Obama And The Left--Part Two

tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24435656.post-13935440007951910022008-07-03T15:03:00.000-07:002008-08-19T18:35:00.632-07:00Obama And The Left--Part TwoYesterday I looked briefly at the so-called “ultra-left,” the Socialists and the Greens and their reasons for not supporting the Obama candidacy. I used a kind of political shorthand to lump them together. Readers can investigate the differences between these groups on their own. There is nothing pragmatic in these groups. They can see only the negatives in the Obama campaign and so they reject the possibilities that Obama or the movements around him could move to the left in any meaningful way, or that the left could support the Obama candidacy in a principled way. I tried to show that this is philosophically untenable, and even a departure from what we know of the natural world. Nothing is so absolute or static that it does not contain opposing forces within itself which can eventually gather the capacity to transform the thing itself. The pure and the absolute exist only as philosophical abstractions—and useless abstractions at that. If this applies in the natural world, it also applies to society. And if it applies to society, then it applies to the left and to Obama and to the movements around him. When the ultra-left presents the Obama candidacy only as a negative and acts on that (mis)understanding, it violates logic and the key philosophical and practical assumptions of the historic left. There is a pragmatic left which supports the Obama candidacy. The reasoning and logic of this support are stated roughly as follows: We need to be mindful of negatives of Democratic Party candidates and Obama and we should find ways to indicate differences on one or another issue. The only issue is how we do this. The big thing for us is the larger dynamics of the elections- -the movement that is taking shape, the expectations for change among millions, the political leverage that can come with a landslide victory. It is these dynamics that are the driving force to turn our country around, to chart a new course. It is hard to see how we can turn things around without electing Obama and bigger democratic majorities in Congress. Most of the problems confronting working people cannot be resolved in the collective bargaining arena, at least in any fundamental way. It requires a qualitative shift in the balance of political forces, which is what we hope will happen in November. The movements need leverage to press their legislative agendas in 2009. We will then be positioned to go on the offensive, to punch rather than counter punch as we have been doing the Bush years. Our relations with Obama and a Democrat-controlled congress would be both contested and cooperative. What the exact balance will be is not possible to determine at this moment, but there will be elements of both. Obama is not a left candidate, nor are the American people on the left despite changes in their thinking over past years. Obama is a candidate of a broad coalition, most of whom occupy the center in American politics. Given this, and given the right wing attack machine, it is hard to imagine that he won't take some positions that we disagree with. He has to assemble a broad voter constituency to win against McCain. We have to give him some wiggle room as well as find better ways to take issue with some of his positions. The main contrast in this election isn't between Obama's program and the program of the left, but between Obama's positions and McCain's. We should worry about the vacillating of Obama, to be sure, but it should be in the context of the urgency of defeating McCain. McCain's election would constitute an enormous blow to the labor-led people's movement. There is good reason to think that the movement won't go into hiding in the election's aftermath. Too much has happened over last 30 years and too many expectations have been aroused in this campaign--conditions are different than in 1992. If the “ultra-left” looks only at the negatives of the Obama candidacy and seeks the essentially moral ground of not participating in electoral politics in any meaningful way while core social forces go into electoral action, the pragmatic left tends to see only positives in the Obama candidacy and follows behind these core social forces as they move into political action. This pragmatic left is searching for a way of advancing criticism of Obama’s positions while still mobilizing against McCain. An excellent example of such criticism is <a href="http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/13260">Joe Sims’ recent piece on Obama’s Father’s Day backsliding.</a> There remains in the pragmatic left a certain philosophical poverty, despite its efforts and work. This pragmatic left has something to lose by supporting the Obama candidacy without criticism. Liberal political agendas most often form as incomplete and defensive responses to the unavoidable crises of capitalism and the right-wing. It is a difficult matter for the left to support a liberal candidacy now and later distance itself from a liberal agenda in power, especially when that agenda is not fully carried out or when it falters. That necessary distancing can easily become a moralistically driven refusal to take power and do the work which goes with holding power at any level. It can also lead to unnecessary compromises, splits, and the practical drafting of the left by more conservative forces. Since the American political spectrum carries within it so many contradictions and points where sides blur, liberals in power are often able to undercut protests from the left and the labor movement. Can a pragmatic left criticize Obama, as a candidate or as a president, and later count on being able to win over and mobilize the forces now supporting Obama in any meaningful way? We will see after November, but liberals have been quite good at dismantling or sidetracking movements that they cannot control. The pragmatic left is correct in pointing out that “the main contrast in this election isn't between Obama's program and the program of the left, but between Obama's positions and McCain's.” We do not live in a time when the left has the kind of currency needed to successfully challenge the liberals. To put this in context, we have to see the Obama candidacy as being in part the product of the peace movement which has developed since the invasion of Iraq, the mixed record of the labor movement under Bush, the immigrant rights mass mobilizations and the relatively low level of civil rights and Black mobilizations in recent years. Where one movement has stepped forward, another has stepped backwards and so we have a liberal candidacy which fumbles, and movements around that candidacy which maintain high hopes but lack clarity. Most of the left activists working at the base of the campaign have experienced this and are learning new ways of comunicating and organizing. The pragmatic left is also correct in pointing out the need for a Democratic landslide. A narrow win by Democrats or by Obama gives the Democrats every reason to slide further to the right. It must be remembered that all of the Democratic weaknesses, Obama’s included, pale besides the horrors of the Republican agenda and the possibility of a strike against Iran, a widening war in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a continuing occupation of Iraq. A win by a large margin by centrist forces could give labor and other movements the self-confidence needed to move forward and also take away liberal fears and excuses for not working for a more progressive social agenda. Where the left begins to fail here is in not asserting itself or its agenda more forcefully. It has been so long since the left and labor movements have had major wins that we may no longer know what victories are or how to define them. Both the pragmatic and ultra-left suffer from this. In the case of the pragmatic left, this means following the movements supporting Obama rather than leading—and since these movements lack clarity, the pragmatic left also becomes confused. It remains to be seen how or if this left can emerge from this shared confusion to lead or to leverage power in 2009. The right seems more worried about the forces Obama's candidacy may unleash than about the man himself. They have good reason to worry. The pragmatic left grasps the potential of the moment and the movement. The liberals try to ride these forces and may eventually try to apply the bit, the stirrups, or the whip. Only the ultra-left is incapable of seeing what is before everyone. To paraphrase Marx, the Socialist Party and the Greens (and, for that matter, the ultra-left) seem to believe that people are products of circumstances and history, and so different circumstances will produce different people. With their utopian hopes and “revolutionary” programs they are unable to locate a point with people—with core political forces in society—where people are themselves making history, i.e. changing society. They locate the tipping point of the main contradictions in society between themselves and society at large or those now in power. Thus, their parties and programs carry a kind of magical quality for them. Against their best and most tested instincts, the pragmatic left seems to see only abstract movements marching forward with Obama and they trust this movement with our political future. It is as if they now believe in an unguided spontaneity and can no longer define or find their proper place in an alliance with labor and centrists. Their programs are reduced to policies and slogans and contain little of the magic and dreams which people in motion conjure up from the capitalist nightmare.<div class="blogger-post-footer">Thank you!</div>ethnicguyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04765031173526552325noreply@blogger.com