In my Politics through Film and Fiction class, I just finished watching a wonderful treat of a movie starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as John Reed and Louise Bryant, respectfully. A full three hours long, it provides us with an intriguing glance into the lives of American communists during the 1910s.
While watching this movie, I saw some of the struggles that we wrestle with today. The American Communists during this time period were idealists to the extreme. They had positions which they refused to deviate from (revolutionary ideas like minimum wage, an eight hour work day, and child labor laws). In 1916, they begrudgingly voted for Wilson because he had kept the US out of WWI up to that point, but within six months American troops found themselves fighting in Europe. Protests erupted among the lower classes who felt that the war was being waged by the capitalists, but being fought by the poor.
Disillusioned with American politics, Reed traveled to Russia and became involved with the revolution there. He was wholeheartedly behind the ideas of the revolution, but as time wore on he soon found that it was impossible to govern in a purely communist way. He died in 1920, but even at that time he could see the direction that the Russian government was taking. His "idealist" government was quickly becoming as bureaucratic as the one he left in the United States.
Idealism vs. pragmaticism. It's a battle that has been going on since the beginning of politics, and it was illustrated ever so well in the movie "Reds." I was behind Barack Obama in the beginning, and I still am today. However, even back in January I noted that he was probably going to become less liberal to win the general election. I know that someone that holds my political ideas is unelectable.
In "Reds," these people refused to back down from their high-held ideals. They voted for Wilson, but quickly became disgusted with him and voted for Debs, a third-party "spoiler," in 1920. He received nearly a million votes...while in jail! Eventually FDR was elected during the Great Depression, and some of the ideas of the communists and socialists entered US Legislation. Thanks to these people we now have things like social security and minimum wage laws.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that today, we have people who complacently say "OK, Obama voted yes on FISA, but that's alright because he has to win the election." Don't get me wrong, we need to stand behind Obama, because he's our guy. However, that doesn't mean we can't pressure him to represent our ideas, and criticize him when he makes bad ones. Dissent is necessary to let the candidate know what we think of his positions. We're the reason that he made it this far, and he shouldn't turn his back on us just because he wants to be President. It's a thin line to walk, but I believe that Obama, with his "new kind of politics," is capable of it.