[R-G] Progressives and Obama: The Clash of Narratives

[Anthony Fenton]

From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3595

Progressives and Obama: The Clash of Narratives
Aug 22, 2008 By Norman Solomon

By now, across the progressive spectrum, some familiar storylines tell  
us the meaning of the Obama campaign. In a groove, each narrative digs  
its truths. But whether those particular truths are the most important  
at this historical moment is another story.

We can set aside the plotline that touts Obama as a visionary  
pragmatist who has earned the complete trust of progressives. The  
belief has diminished in recent months -- in the wake of numerous  
Obama pronouncements on foreign policy, his FISA vote to damage the  
Fourth Amendment and the like -- but such belief was never really  
grounded in his record as a politician or his policy positions.

A more substantial narrative concedes that Obama has "compromised" on  
numerous fronts but assumes he has done so in order to get elected  
president, after which time his real self will emerge. This kind of  
dubious projection is as old as the political hills, and inevitably  
becomes a kind of murky exercise in armchair psychology. All in all,  
projection is not useful for assessing where political leaders are and  
where they're headed.

In contrast, quite a few on the left -- some from the outset of his  
presidential race, others beginning more recently -- express  
appreciable disdain for the Obama campaign. The critiques of Obama's  
positions on issues are often on the mark. Overall, the fact that  
Obama brings civility and intelligence to public discourse that would  
be a welcome change in the White House does not alter the corporate  
centrist core of his espoused policies.

No matter how much we might like to think that people's reasoning and  
logic are the essence of political judgments, actual experience tells  
us different: The political stances of many people, including on the  
left, are contoured around their own internal emotional terrain. And  
there may not be a lot of sorting through contradictions or analysis  
of the current historical circumstances.

Yet we're in great need of willingness to acknowledge contradictory  
truths, to sort through them as a means of finding the best  
progressive strategies for the here and now. While some attacks on  
Obama from the left are overheated, overly ideological and  
mechanistic, there's scant basis for denying the reality that his  
campaign and his positions are way too cozy with corporate power.  
Meanwhile, his embrace of escalating the war in Afghanistan reflects  
acceptance rather than rejection of what Martin Luther King Jr. called  
"the madness of militarism."

To some, who evidently see voting as an act of moral witness rather  
than pragmatic choice (even in a general election), forces such as  
corporate power or militarism are binary -- like a toggle switch --  
either totally on or totally off. This outlook says: either we reject  
entirely or we're complicit.

Such analysis tends to see Obama as just a little bit slower on the  
march to the same disasters that John McCain would lead us to. That  
analysis takes a long view -- but fails to see the profound importance  
of the crossroads right in front of us, where either Obama or McCain  
will be propelled into the White House.

Any progressive who watched the "faith" forum that Obama and McCain  
participated in on Aug. 16 would have good reasons to be negative when  
assessing some of Obama's answers. But McCain's responses were vastly  
more jingoistic, militaristic, fanatical and pro-corporate, while also  
making clear his enthusiasm for the worst of the current Supreme Court  
justices.

In an odd and ironic way, progressives who are unequivocal Obama  
boosters and unequivocal Obama bashers embrace similar concepts of  
limited alternatives in electoral work. They seem to rule out candidly  
critical support of a candidate -- viewing such an option as either a  
betrayal of the candidate or a betrayal of principles.

But supporting one candidate -- clearly preferable to the Republican  
--  should not require a lack of candor about the preferred  
candidate's defects. And progressive interests are not advanced by  
claiming, against the evidence, that it doesn't really matter which  
candidate wins.

We suffer from way too much political argumentation that seems to be  
on automatic pilot, either puffing up Obama as a paragon of  
progressive virtues or denying the real differences between him and  
McCain. The pretending that follows from faith or dogma is no way to  
mobilize a progressive movement.

Norman Solomon is an elected Obama delegate to the Democratic National  
Convention. His book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep  
Spinning Us to Death" has been adapted into a documentary film of the  
same name. He is a national co-chair of the Healthcare NOT Warfare  
campaign.



From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3595