Some months ago, I had a diary ready to go on Howard Zinn's pronouncement last January in The Nation.
For those of you who don't know about Zinn's work, his site is here: http://howardzinn.org/...
When I first read his words, I was a little taken aback, but as the months wore on, I had to accept that Zinn was more than right to use these words.
I think people are dazzled by Obama's rhetoric, and that people ought to begin to understand that Obama is going to be a mediocre president--which means, in our time, a dangerous president--unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction.
I had a draft diary about Zinn's statement, but the arguments going on here supporting Obama, no matter what he did, seemed to make such a diary an exercise in futility. I didn't want to waste my precious time and even more precious energy reading and responding to a series of accusations.
I deleted the diary draft.
For many months, we have not been able to get a discussion going on what we should do to "hold Obama's feet to the fire" as people were more interested in derailing authentic critique than thinking seriously about our predicament.
I now see something emerging. At least we are beginning to discuss the idea of having a discussion about how to organize, what to do next, etc., in the face of a series of defeats so stunning they take my breath away.
We should have been having that discussion for at least a year and a half here.
The question is: will we be able to have that discussion, here or elsewhere?
It seems to me that Zinn gave us some of the most important words he ever uttered in this statement:
Obama is going to be a mediocre president--which means, in our time, a dangerous president--unless there is some national movement to push him in a better direction
Note: david mitzner points out correctly below that these are Zinn's last published words to us. We ought to a least thank him by having a serious conversation about them.
In my opinion, we have confused cult of personality with political commitment. That alone makes Obama a dangerous President.
I have watched the accusations fly. To critique Obama was to abandon him and worse: to critique him while the rethugs were using race to undermine him, was, itself racist.
I knew it wasn't. Having worked against race for more than forty years of my adult life, I knew the difference between opposing his decisions and policies and racism. I knew the difference between political commitment to a set of ideas which are the only way forward: progressive ideas, leftist ideas and commitment to a person.
No President deserves my commitment to him or her as a person: it is always about the country and even more importantly, the planet, given our dire state.
Obama would have been a good President (by the way "President" should be capitalized when we refer to our chief executive) in a stable time. He could have consolidated gains.
In a crisis time, he is exactly what Zinn called him: A Dangerous President.
Unless, we form a loyal opposition to force him Left (Too bad he dislikes the Left, too bad a lot of kossacks agree with him.)
In reality, we have no viable Left in 21st century America.
Without a viable Left, we are toast.
The only way to organize a viable Left is to have real conversations in places like this. While I do not think the innertubes are the only place we can congregate and discuss, to ignore their obvious advantage is to cede the battle before it starts.
We need to debates ideas about what to do, not have pie fights over Obama's faults, or lack thereof.
Every day, I see our nation and the planet move closer to a point of no return. Over the past year and a half, I have concluded that Americans will not stand up until they are on their knees and have allowed almost everything with which they could save themselves to be destroyed.
The road back to something like a decent life gets longer everyday. It does not seem in sight in my lifetime.
We need to stop focusing on rethugs in all their incarnations: We need to focus on our ideas and our plans, not the rethug outrage du jour.
The average American does not want to hear how Sarah Palin is illiterate or what the rethugs did yesterday that made every decent person, at best, cringe.
The average American needs to have an analysis of how everything went down the drain and what to do about it.
I find a lot of good information on these pages about how we got here: we need to disseminate it and use it to stimulate creative thinking.
We need a lot of creative thinking. Every poster who hijacks a thread with accusations against posters of my ilk stops that creative thinking. And I do not think it is accidental. The kind of thread jacking I see is deliberate. If we cannot defend ourselves against thread jacking (the best thing to do is not to respond to it at all in the absence of a rating system that would be capable of rendering it essentially invisible), how on earth can we defend ourselves against the fascist onslaught we are facing?
I do not think that politics as usual can have any real effect in the present moment: we need new ideas.
We need to revive the kinds of actions Zinn described in his work in the light of 21st century conditions.
We need to consider things that have never been done in the USA. Things like innovative national strikes. I don't even think taking to the streets is a good idea right now. We need ideas about how to undermine the strangle hold of serfdom on the minds and bodies of the average American, ideas that go around all the actions the master's of the universe are inured to.
Calling D.C.? Protesting in D.C.? More than forty years of that has convinced me that classic protests are of marginal use, at best.
I don't know what an innovative strike would look like: that is why we need the conversation.
I don't have a huge number of ideas about how to do all this. A national strike is just one idea. It could be a bust.
I do know that the innertubes are the best tool for organizing we have ever had.
I do know that old style politics will not work now.
I am not interested in talking to pols who are already bought and sold.
Time is short. My life could naturally end any time now. Zinn's already has.
It seems to me the least we owe him is to try to have the conversation.
Stop focusing on rethugs. Stop focusing on Obama as Obama and start focusing on the things we need to do to build something entirely new.
Because this old stuff: it ain't working and it ain't gonna save us.
