Campaign 2008 & Strategizing Posted by Oaktown Girl, 29 Apr 2007 01:02 pm

How I came to support Barack Obama for President

By Patrick DeTemple

[A few weeks back, I met Patrick at a DFA gathering. I was surprised to hear he was already fully committed to the Barack Obama Presidential campaign. I, like most people who plan at some point to be involved, was (and still am) in the camp of “it’s way too early, and besides, I resent like hell that this thing is starting up so early - like Christmas decorations going up even before Halloween. No thank you!

Of course, I expressed my personal “Obama beefs” to Patrick in no uncertain terms - (#1 being his vote for the draconian bankruptcy bill). But mostly I was fascinated to hear how this seasoned, lifelong activist had come to his decision to commit so early and so completely. So I asked him if he’d share his story with us, and he was kind and gracious enough to take time out of his busy schedule to do so. Thank you, Patrick!
-Oaktown Girl: MOJ, WAAGNFNP.]

In 2004, reenergized by the Howard Dean challenge I was working hard to get John Kerry elected (mostly through data support to 527s via “Map The Vote” and later directly with ACT) and in July I found myself sitting in the Fleet Center with an old UFW organizer colleague, Artie Rodriguez and his family. I had no clue what to expect when Barack Obama took the stage. At the end of the mesmerizing speech that we’ve all now heard Artie and I spun towards each other with crazy grins on our faces and I said “now THAT’S who I want to vote for”. After that we all went back to work for Kerry…but with a little more energy than before.

Maybe the speech hit me (as for so many others) because no matter how hard I work on how many campaigns I always feel like a little bit of an outsider in the official Democratic Party. The reasons are simple: I have a decade’s long focus on issues of social class (which is not the same thing as making poverty less onerous) and a deep belief that politicians who don’t respect the common sense of ordinary people will deservedly get their ass kicked. Barack Obama placed himself in the middle – not of the political spectrum – but the middle of the people, and he spoke from the middle and he made sense. This isn’t the place to say why others don’t or can’t do that but let’s just say that it was unusually refreshing for all of us.

After the loss in ’04 I was not excited about our prospects. I’d voted for John Edwards (loved the ‘Two Americas’ stump speech) and fought to get him on the ticket but with those high expectations his performance was very disappointing. Hillary just reminded me of everything I didn’t like about Al From and the DLC – they make a cynical kind of sense if the only pieces in the game are inside the beltway and the rules consist of ‘things as they are’ but I’ve been an organizer most of my life and that life is built around the constantly tested premise of ‘things as they can be’…so I don’t have that much in common with those folks. Gloomy days.

Then a year later came Al Gore’s speech on Martin Luther King Day, January 2006, and I perked up. Yippee! Al is sounding smart, articulate, gutsy and he’s laying out the big picture with both intellectual integrity and passion – where was this man years ago? And so I began talking, hoping and agitating for Gore to step into the race. That enthusiasm changed in both positive and negative ways over the following months. Seeing him a few more times reminded me that he was still essentially the same Al Gore, the pretty limited candidate that I’d known in 2000 and 1988. On the other hand, his movie reminded me of the passionate, deeply committed thinker who’d written “Earth in the Balance” so long ago. So I was very happy to have Al back in the mix but doubtful about the candidacy.

For Barack I had only high hopes but, viewed from the perspective of politics as usual, Obama was clearly too young and inexperienced to be a serious contender, right? I mean Hillary already had all the money, the keys to the rest of it, the highest paid staff, the major donor bundlers either charmed or beaten into submission, a large disciplined operation that was the envy of all political operators and she still had Bill in reserve. As everyone said back then Hillary had already sucked the oxygen out of the room and nobody could challenge her except maybe Al with netroots support. And then I actually started listening to Barack Obama.

Last June at the “Take Back America” conference he gave a very atypical talk. While every other potential candidate roused the crowd this man who so clearly surpassed the rest in oratorical skill did nothing of the kind. To 1,000+ assembled staffers for nonprofits, elected officials and labor organizations he delivered a simple summary of our collective recent achievements , placed them in a useful context and ended with an anti-applause line like “You’re doing great work out there – let’s keep it up”. Hmmmm….I thought. He just addressed us as peers in a broader struggle. While many were disappointed that he didn’t give them the ‘goosebumps’ experience I was much more impressed that he had far higher goals. I understood that here was a man who understood how politicians, like artists, can become commodities and that was not to be his path. Hmmm…..

