and futures could spark a new round of panic. The housing market is shaky as employment (as measured by U-6) remains at near-depression levels. In grand panorama and seen up close (such as Guantanamo and DADT), the Obama Administrations achievements are more bonsai than spreading oak. We needed FDR. We got Bill Murray.
The nation is at peril. We cannot accept continuing cave-ins to the far right. But an outright political fight risks helping the extremists. Rather than trying to bring down Obama politically, here is a suggestion for how to turn him around.
The Obama Administration has fallen far short of its campaign promises and (with a help from wads of corporate cash) has been chastened by the voters. Many of us suspect that Obama never intended to fulfill his campaign promises. He isn't an extremist, but he clearly lacks both historical memory and a larger vision to guide him. The Third Way/radical centrist/everything's-for-sale philosophy that infuses his policies will lead only to national decline.
But it's not just Obama. Almost everyone in Washington, whether in politics or media is acting as if things can continue on the course they are on. The rest of the country recognizes that we are on course to disaster. There's remarkable agreement across the political spectrum that we face danger from a renewed financial crisis, declining competitiveness and exploding deficits, collapsing basic public services and rickety infrastructure, and more. The left is additionally concerned by global warming and declining agricultural productivity and national divisions exacerbated by a declining standard of living, while the right is aflame against immigration and culture wars.
These are problems that we can and must solve across the partisan divide--and not at the glacial pace that Washington thinks is acceptable. Nor are such shared sacrifices as cutting Social Security, which will devastate the poor while being a token payment from the rich acceptable. The people in charge think that they know best, and that as long as they ignore the little people, all is well. And so they are leading us into disaster. Like the third-rate, effete, decaying mediocrities that they are, they are completely unaware that anything is wrong.
So, how do we bring it to their attention? When there are massive demonstrations, the elites erase them from television. A general strike would certainly be difficult to censor, but it's also very hard to organize. I'm all for supporting challengers to Democrats who do not walk the walk, but primarying a president is a very big deal. And so I suggest an idea inspired by Lysistrata. In Lysistrata, war-weary women, who lacked any political power, withhold sexual services from the men to pressure them to negotiate a peace.
Now, sex in Washington is not going to cease; too much money greases it. The point of recalling Lysistrata is different: that the wealthy and powerful rely on people who are much less powerful.
So, what about the interns and volunteers at the White House-- the patient people who answer the phones and get lunch for their masters? If every time we called the White House, as we gently explained why we oppose the latest sellout, perhaps we could also say to the person answering the phone, "You seem like a decent person. Why are you participating in this? You have to listen to the rest of us complain-- why don't you do a little complaining of your own? If you don't want to make a big deal out of it, just tell them that you don't feel well."
If the interns and volunteers went on strike, it might communicate the level of public opprobrium that is building. It would certainly leave the staff scrambling.
If you like the idea, you can implement it by just being nice to whoever answers the phone. No complicated organizing required.
Some people are looking forward to confrontation to force Obama to do this or that. I doubt that would work. The Washington kakistocracy needs to know that the entire country, both left and right, thinks that they simply aren't up to standard.