After Hope

[davidswanson]

John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, has a new book out called "You Can't Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America." Sort of an odd topic at the very moment that we're expecting to elect the first African-American president. But this is probably going to be a very valuable book for a lot of people to read on November 5th, if McCain wins, if McCain steals it, and -- especially -- if Obama wins the White House.

While I spend most of my life complaining about eternal election seasons, this really is an appropriate election season right now, and there really is a need not to elect anyone as crazy as McCain or Palin, and it really does make sense to obsess over electoral work and election protection work during the coming weeks. But when that's over and we can all think straight again, we will have to build a movement to compel our government to do what we want. When, for the first time in years, we defeated the forces of money, party, and media in the first House vote on Paulson's Plunder, our victory lasted a week. We have to be stronger, better informed, better organized, and more serious about our most important roles as citizens, which begin after elections, regardless of who wins them.

If we are going to have any influence on a President Obama, we are going to have to understand what he intends to do if left to his own devices. Debating Senator McCain, Obama declares that he will end the occupation of Iraq, which he calls a "war." But here's an interesting passage from MacArthur's book:

"Obama's campaign had attracted great numbers of antiwar Democrats with his proposal to withdraw all combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of his inauguration as president. But there were signs that Obama's utterly conventional foreign-policy entourage -- led by Bill Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake -- didn't really believe their candidate's declarations on Iraq. A former Latin American foreign minister who knows Lake told me privately, 'If Obama is elected you're not leaving Iraq. He'll draw big crowds in the Third World, like Kennedy in Berlin, which will be good for America's image abroad. But you're not getting out of Iraq."

Plenty of other comments from the candidate and his staff confirm this prediction. At best, Obama plans to decrease the U.S. presence in Iraq while increasing it in Afghanistan and elsewhere, enlarging the overall imperial forces with which to pursue such occupations. While that is not -- let me stress v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y -- a reason to vote for McCain, it is a reason not to take the last three weeks of November or the month of December off. This will be the most important time ever for the peace movement to be organized and active.

"You Can't Be President" is an unusual book. The opening chapters suggest the same theme maintained in the title and the table of contents. I expected a list of legal or cultural barriers to entry in politics, followed perhaps by a set of recommendations to remove those barriers. The recommendations never materialize at all, and the middle chapters of the book wander off into accounts of local battles against big-box stores, and essays on the Horatio Alger myth, our segregated education system, corporate chain stores, corporate media, and militarism. They're all good topics very well handled, but I recommend more highly the opening and concluding chapters of the book.

Where MacArthur distinguishes himself is in his analysis of the damage done to democracy by parties. If the very topic offends you, please try setting this aside and reading it on November 5th. MacArthur is not interested in criticizing any particular party, much less promoting some "third party." His critique is simply of the power and influence now held by parties. This includes an account of the recent Democratic Party presidential primaries as a competition between the established party power of the Clintons and Obama's power in the Daley machine and in his ability to poach powerful Clintonites. These forces are apparently still battling. The Secretary of State of Nevada who ordered a recent raid on an ACORN office to challenge the registration of new voters there is not a Republican, but a Democrat apparently representing the concerns of resentful Clinton backers.

While MacArthur offers no prescriptions for limiting the power of parties, or money, or lobbyists, or the corporate media, or any other corrupting influences, he does manage to suggest some things as an essayist and a historian that may inspire action. There is a section of his fourth chapter that I would label "The Positive Shock Doctrine." MacArthur manages to point out a number of instances in our history when moments of crisis have allowed popular campaigns for progressive legislation and positive changes in government to succeed, notably including the Homestead Act and the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act of 1862 passed during the Civil War, during a burst of activity by Radical Republicans that saw legislation freeing slaves, prohibiting the return of slaves, abolishing slavery in Washington D.C. and territories, and passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, which had their full impact during a later positive shock: the Civil Rights Movement.

"It's fair to say," MacArthur says, "that most of the other outstandingly popular congressional legislation in American history took place during times of national upheaval, when the normal political order could not resist change."

There's that word: change. This may be the time for it. It's going to take a lot more than hope.

[evlbstrd]

1. Ya think anyone's seen this by now?

Give it a rest.

[davidswanson]

2. that one may take the prize for cryptic nasty comments

what exactly would you like to give a rest to?