So I started watching, reading his books and listening to how he was framing his own process around the question of a presidential run. The core issue for me was that as a traditional candidate, accessing only existing sources of power, negotiating only through existing networks of friends and enemies, favors owed and blood debts to pay, Obama was a neophyte 4 to 8 years from his prime. On the other hand I’ve always understood that accepting the existing constraints was a losing game for anyone struggling for justice and social change, so it was with growing interest that I watched Obama frame his decision making process. While two sentences hardly do justice to a complex issue, here’s what he said while considering the run:

I certainly didn’t expect to find myself in this position a year ago,” Obama said in a video posting. “I’ve been struck by how hungry we all are for a different kind of politics. So I’ve spent some time thinking about how I could best advance the cause of change and progress that we so desperately need.

The themes that emerge again and again are the locus of analysis in the people, not the candidate and the need to transform the structure of power, not just assume a position of authority within the existing structure. Over, and over, and over again Obama talks about the need for mobilization, engagement, involvement – not to elect him but to change politics in this country. Over and over again he answers questions about specific policy solutions with ‘sure, here’s 3 great ideas to solve that problem and if all you do is elect me none of them will get done – you have to get engaged, mobilized etc. etc.’

I think it should be pretty clear by now that Barack Obama is not just running for president but that he also wants to “…best advance the cause of change and progress that we so desperately need” by sparking the social movement that is the prerequisite for any such change. To paraphrase the Oldsmobile ad ‘This is not you parent’s presidential candidate’.

Well, once that was clear then what the heck choice did I have? Let’s see, a lifetime of organizing on a foundation of class and Midwestern values and then along comes a community organizer applying precisely those core values and practices to national politics (and quite effectively I might add) and what am going to do? Sit it out? Ask him to fill out a questionnaire about my pet issues? No, I go on down to the recruiting station and ask them to point me towards the front lines and say goodbye to a normal life for the next year. Not everyone feels the call to struggle for a better world – but for those who do I’d suggest taking a real hard look at this phenomenon, doing a ‘gut check’ and then making a decision.

And a phenomenon it is. Since getting involved in the campaign I’ve been repeatedly humbled by the outpouring of support, enthusiasm…by the raw hope that the Obama candidacy evokes in people who have been marginalized or burned by electoral politics. Independents, some Republicans, disaffected Democrats are responding to the call that this is not just about voting and money but about revitalizing our democracy. We put 50 Obama volunteers on the street in East Oakland for EarthDay and are trying to compile a record of the hundreds of moving stories that that presence evoked in an otherwise somewhat politically jaded community. The liberal enclaves are, in fact, the strongest bastions of cynicism that I’ve found to date – places where so many (like our DLC friends) have couched the defeat of their own ideals in terms of ‘inevitability’ and ‘political realism’ and who fear the call to struggle for the pain that past disappointment once brought them.

Well, enough of that. It’s a new day, the indisputable evidence is rolling in. More money raised from a broader base than any candidate in US history (yes, that should sink in), nearly every poll in the country for the past few months showing Obama beating the GOP field in head to head races, mass crowds of 10, 15, 20,000 people everywhere in the country. And in the middle of it all a candidate who is not just a candidate - a politician who, for the first time in generations deserves to be described as a leader.

All the cries that “America will never elect a Black man”, “The electronic voting machines are rigged and it doesn’t matter what we do” or “If he ever looks like he’d win then they’d kill him!”…all these and more are just fitful muttered protests of those whose political sleep has been troubled by the sound of something really happening out there. I understand your reluctance but it’s time to wake up and get to work. The price of passivity has become unbearable and it’s time for us to be the makers of our own collective future again. If protest is registering a complaint about the way things are while struggle means to engage in a contest whose outcome is in doubt until the very end then protest is over and the time for struggle is now… and Mr. Obama is inviting us to join him in that very activity.

And that’s how I came to support Barack Obama.

