Obama told us yesterday, through "administration officials", speaking to the New York Times that he’s not going to lead in domestic politics:
“Frustrated Democratic lawmakers and interest groups have been railing to White House aides that Mr. Obama is forfeiting opportunities to draw the public’s attention to what the Republicans’ cuts would mean for programs popular with most voters, including the coveted independents. The aides respond that the time will come for Mr. Obama to join the attack, should Republicans press their agenda and refuse to compromise.”
“Administration officials said they saw the events beyond Washington as distractions from the optimistic “win the future” message that Mr. Obama introduced in his State of the Union address, in which he exhorted the country to increase spending for some programs even as it cuts others so that America can “out-innovate and out-educate” its global rivals.”
That’s it. Don't look to Obama to lead any Progressive movement. He won't do it. He won’t fight for the Democrats in Wisconsin. He’s going to stay in DC to negotiate with the GOP for program cuts and expenditures. Any domestic struggles within the United States are a “distraction.” He's going to wait until everyone else has made up their minds.
If we want leadership that mobilizes the nation, we will have to do it ourselves.
This is what the protesters and the unions in Wisconsin and the rest of the Midwest know already – we have to do it ourselves. There is no leader but “everyone,” working in consensus to find broadly common goals. We will have to select our representatives ourselves, because the natural leader, the President of our party, has chosen to remain detached.
How would our movement against the Money Party chose a leader, anyway? Right now, the Tea Partiers are fighting with each other, as well as their Astroturf funders, over who is their “leader.” The media focuses on Michele Bachman, the “head of the Tea Party Congress,” to speak for the Tea Party. Is Bachman their leader, or just a spokesperson? For whom does she even speak, aside from herself? Does she develop new ideas, which rouse her followers to action? Or does she have a staff that sifts through events in the States, and then brings the popular or provocative ones to her, about which she then speechifies?
Where do the political ideas that shape movements come from? Do ideas and stated goals come raining down from the top, or bubbling up from the bottom? A flood, or a tsunami – which has the greater force, the greater power to shape the face of the Earth?
Look at the Wisconsin demonstrators. Listen to the Wisconsin 14. We are not drastic revolutionaries. We do not want to overthrow our system of government, or even believe a coup is necessary. We are Americans who want their governing institutions to represent them fairly.
We are opposed to the Money Party. We want to get the influence of money out of politics. Call us the New Abolitionists.
We have begun to see how corrupt we appear to the rest of the world, even our allies like Mexico. We are beginning to understand just why they would believe that. We can see how that corruption is destroying the lives of 98% of our population. We want to stop it.
We don’t need a leader to give us ideas; we already have them. We understand what is happening to this country. We understand that the Plutocrats are trying to capture us all in debt slavery. What we need is a spokesperson, who will articulate the our needs, our beliefs, facts we are using to develop our solutions. We need representatives.
That representative is not going to be Obama. He says that to us. He will only go where we lead him. So let’s lead him. Let’s lead each other. Let's locate and push forward our leaders
Perhaps our representatives will come from within the Kos community – Front-Pagers, people whom we recruit to run for us because they speak so eloquently, because they “get it.” Perhaps they will already be spokespeople already, from outside organizations or businesses or Congressional districts. People whom we believe in, such as Elizabeth Warren, can become our representatives, our fighters, if we give them enough encouragement and support.
We have to find these representatives, and convince them to pick up the banner:
Fairness. Equality. Justice. Liberty - all within the Law, a Law reshaped to protect people, not money..
Tax the Rich. No more Plutocrats.
No “pseudo-aristocracy of wealth,” as Jefferson described the greatest threat to Americathat he foresaw.
A defense budge that is back at Clinton levels – one-half of what it is now.
The abolition of money power as a force in our Congressional and Presidential actions, in our Supreme Court decisions, in our regulatory environments.
The valuation of our people above and beyond our wealth.
We can all too easily foresee where our country is headed without these changes. But we can bring them about through concerted action.
Here is a Call To Action:
Call your Congressional Representative or Senator.
The main Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121
The Congressional switchboard 800-828-0498.
Ask him or her about Wisconsin: Which side are you on?
Are you on the side of the protesters, or the Governor?
Are you on the side of the Democrats, or the Republicans?
Encourage them to release a statement of support, if they haven’t already. Tell them that you want them to speak on the floor of Congress. Ask them to contact all their constituents, and explain why this struggle is so important.
Tell them you want them to be Democrats.
We have to lead - if not push - our elected representatives. We have to demand that the Democrats be the party of the demos, of the people. The other guys are the Plutocrats, the Money Party. We must work harder than ever, through every venue, to make sure that our representatives understand what we, the people, want.
We don’t have the money to buy every purported source of power in the Capitol. We have the people, though, and we can flood the zone.
If our representatives do come out on the side of the people, we must primary them. We must challenge every elected official who is part of the Money Party. We must challenge every single Democrat who will not stand with the Wisconsin Democrats. If we start now, we can run a slate of Democrats who put wage-earning people back in charge.
In business, there is the maxim that in order to truly succeed, you need to “get in front of the wave.” to get ahead of a trend. That means take advantage of something new, before it gets so popular that a lot of people are doing it.
The workers' movement that has started in the Midwest is that trend. What is building across this country is a wave of awareness and activism – whether born of flood or earthquake. We must get our Senators and Representatives in front of it.