The Nation: Obama Needs a Protest Movement

[bluedawg12]

And the GLBTQ civil rights movement is right on time. For those who say: this is the wrong time, you are impatient, wait your turn (again), well, they might consider this.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/11/15-0

Published on Saturday, November 15, 2008 by The Nation
Obama Needs a Protest Movement
by Frances Fox Piven

The astonishing election of 2008 is over. Whatever else the future holds, the unchallenged domination of American national government by big business and the political right has been broken. Even more amazing, Americans have elected an African-American as president. These facts alone are rightful cause for jubilation.

<snip>

Naturally, people are making lists of what the new administration should do to begin to reverse the decades-long trends toward rising inequality, unrestrained corporate plunder, ecological disaster, military adventurism and constricted democracy. But if naming our favored policies is the main thing we do, we are headed for a terrible letdown. Let's face it: Barack Obama is not a visionary or even a movement leader. He became the nominee of the Democratic Party, and then went on to win the general election, because he is a skillful politician. That means he will calculate whom he has to conciliate and whom he can ignore in realms dominated by big-money contributors from Wall Street, powerful business lobbyists and a Congress that includes conservative Blue Dog and Wall Street-oriented Democrats. I don't say this to disparage Obama. It is simply the way it is, and if Obama was not the centrist and conciliator he is, he would not have come this far this fast, and he would not be the president-elect.

<snip>
Still, the soaring rhetoric of the campaign; the slogans like "We are the ones we have been waiting for"; the huge, young and enthusiastic crowds– all this generates hope, and hope fuels activism among people who otherwise accept politics as usual.

<snip>

Sometimes, encouraged by electoral shifts and campaign promises, the ordinary people who are typically given short shrift in political calculation become volatile and unruly, impatient with the same old promises and ruses, and they refuse to cooperate in the institutional routines that depend on their cooperation. When that happens, their issues acquire a white-hot urgency, and politicians have to respond, because they are politicians. In other words, the disorder, stoppages and institutional breakdowns generated by this sort of collective action threaten politicians. These periods of mass defiance are unnerving, and many authoritative voices are even now pointing to the dangers of pushing the Obama administration too hard and too far.

Yet these are also the moments when ordinary people enter into the political life of the country and authentic bottom-up reform becomes possible.

<snip>

Notwithstanding the traditional and conservative platform of the Democratic Party, FDR's campaign in 1932 registered these disturbances in new promises to "build from the bottom up and not from the top down, that put...faith once more in the forgotten man at the bottom of the economic pyramid."

<snip>

Obama's campaign speeches emphasized the theme of a unified America where divisions bred by race or party are no longer important. But America is, in fact, divided: by race, by party, by class. And these divisions will matter greatly as we grapple with the whirlwind of financial and economic crises, of prospective ecological calamity, of generational and political change, of widening fissures in the American empire. I, for one, do not have a blueprint for the future. Maybe we are truly on the cusp of a new world order, and maybe it will be a better, more humane order. In the meantime, however, our government will move on particular policies to confront the immediate crisis. Whether most Americans will have an effective voice in these policies will depend on whether we tap our usually hidden source of power, our ability to refuse to cooperate on the terms imposed from above.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. I believe this election has raised the consciousness and the hopes of a lot of

people who would not usually have cared one way or the other.
I would like to believe that this enthusiasm will be maintained over the long haul, and while we should realize that not all promises can become reality immediately, we need to stay vigilant, and make sure that the list of promises is kept handy and consulted on a regular basis to check for progress.
If things do not seem to be moving along, I hope that people will now feel compelled to voice their objections and get out and do something about it..

[bluedawg12]

2. We've had too much of top down power, secrecy, and the missive

to go shopping, as though the body politic were a bunch of children who need to be shoo'ed out while the adults are talking. Agreed, that the elections have empowered the people with the notion of grass roots power and PHate8 mobilized people to action, right out of our comfort zones.

[bluedawg12]

3. I think the big message here is not to get too comfortable just because

our candidate is in the WH.

Other pressures and priorities will take over for him. We can't let up on our cause, if we don't fight for us, who will?

The article really spells out nicely how we feel, even though it is not specifically about any issues:

>>the ordinary people who are typically given short shrift in political calculation become volatile and unruly, impatient with the same old promises and ruses, and they refuse to cooperate in the institutional routines that depend on their cooperation.<<

And of course, the all too familiar voices who tell us pipe down:

>>and many authoritative voices are even now pointing to the dangers of pushing the Obama administration too hard and too far. <<

Never forget, never give up.