Honeymoons are not for presidents

Excuse the metaphor bashing, but this moment in history where the majority of Progressive minded US citizens bask in the glow at the inauguration first president since LBJ (maybe Carter) to be considered Progressive, the first to have black skin and a non Christian surname must end. Please stop making goo goo eyes towards the screen every time he appears or is talked about. please stop assuming that this president is going to do your will and/or please ask for more out of the history to come.

Granted, amidst the inertia presented by opposition backed by the motives of capital and general political repression, political movements need to be able to speak with one voice, thus human beings inevitably end up attributing (for all intents and purposes)divine power to one human being. It's unavoidable and it's why we, on paper and 8 hrs of less work anyway, celebrate MLK. But the actions of a president, like a party, a nation state or any organization are not holistic entities. They are only the sum of very complex parts that come together by a polyphony of forces. Power relationships are built and nourished, deals are made, some people will get more time to be heard from the decision makers than others. And you are extremely naive if you think that the quality of a person´s logic is what gets his or he point across to the decision maker.

Oh yes, it is not forgotten on my end, we know that you already know all of this. But step back and look. You don't realize that you still act(mostly addressing fellow activists here) under assumptions that contradict this simple insight.

Because his motive is to hold together a winning majority, Obama will very likely continue a lot of really dumb, immoral and perhaps ilegal things. He is going to allow idiotic *non national security related* military spending to increase with out fighting members of Congress. It is Congress after all that forces the Defense Department and the Pentagon to carry on with the buying idiotic cold war toys.

His secretary of agriculture is very close with the corn ethanol lobby. These guys are into selling us into the idea that we can achieve energy and oil independence in part by using ethanol from corn. If you haven't looked into it, you should. To produce Ethanol you actually have to spend more energy, that is to say a below zero net gain. Much of that energy is currently dirty and non renewable. Not to mention the burden it places on food.

Obama is going to continue cultivating the cozy relations we have with the current number one terrorist state, Israel. The US contributes 9 billion a year to this favored nation. Egypt and Columbia (also governments that are currently occupied by thugs) are 2nd and third. A majority of this 9 billion dollars, based on a previously signed agreement between the US and Israel, must be spent on US defense contractors.

Obama, in the spirit of "radical centrisim" --my term for doing something to make every one happy which results in just the opposite-- is going to throw some meaty bones to the very unethical health insurance companies by allowing them to remain in the paracitic business of sickness care. This will be a part of the universal health care plan, that is unless the Single Payer campaign (whose link, http://www.pnhp.org/action/organizations_and_government_bodies_endorsing_hr_676_single_payer.php, cannot be smoothly applied on this current computer) wins out...


This is not a judgement of the man or even the president. A request is being made here: Let´s start thinking in terms of building a progressive constituency connected by a series of issues that we can all more or less agree with. That constiutency is not always going to succede by partisanship. That is of course another problem: identifying with the Democratic party too closely.

Again not a judgement of the party. What the hell is a party? That question is not merely meant to be rhetorical. As with the new president, the party likewise is a maleabe fiction which can mutate into many different things depending on the actions of those engaged in those power relationships. Currently the Dems are largely under the excessive influence of a few private interest who do not share a stake in the public interest. Look at who contributes to each representative´s campaign chest, look at who is drafting the legislation and what Special interest is directly or indirectly funding that legislation. The enemy is not always the Republican party as much as those scattered elements of corporate lobbyist who court both parties.

The problem is that the organizational infrastructure that we have is being utilized too much to simply elect Democrats and, even worse, reelect the same old Democrats who have bought into the status quo (imperial foreign policy, free trade with out fair wages and environmental protection, welfare handouts to factory farmers and deregulation of the financial sector). More effort needs to be made in developing a broad non partisan coalition that acts at the grassroots level. That means more lobbying at the state and US congressional district level. It also means putting more money into public advocacy campaigns. But more important: Progressive lobbyists who have a network of PAC (Political Action Committees) and policy think tanks behind them.

Yes, it is easier said than done. But assuming that long lasting progress is on its way simply by having the Democrats in charge is not doing very much.

Before receiving a straw man arguement response please know that what the activist in me is proposing in this post requires pragmatism.