“Change We Can Believe In” Is Not A Spectator Sport

Naomi Klein, one of my heroes, believes that the dynamics for a new New Deal to help mitigate the pain of the current financial crisis do not exist today, because President Obama is under immense pressure from the elite wealth and power brokers to continue with the tradition of making policies in their favor, while his “super-fans” keep apologizing and making excuses for his actions that do not reflect the progressive desire for real social change. As the political right, with their ever-so-voluminous noise machine, refuses to trust or even listen to what he has to say with any seriousness, many on the left no longer trust him either, seeing him as just another lying politician who said whatever was necessary to get elected. And then there are the “super-fans.” Ms. Klein framed the issue in this way in her appearance on Democracy Now! back on November 25, when then President Elect Obama was putting together his financial team, which is headed up by Larry Summers and Tim Geithner, both major former propagators of the deregulation, privatization, and “free trade” policies:

“...the issue is Obama is coming to these decisions because he is under enormous pressure from above, Wall Street. How do you transition from a pro Obama campaign movement to an independent social movement that puts counter-pressure on him from below? Those are the conditions under which Roosevelt sold the new deal as a compromise to elite. We do not have those dynamics right now. We have a situation where we have super-fans for Obama, constantly apologizing for every decision that he makes versus a gloves-off elite who are putting real pressure on him behind the scenes. And we are seeing the result.”

I admit, I have been one of those “super-fans,” rationalizing, apologizing and finding excuses not to give up on the hope that he ignited. Yes, he has taken small steps forward in the direction of progressive policies, such as the ending of Bush's ban on stem cell research, promising to close down Guantanamo Bay, undertaking a huge stimulus plan to help keep the economy going, and other measures. But in his attempts to make everyone happy, to assure the right that he is not a “socialist,” nor a wimpy peacenic who wants to dismantle the military and invite the terrorists over for tea, it could be said that he has been too timid with the progressive agenda where it matters the most, too deferential to the very financial and military forces that got us into the horrible messes we are in to begin with. It is easy to feel betrayed, to give up on hope that things will truly change and fall into the despair that the forces of greed and power are just too strong for even the President of the United States to repel – but I have found a way to escape the giving up of faith in President Obama just yet.

Although Naomi Klein was never a big fan of Barack Obama, I think she is right about the dynamics for the kind of change that Mr. Obama campaigned on not being in place. The real problem is that, while the elites have their gloves off in order to fight to hold on to their power, the pressure from below, from the electorate, the progressive left, and the super-fans, has disintegrated into the atmosphere in a sigh of - “Whew, we did it - we got him elected, now let's sit back and watch him go to work.” The thing is, Barack Obama told us that he could not do this alone, that he needed our help - over and over, he said that, and he did not just mean that he needed help getting elected. What everyone who has lost faith in the man fails to understand is that this “change” that he promised, this new kind of post-political governance, this idea that government can work for the people, all depends on the counter-pressure from We, the People. Candidate Obama had been talking about momentum, about participation and engagement, and now, he needs the momentum of all the activists who worked so hard during the election to keep up in order to remind everyone else in Washington that we elected this new guy to change things there - to restore our confidence in our supposedly democratic system. The fact that many on the left are upset about quite a few of the decisions he has made so far should, indeed, be seen as a move toward the very “change” that he promised to bring, that “post-ideological approach to government,” which was something that he has been talking about for several years, now. If his supporters, or his detractors, have not understood this, it may well be because that is the very nature of “change” and of newness: they are different, new, and easily misunderstood by those who are still thinking with the same old mindsets that are steeped in the very ideologies that Obama has promised to leave behind.

In an election where both tickets were promising “change,” it is apparent that the term is rather nebulous, meaning very different things to different people. Both opponents were advocating a change in the way that governing takes place, both claiming to want to bring the country together, to move past party divisions, and to clear out corruption and manipulations of the process of government. But one of the candidates was more convincing than the other. And so, we elected the man who we thought would enact more change than the other. The “change” that we chose was not just a change of the color of the face of the President, nor just a change of the color of the political party he represents. So what about “them changes?” I believe that President Obama is trying to balance the bringing of major change whith trying to instill confidence that he is not interested in sudden and possibly destabilizing Gorbachev-style revolution. After all, Russia lost it's status as the other Superpower when it made such a radical change away from Soviet Communism. Obama cannot be faulted for trying to avoid the fate of Jimmy Carter, either, another man at the forefront of the progressive movement.