[bigtree]

3. well, we'll likely see Obama, the conciliator, push as far as his Democratic (?) Congress

. . . is willing to go. I doubt we'll see much more than that from Obama on these major, controversial issues like Defense and the economy -- with, of course, the obligatory bending to filibustered compromises, if that's the state of the balance of power.

But, in areas of justice and civil rights, where Obama has the power to advance judges and to re-shape the hierarchy of the Justice Dept., I expect him to take a bold initiative.

And, it'll take a great deal of his attention to undo all of Bush's presidential overreaches and opportunism where Congress refused to confront him. That will take the kind of pressure on President Obama, that you describe, to ensure that he follows through on his promise to comb through it all.

[ReadTomPaine]

4. Our work *starts* with an Obama presidency..

If government isn't taken in hand by the populace and shaped into the instrument we want it to be it takes a life of its own and shapes the populace instead. This is especially true of American politics where it's all about conflict and control. By definition, politicians must be directed, like unruly children, to do the right thing. This is true even of Democrats. This isn't always a dignified process, indeed it's made difficult precisely because elected officials don't like to be told what to do, despite the nature of the profession centering around implementing the will of others and listening to a constituency.

Ironically, while nearly everyone in politics seems to understand this, few outside have grasped the full implications.

Government must be tamed. People like Bush are made to be broken and digested by the body politic. He should have been nothing more than a democratic candy bar - a quick snack for better candidates on the road to the presidency. Instead, we have an imperial presidency born from a political dynasty that should have been removed from the levers of power decades ago. In a real sense, we have the government we deserve.. or perhaps more precisely, the party we deserve. One cannot sit and hope that elected officials will do what you want. They must be compelled to do as the electorate wishes. That compulsion can take many forms, from national strikes and mass protests to blockades and strategic capital expenditures but in each case the actions require those involved to be willing to accept the sacrifices and consequences that will accompany such forceful measures. The resolution to all of this isn't going to be amicable.

No one escapes the septic DC environment intact. It's the job of the people, and formerly the media, to keep that infectious influence from becoming terminal illness. If we were a country of laws instead of men, then the institutions created to safeguard our nation from these abuses would be more powerful than those who would wish to corrupt it. Sadly, this is not the case. We are decidedly a government of men, as the Bush presidency proves beyond any shadow of a doubt. In light of this, the duty falls upon us to to effect the changes we wish to see by whatever methods are appropriate and effective, even when others may find them distasteful.

It’s said most great American literature revolves around what it means to be an America in one way or another. This preoccupation seems curious at first, but in actuality it illuminates a central paradox of our national character. The U.S. is not designed around rigid precepts that break when pressured or collapse when tainted by corrupting influence. The structure of our government is designed to enable both depots and egalitarians almost equally.

This open model of governance provides us with the building blocks for every type of political landscape, from dictatorship and corporatism to democracy and socialism. We are both saint and sinner, sometimes simultaneously. America is whatever you want it to be.

The framers recognized that in such an environment, apathy is toxic. As men of action and passion, they understood that you cannot turn your back on this country, in either sense of that phrase, and expect good to come of it. They wrote of this often.

Involvement is key. The good or the evil of a generation can be wiped away by purposeful, diligent hands, making all past achievements, no matter how great, subject to change. That was our founders’ gift to us, and their curse. We can remake ourselves from ashes, but at the same time, we can never be truly secure.

It seems the price for our freedom is indeed eternal vigilance.

[davidswanson]

5. yes

exactly

[ReadTomPaine]

6. It's always a pleasure to read your work, David...

:thumbsup:

[appal_jack]

8. a hopeful and realistic path

"Involvement is key... our founders’ gift to us, and their curse. We can remake ourselves from ashes, but at the same time, we can never be truly secure.

It seems the price for our freedom is indeed eternal vigilance."

I agree 100% that vigilance is essential. Electing both Obama and a solid Democratic majority of both houses of Congress is only step 1 of such a remaking that in order to complete will take least an eightfold path. Ideally, we are hearing from our candidates at all levels about the change that they will bring. But regardless of the abundance or lack of their plans at the Congressional level, we must demand that all our newly elected representatives come January begin to conform to OUR plans for a reinvigorated Constitution and an accountable and responsive government.

K&R

-app

[ReadTomPaine]

9. It's going to be a rough 8 years

Not only due to the GOP - who will obstruct every step of the way, but also because there will be a realignment in our own party. We are in for quite a ride.

[ReadTomPaine]

7. K&R