Adoph Reed, Jr.: Obama No

Adolph Reed, Jr. in: Obama No | The Progressive (read the whole thing).

Obama’s style of being all things to all people threatens to melt under the inescapable spotlight of a national campaign against a Republican. It’s like what brings on the downfall of really successful con artists: They get themselves onto a stage that’s so big that they can’t hide their contradictions anymore, and everyone finds out about the different stories they’ve told different people. And Obama’s belonging to Wright’s church in the first place was quite likely part of establishing a South Side bourgeois nationalist street cred because his political base was with Hyde Park/University of Chicago liberals and the foundation world.

For now, the Jeremiah Wright connection probably won’t hurt him too much, partly because the Republicans at this point mainly may want to keep him and Clinton bleeding each other as long as possible. And his Philadelphia compromise speech—a string of well-crafted and coordinated platitudes and hollow images worthy of an SUV commercial, grounded with the reassuring “acknowledgment” of blacks’ behavioral inadequacies—has gained him breathing room by holding out a vague promise of racial “reconciliation” that has appealed to centrist liberals ever since Booker T. Washington’s comparably eloquent 1895 accommodation to Southern white supremacy. Obama gets credit for “opening a conversation” on race, for “taking the matter on squarely.” But he doesn’t really speak to what we ought to be doing to address the injustices, past and present, that he mentions. Despite all the babble about Obama’s transcendence, Obama persists in portraying black Americans as a stereotypical monolith: blacks feel x; whites feel y. And the trope of black “anger” is a tired chestnut that neither explains nor characterizes political grievances or aspirations. (By the way, Obama’s casting Wright’s alleged “anger” as generational is entirely consistent with his earlier praise of Ronald Reagan for sensing Americans’ desire to undo the “excesses” of the 1960s and 1970s.)

Because he’s tried carefully to say enough of whatever the audiences he’s been speaking to at the time want to hear while leaving himself enough space later on to deny his intentions to leave that impression, his record represents precisely the “character” weakness the Republicans have exploited in every Democratic candidate since Dukakis: Another Dem trying to put things over on the American people.

Obama’s campaign has been very clever in carving out a strategy to amass Democratic delegate votes, but its momentum is in some ways a Potemkin construction—built largely on victories in states that no Democrat will win in November—that will fall apart under Republican pressure.

Comments

[Randall Szott]

If you're voting as a Democrat, what is the "progressive" alternative? Clinton? He says she's the lesser evil, but that is outrageous. I guess her open race baiting, ethical lapses, lying, and win at all costs persona is more honest than Obama pretending to have higher ideals? That uber-cynical position would logically lead to saying Cheney is a desirable politician. A sad, sad piece of political drivel.

[chakira]

some of us will be voting for socialists.

[Jodi]

To my mind the most cynical position is to compromise ideals in favor of 'electability,' like the Democrats did with Kerry. If progressives think Obama is the best we can do, then that is cynical. The very move into the Democratic party induces cynicism (although it calls this move realism or pragmatism).

[pebird]

If you expect Trotsky to be nominated as the Democratic candidate for President of these United States, you are in the wrong time zone.

Look, I don't know who Obama is any more than anyone else does - why we persist in this fantasy that the president is going to save us is beyond me.

The best we can do is choose the least evil - figuring that out is not easy.

[Bob Allen]

"why we persist in this fantasy that the president is going to save us is beyond me."

This highlighting of Trotsky and lesser-evilism gets right to the point-- Jodi's quasi Trotskyist analysis may be correct, there is no "us" under bourgeois electoralism; there is "us" the masses vs "them", the neoliberal electoral slate...their whole job is to convince us that our interests reflect theirs.

[Grad Student]

"Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, left, and Glenn Loury of Brown University debate Barack Obama's post-ideological stance."

http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=485f6992a92cf8e1b7439e2e05ebe271fbf184da

Amusing in its confirmation of Jodi's analysis (and, indeed, of the old Zizekian formula of the post-ideological as ideology par excellence).

Reich first takes Loury's charge to be that Obama's stance IS ideological, which Reich dismisses. He then invokes the subject of politics as - surprise - "America." Obama's message according to Reich is that "it's not rich against poor," it's not corporations against the rest of us," etc. America is "at its best" when it acts in bi-partisan concert.

Then, he notes the Clintons' rightward "triangulation" was itself post-ideological (and thus good in-itself?), COMPLETELY BEGGING THE GODDAMN QUESTION.

I entered grad school at a time (the present) when ex-Marxist-turned-(post)Foucauldian faculty shrug off (even sneer at) ideology critique and the concept of "false consciousness" like its Lamarckism.