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Responses to “How I came to support Barack Obama for President”

  1. on 30 Apr 2007 at 8:08 am 1. christian h. said …

    I am sure Obama would make a good president, as far as presidents go. I just don’t see him transforming the power structure, or, to be honest, even trying very hard. I firmly believe that it’s impossible to run for office as a Democrat and do that. This is the same for all the Democratic candidates, of course.
    As an outsider (with no vote either), my main hope is that the Democratic campaign will engage in the rhetoric of class struggle (not the practice - no chance of that), which means hoping Edwards will stay in the race for a long time. This at least could help break the delusion that such a thing as class doesn’t exist, a necessary prerequisite for the formation of class conciousness.
    And in that respect, I don’t like Obama’s inclusive rhetoric. We are not all in this together.

  2. on 30 Apr 2007 at 9:10 am 2. Patrick DeTemple said …

    I completely agree that Barack Obama cannot transform the structure of political power in this country. The structure is a reflection of the actual balance of power. As organized labor became institutionalized, atrophied,weakened and then dismembered, as the movements of the 60s and 70s morphed into direct-mail businesses with attached lobbyists or were reduced to a handful of ‘gatekeeper/spokespeople for the community media personalities’the balance of real power has shifted against us - I know it’s vastly more complex than that but I believe that causality runs mostly from power to structure and not the other way around. In that sense it would be an idealist fantasy to think that any political leader could transform a power structure.

    What political leaders can do, however, is open the doors to mobilizations that can begin to alter the existing balance of power - that can then be reflected in structural change. It has happened a dozen times in our history - our finest moments. When Obama says “electing me won’t mean a thing if you don’t get mobilized etc.” the invitation is pretty clear. The next move is up to us.

    Regarding the rhetoric of inclusivity I have to disagree. Whether the date is 1775, 1860, 1934 or 1956 - our best leaders have always addressed the entire people on the assumption of our shared values and aspirations. I think that Obama is hitting that note just right. At stake is the question: who owns the fundamental narrative of this country’s history? It is up to the enemies of those core values to define themselves as outside of that great American narrative. To give up on that, to position ourselves in any way as outsiders has been the instinctive suicidal tendency of the left for generations.

  3. on 30 Apr 2007 at 9:43 am 3. Seattle said …

    Damn Romantics. They’re everywhere-on the left, on the right, hiding in the shadows, in the light. Hey, I feel a song lyric coming on. In the end we either engage at some level or sit back and complain that no candidate is good enough, meets all the criteria, so we’re just not going to play. Or is that just middle age I hear talking? Combo of both? What I find impressive about this post is the depth of analysis Patrick has put into his choice.

  4. on 30 Apr 2007 at 9:54 am 4. spyder said …

    who owns the fundamental narrative of this country’s history? And whatever you do, don’t let factual evidence and primary source materials speak for themselves in the process.

    This question further begs Lewis Lapham’s recent Harper’s editorial on the death of Schlesinger and historiography. It begins with a quote from Cicero (he who was beheaded, had his right hand nailed to the Senate oratory podium, and his tongue torn out and pieced with Senators’ hair pins):

    Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child.

    Well, i grant that the American Soul is dying a slow painful tortured death, at the hands of an oligarchy (one that has endured since the colonial days) bent on sustaining its wealth and power regardless of the fragility and decline of the Earth’s ecosystems. What this has to do with those working from the outside, and those trying to change it from the inside, doesn’t seem to really matter in the long run; regardless of the blips of Transcendental Renewals and Great Awakenings and Populist movements, not much has ever really changed at all.

    Politically, i am a radical anarchist and don’t care at all about Obama (or any of the others at this point); philosophically i am a phenomenological deep ecologist, though twisted by a healthy dose of continentalism’s structuralists and post-modernists; physiologically, i study the neuro-chemical interactions of neurotransmitters on human consciousness (wherein i evaluate human religiosity); and socially, i hold that collaborative compassionate efforts with the whole of the Earth reduces and alleviates suffering. Therefore, this sort of political evangelizing for one candidate makes vastly far less sense than say, Chris Clarke’s incessent hiking up and down Mt Diablo.

  5. on 30 Apr 2007 at 10:27 am 5. Oaktown Girl said …

    spyder - I think it hardly fair to call it “political evangelizing” when it was I that asked him to share how he came to join the Obama campaign.

    I encourage everyone to share about what they are doing as citizens and activists, and how they came to do it. I think more often than not it’s informative and adds to the content and quality of discussion.

