Tom Englehardt - The Warning Occupy Wall Street Has for President Obama

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/10-2

:snip:

Amid the kaleidoscopic range of topics on those signs and in those chants and cries, one thing, one name, was largely missing: the president's. In those hours marching and at Foley Square amid the din of so many thousands of massed people, I saw one sign that said “Obama = Bush” and another that went something like “The Barack Obama we elected would be out here with us.” That was it. Sayonara.

It’s as if the spreading movement, made up of kids who might once have turned out for presidential candidate Obama, had left him and his administration in the dust. Like big labor, the left, and the media, the administration that loved its bankers to death (and got little enough in return for that embrace) is now playing catch-up with a ragtag bunch of protesters it wouldn’t have thought twice about if they hadn't somehow caught the zeitgeist of this moment. (Don’t forget that the Obama administration was similarly left scrambling and desperately behind events when it came to the demonstrators in Tahrir Square in Cairo last January.)

The best Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner could say a few days ago, when asked about his sympathies for the Occupy Wall Street movement, was: "I feel a lot of sympathy for what you might describe as a general sense among Americans that we've lost a sense of possibility." Really? White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley didn’t know if the movement was exactly “helpful” for the White House agenda. Truly? And White House press spokesman Jay Carney commented blandly, “I would simply say that, to the extent that people are frustrated with the economic situation, we understand.” Do you?

Suddenly, last Thursday, with news about the anti-Wall Street movement whipping up a storm, the Obama administration found itself out of breath and running hard to reposition itself. Vice President Joe Biden said, “The core is the bargain has been breached with the American people,” while at his news conference addressing questions about the movement the president added, “I think it expresses the frustrations that the American people feel... he protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.”

More at the link --

[Poll_Blind]

1. Obama ginned up a lot of hope but delivered little change. People are going AROUND him.

If there was a brass ring this administraiton failed to grab, and one which arguably it not only failed to grab but was already holding and tossed away, it's that the American people expected Obama to act on all the rhetoric that got him elected.

That people are going around the Democratic Party, the Obama Administration, and just taking their own grievances to the street directly is indicative of a colossal failure on the part of those two entities to act as a conduit for real change.

The Democratic Party used to have an effing LOCK on issues regarding things like medicare, rooting out of corruption, upholding The Constitution, etc.

Not so. Hope whatever President Obama and Democratic Leadership though they were getting in trade was worth it.

They are becoming irrelevant.

PB

[xiamiam]

3. irrelevant is the word..and not just obama..all of them..repubs and dems

are so disconnected from the majority..there was nothing left to do but get in the streets..we had hoped our vote for him would change things..it hasn't and it won't.

[Poll_Blind]

6. I agree. And I agree about conservatives also being shorted by their party and leadership.

It's a pretty sad state of affairs.

PB

[closeupready]

12. You're correct, it won't. Voting is essentially pointless these days.

nt

[LiberalAndProud]

19. It's a big club ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0

[Lorien]

21. Yep, people are waking up to that sad fact and are finally willing to do

something about it.

[uponit7771]

4. ...and a lot of lazy ass'd people put the blame on Obama vs getting a more progressive congres

[Poll_Blind]

7. LOL, the point of the OP isn't that anyone's blaming Obama, it's that he's not relevant anymore.

He's just another thing for The People to navigate around.

PB

[LondonReign2]

17. Yeah, it's all those "lazy ass'd" people

that forced President Obama to ignore if not outright reverse everything Candidate Obama said he'd do. Stupid lazy ass'd people made him promote free trade policies that drive US jobs overseas, continue the wars he said he'd end, extend tax cuts for millionaires, etc etc. :eyes:

Love the "The Barack Obama we elected would be out here with us" sign. Pretty well sums up his collosal reversal.

[hifiguy]

8. Very well said, indeed.

Such a splendid opportunity, so thoroughly and completely squandered.

[closeupready]

11. Completely Agree. Would K&R your post alone if I could.

:hi:

[Desertrose]

13. Yeah...me too. Well said!

[coalition_unwilling]

15. I was at Occupy Los Angeles the past two Saturdays (Oct 1 and 8) and

did not see a single pro-Obama or pro-Democratic sign or literature or chant.

The silence was, shall we say, deafening.

Ron Paul had more support and supporters there than Obama. And this in true-blue Los Angeles.

[Raksha]

2. Well, you know what they say: Hatred is not the opposite of love;

Indifference is. The Tea Party HATES President Obama, mostly for all the wrong reasons. The "Occupation" is basically indifferent to him--for all the right reasons. And it's obvious which one is bigger and more real. President Obama and the Democratic Party had best sit up and take notice.

[Donnachaidh]

5. that's just it -- I really think this administration *thinks* they have the support of OWS

They are so smitten with the idea of being the *lesser of two evils* they automatically assume they've got it cinched.

But as the '10 elections proved -- no they don't. The *shellacking* came because of their feeling of *ownership* of the votes.

[Poll_Blind]

23. Yep. Tin ear, bigtime. nt

PB

[Maven]

9. He can't hear you. Too busy pushing three new trade deals to help multinational corporations

make more profits.

[myrna minx]

14. It's surreal, isn't it?

[Poll_Blind]

18. It is. It really is. As are the congradulatiory press releases from the US Chamber and...

...the chiding press releases from the Repukes (like McConnell) who voted for it.

PB

[fasttense]

22. As if the last 17 free trade agreements weren't proof enough of how bad they are for our economy

that our Democratic President has to push through 3 more.

Tax cuts for the rich and free trade agreements for the corporations. So we know whose side of the 99% vs the 1% Obama is on.

[Rex]

10. It is his surprising pro-corporate stance that threw off a lot of his supporters.

So don't expect him to put on any kind of shoes for this one.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. #OWS realizes that the system is the problem and participting in the system isn't the solution.

We live in an oligarchy of the rich and powerful and the politicians are the employees that have been hired to run it.

[Truth2Tell]

20. The wrap-up is poignant

Those kids in downtown Manhattan (and increasingly across the country and the world) are offering their own warning, and theirs, after a fashion, comes from the future, one in which Obama’s presidency could someday be seen as little but an irrelevancy.