And, frankly, I understand that such straightforward Marxist analysis is not all that "interesting" intellectually. Worse still, it implies subscribing to a bona fide agenda of class struggle, and (gasp) perhaps even privileging it over what's most engaging and new, intellectually.

At the Rethinking the University conference in Minnesota someone gave a paper on radical pedagogy in which he insisted that "radical pedagogy" isn't radical unless it produces class traitors.

Little wonder my profs - many of whom are Critical Inquiry editors - are ga ga for Obama. One of the most striking (and banal) insights of coming to a "first-tier" grad program is the confirmation that intellectuals are no less immune than others when it comes to having one's politics conditioned by the material and institutional circumstances of one's life.

(Sorry to go on.)

One question I have for academics like Jodi, who do espouse radical politics, is whether they are members of socialist parties or groups. Do they participate in grassroots organizing? Or does one sit above the fray, criticizing from a place of detachment? Reserving one's traveling and energy to academic/careerist pursuits?

There this is something very simple that I think theorists are categorically incapable of recognizing: genuine political struggle might involve committing to work (even by theorists!) that is intellectually banal (though it will be affectively rich). In this sense, I agree whole-heartedly with Nate Holdren who has written (I'm paraphrasing from memory) that academic radicalism may - in complicated ways - militate against organized struggle.

[/rant]

[patrick j. mullins]

'The very move into the Democratic party induces cynicism (although it calls this move realism or pragmatism).'

It never moved into the Democratic Party, but it has had cynicism induced. It does call this cynicism even thought it didn't really move into anything, but it does call this move realism or pragmatism and it is stuck with evil corruption most likely..it is hoping to live with this, however horrible it is, in lieu of correctional institutions, which require more than low misdemeanours, fortunately....

[Alain]

I have a few silly questions - What do progressives (leftists or however you wish to identify yourself) think is the goal of political activity in the United States today? Beyond that, do progressives think there is no significant difference between the two parties? If not, should they either work to start a third party or try and change an existing one? These sorts of questions would seem essential in judging the usefulness of participating in the two party political process.

And I agree with Patric - most "leftists" of the 1960's never moved into the democratic party.

[Jodi]

Significant difference? Hard to say--both parties supported preemptive war against Iraq, fund that war, support the war on terror, and have been active in furthering neoliberalism and de-volving government away from a welfare state. Yet, there is not one white Republican member of Congress and the Republicans are more strongly anti-immigrant, pro-religion, and anti same-sex marriage.

What is the goal of political activity in the US today: it should focus on building an alliance in favor of a substantial social welfare net, public control of key economic sectors, elimination of crazy markets and financial instruments, increased regulation and control of the finance sector, the restoration of Glas-Steagall. Necessary correlations of this focus will be ending the war (largest financial drain) and developing alternative energy sources (which has an added affective benefit insofar as climate affects everyone and requires large-scale solidarities to address).

[Jodi]

oh yes--on 60s leftists and the Democratic party. Is the question an empirical one? Did most move into the Democratic Party? Or is it something else? Clearly there are visible 60s leftists who went into the Democratic party--John Kerry is one. Isn't Todd Gitlin a Democrat? And what about Jane Fonda's ex-husband? Jesse Jackson--Democrat. In fact, some would say that 60s leftists played a key role in the shape of the Democratic Party--Bobby Kennedy, George McGovern. I was totally distressed a few months ago when I received a petition signed by lots of (formerly) radical feminists endorsing Obama (in contrast with Robin Morgan and other formerly radical feminists endorsing Hillary). The discussion was structured as if the Democratic party were key to left politics. Horrifying.

[Alain]

Thank you for the response Jodi. The only things I would point out is that 125 democratic members of Congress and 21 democratic members of the Senate did vote against the War. So while I would agree that neo-liberal fascists are largely in control of the democratic party, there is a large number (perhaps even a majority) of elected democrats who are not.

[alex]

And then they have voted to fund it time and time again while reserving the right to display some heartfelt theatrics around questioning Gen. Betrayus.

[Gatherdust]

Reed prefers his stereotypical monoliths over Obama's. Fine. So Reed's racial politics will descend into the pot calling the kettle white. Thus Reed plays his the Booker T. trope.

The dilemmas left: I would never want to vote for someone who could be elected to the presidency. More ironic, I would never want to belong to a Democratic Party that would allow someone like me to become a member.

The Democratic Party is the key to left electoral politics. Anything else is simply corridor talk in the hallways of academic departments or radical conferences in university conference facilities.e

[Jodi]

I disagree. The Democratic Party is the American left's failure institutionalized.