W hat is happening is that President Barack Hussein Obama now finds himself facing the ultimate progressive dilemma: how to institute societal change, how to revamp a corrupt system, how to break down the walls built by the elites, behind which neo-liberal fascism masquerades as the highest form of freedom and democracy, but to do so in a fashion that is respectful of the humans who are being manipulated by the forces of corporate (as well as racist, sexist, religious, military) power, and are therefore fearful of any changes to the system that they have become accustomed to. How can the work of changing how our government functions and creating a more equitable society be carried out when those who the president ideologically opposes do not respect or trust him, and when those who wish to hold on to their power, who have been enabled by the corrupted political system, will staunchly resist any attempts at reducing their power that will be required to make our government more accountable to the people instead of to the high-dollar campaign donors, entrenched special interests, and lobbyists?

Well, the answer is for us regular citizens to keep the pressure up from below, the counterbalance to the elite pressure from above, to take our gloves off, too, and to find new ways to create the change that we all want. “Change we can believe in” is not a spectator sport. And non-violent, progressive change requires massive people power. We got our guy into the White House, now we need to push for the causes that will restore our faith in democracy harder than ever before, even as our guy does his job as President of the entire United States of America, Commander in Chief, Chief Executive, and Most Powerful Person on the Face of the Planet. The man has a lot on his plate - he is still building a government, trying to deal with the economic crisis, juggling situations around the world that require the United States to be engaged, running military actions that are extremely complex, trying to convince Congress to follow his leadership, and, indeed, trying to convince the country to trust him and, after inheriting a government that has been sabotaged to the point that it does not function, in order that privatization advocates may point to how the government does not function... This is only the beginning, and the president inevitably lives in a bubble of advisors and influence-brokers who might very well undermine his ability to remain grounded in his grassroots activism.

Was it over-ambitious post-political idealism or simple naivety that caused President Obama to concede on tax cuts and less spending far too early in the negotiations over the stimulus package, to continue to exercise belligerent military power abroad, and to side with the insurance industry on health care reform, as he has decided to forgo trying to institute the single-payer system that this country disparately needs? Perhaps I am the one who is being naive now; or I am committing the same crime of not being able to face reality, clinging to my hopes and personal biases, that I have always accused the supporters of the Iraq occupation of; or my friend was right who refused to vote in the 2008 elections at all, citing The Matrix, convinced that free choice and democracy are only illusions created by the master who built this computer program we call life...

I am just not ready to give up on the belief that Barack Obama deeply understands the concept that regular people, coming together, with the power of respect for all members of society, can change the world. My belief is that President Obama sees the world as immensely complex, to be negotiated carefully and steadily, and he sees himself as an agent of gentle change, progressive change, gradual change, through example and compromise and respect for others as well as for the colossal powers that he faces, that he is carefully addressing from the inside of his presidential bubble. But the trick is that while he acts as the most powerful man on the face of the planet, acting as everyone's president, listening to all the voices that are out there, there is a coded understanding that we will also do our part to put the pressure on from below, so that he will have a body of citizen support to point to when he moves to change the system that is in place. I see President Obama as a practical visionary, a patient man, an agent of nebulous “change” that the government that he is the leader of is highly resistant to, which is why it is so important for We, the People to keep the pressure on. We must prove to our representatives in Congress that we really and truly elected him to change the way government works, and that they should follow his wise leadership. President Obama needs us to demand our agenda, to prove that we are tired of being taken advantage of, in terms of pollution and degradation of our environment, being the victims of a corrupted food supply, not having fair access to health care or educations, forced into being captive consumers of inferior and often harmful products, all because of deregulation and powerful corporate lobbies.

And so, it is not President Barack Obama that I have lost faith in, it is the power of the people of this country to put pressure on him, pressure that he wants, that he needs, that he asked us for, to counteract the other pressures that he faces as president. He knows better than anyone else that he cannot change the system without that countervailing pressure, because he simply cannot institute progressive changes on his own while at the same time being the president of the entire country. He is negotiating complexities beyond the scope of any other, truly taking responsibility for the government he is in charge of, and attempting to lead this country in a way that no previous president has. He is showing leadership qualities that, frankly, the people of this country do not recognize because we do not even know what it is that we are seeing. This post-political leadership IS the change that he promised, it's just that no-one else seems to get it. The point is for the citizens to stay involved in our government, to prove to the corporate interests and the entrenched politicians that the hype and excitement during the election of this president wasn't just a fad or the latest fleeting teen idol phenomenon. If we allow the movement that elected Barack Obama as president to be redefined as such, then all is lost to the powers of corporate greed...