***
Thanks for the recs. They made me think for at least this hour that we have a chance. We need a chance.
UPDATE:
For the record, this is my favorite idea in the responses. This is the kind of thing we need to be brainstorming.
We do this. (8+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
Major Tom, eyeball, addisnana, BlueDragon
Pick a day, Mon-Thurs (the other days are weak news days).
Set a time, between, say, noon-6 pm.
Every person makes a little sign, even a piece of paper, with the words "I am taxed, but I am not Represented." Or some such, we'd have to hammer that out. It has to be something common to all the factions. "Our Government Is Against the People" maybe. For now...
Okay, for as long as each one can on that day, in those hours, whether it be 5 minutes or 6 hours, people go stand outside their homes or workplaces. Or wherever they find themselves that day.
And hold that sign up. If we get people everywhere doing that, everyone will see it, and everyone will know everyone has seen it. Even media-creeps and DC-scum.
The advantages: completely non-dependent on the media, yet might force the media to address it. Doesn't require people spend money and time they don't have to go somewhere. Not susceptible to media-ploys, like focusing on the agents provocateur and stupid violent young men, instead of the vast crowd.
I think it would work, all we'd need is to go viral somehow. And that shouldn't be too hard if people would think it is worth doing.
Until we break the corporate virtual monopoly on what we hear and see, we keep losing, don't matter what we do.
by Jim P on Thu Dec 02, 2010 at 12:10:09 PM EST
UPDATE TWO:
I like this diary a lot. (1+ / 0-)
Recommended by:
BlueDragon
That's the only reason I logged in to day.
The update, however, is not such a good message.
If you want an action, and a message at the same time, here are a found that are symbolic of the left (I hope you see this);
(a) A national strike day in which every stops working for a hour, and say that this symbolizes the fact that our producivity is for the American people, not for large companies.
(b) Taking money out of large banks en masse at the same time with a clear message of why.
(c) Start calling Obama a Republican. Don't even allow the idea that he's not a REpublican as a rebuttal into the mix.
(d) Everyone agreeing to call one conservative that we know, if we know any, to discuss how the system is plutocratic rather than discuss left versus right or Democrats versus Republican. These later points are the duopoly keeping the plutocracy going.
(e) Blogswarming major media outlet online sites - for example going to conservative newspapers, and in the commments section having a prepared statement that each poster repeats as spam
"Taxation to improve American lives. Not for banks!"
(f) Pairing with a conservative to disrupt an event together with debating points from the right and left to attack the duopoly's frame
(g) Engage in the tactics of get equal, but use them for economic issues. A group of people chaining themselves daily to the White House fence to produce the plutocracy. A group of people staging sit ins at conservative and liberal representative offices.
(h) Mass strategic defaults on unfair mortgages. Pooling together resources to bring a mass class action.
(i) Supporting groups such as Wikileaks
(j) Telling progressive groups that get up off their ass or be replaced. Protest them as well.
(i)
There are literaly a lot of these issues out there. Some are mine. Some are others. There is not a lack o ideas. There is a lack of willingess to look beyond the duopoly to find them.
by bruh1 on Thu Dec 02, 2010 at 02:36:06 PM EST
[ Reply to This |Recommend Hide ]
I like this diary a lot. by bruh1, Thu Dec 02, 2010 at 02:36:06 PM EST (1+ / 0-)
*
i like all of these ideas (0 / 0)
i was just emphasizing that we need out of the box thinking.
and while the idea may not be the best, it is an example of out of the box.
i want to see ideas about what we can do pretty much standing in place because standing in place is about as much as most people can manage for a lot of good reasons.
your list is a good one and i will copy it above.
Gaia is heartbroken.
by BlueDragon on Thursday, December 02, 2010 2:45:45 PM
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i like all of these ideas (0 / 0)
i was just emphasizing that we need out of the box thinking.
and while the idea may not be the best, it is an example of out of the box.
i want to see ideas about what we can do pretty much standing in place because standing in place is about as much as most people can manage for a lot of good reasons.
your list is a good one and i will copy it above.
Gaia is heartbroken.
by BlueDragon on Thu Dec 02, 2010 at 02:45:51 PM EST
[ Parent | Reply to This ]
I agree with bruh that there are good ideas out there. I wasn't suggesting there weren't and I like the suggestions above, but they have to be thought out in a place where there is a lot of traffic and people can see pitfalls before a lot of energy is committed. I don't think people are ready to stop working for an hour. There would be a lot of individual blowback. I think symbolic resistance can have a lot of effect initially. People need to do something that overwhelms the media lock down that doesn't immediately cost them personally because let's face it: most present day Americans are very risk adverse. They have to see that they can make an impact in some way before they are going to be able and/or willing to risk too much.
My grandfather risked his life as union leader in PA's coal mines. I never got to know him. He died before I was even born and I am the child of his eldest.
We need things that give people confidence. I am for big steps, always, but we need a few baby steps first.