  6. on 30 Apr 2007 at 11:01 am 6. Patrick DeTemple said …

    For me the electoral world is just one facet of the relations of power, awareness, and whatever label you want to put on the positiveness that we see around us (will to power, authenticity, freedom, love, consciousness, the Holy Spirit - everyone’s got a name for it). However, the question of electing a President - and most importantly the movement and possibilities that the process invites is too important to concede to the dark side. And I mean too important to those other facets of power, awareness etc. You give up on politics and you lose a lot more than politics. Lord knows it’s often hard to engage in the electoral thing with a straight face and usually we only go so far as to work against something (’I don’t like Kerry but I’ll work like hell to get rid of these evil tools becaue they’re destroying people’s possibilities’ etc.) but every now and then I feel like there’s a chance to engage more positively.

    And yes, I suppose I’m a romantic. Constant testing, however, has made it a not overly naive romanticism.
    The best I’ve ever known have been the most worldly people who retained their hope- and I aspire to that. And that’s all this post is really asking people to do - consider the possibility that hope in this context would not be in vain.

    Besides, a lot of us are like musicians always looking for a groove. Up on the Berkeley campus there used to be 2 pretty regular drumming groups - the ‘traditionalists’ who’d be laying down a pretty disciplined guaguanco or whatever and the ‘thunder drummers’ who’d be banging away somewhat more randomly. It’s easier to be a ‘thunder drummer’ but if you sucked it up and accepted some constraints you could eventually fly a whole lot higher with the disciplined folks….and that Barack Obama is laying down a truly intriguing foundation…but we won’t know what it can do unless we start playing.

  7. on 30 Apr 2007 at 11:27 am 7. spyder said …

    I think it hardly fair to call it “political evangelizing”
    Well, could we fairly call it “political witnessing?”

    Sure maybe i am just grousing and being grumpy about it all, but after sets of political assassinations over the last fifty years (actual murders and character defamations, and so many of them in Spring too) this sort of stuff just rings hollow to me. If Obama is really a serious agent of change, he too won’t last long. If on the other hand, he is playing one on TV (like all the rest), then he doesn’t matter. Cynical?? Absolutely! But that too is a political opinion worthy of sharing and some modest degree of respect.

    Is it cynical or disassociative to accept at face value the Iraqi’s lament that their lives were better off under Saddam??? Russians, on the whole, say they are much better off under Putin, than they were under Yeltsin or even Gorby; are they confused and misguided?? The expansion of privitization of capital and property (mostly to the military corporations) in China is welcomed by the masses, is that due to craven self-interest?? All three of the above governments are (or were) harsh extreme oppressions upon classically liberal thinking and on the free expression of the peoples.

    New Orleans still lays in ruins as we turn toward another major hurricane season, and it certainly seems to me that most of the people in this country just don’t give a damn; hell nearly 30% think it is all good. I spent a good part of the 1970’s working on American Indian issues from the perspective of the US Senate, and still most people in the US (even most of those good and wonderful liberals) don’t give a damn; and that 30% thinks that is also all good. Unfortunately, buried in that 30% are the 1% that viscerally control the vast majority of the wealth and assets of this nation (don’t you just love the Dow over 13k?).

  8. on 30 Apr 2007 at 11:46 am 8. spyder said …

    Okay, i couldn’t have asked for anything like the following to get me out of the funk. And in some ways it ties together both this thread, that disgusting 30%, and the WAAGNFNP.

    Breaking News from the Ministry of Offense and Defense

    Crazed, religiously-challenged, white zealots have laid claim to our most precious High Authority Gojira. The MOOAD has dispatched the cadres of investigators to determine the threat and to analyze proper retaliatory actions. Be advised we are on alert and the Hounds are poised, ready to be released.

    Hillary: Republicans are Rike Godzirra! screams the headline. The insults to all of those included in our Beloved Party are then piled up on top of one another.

    Hispanic: What is it about us always having to care for peoples’ lawns? Si?

    Irish: What is it about us always having to drink our breakfast? Republicans will have that effect on people. Faith and begorrah! Cheers!

    Indian: Everybody who knows me knows that my favorite ”Simpsons” character is Apu.

    Native American: Me need vote and heap big wampum to defeat right-wing white man.

    German: Vee neet to zay nein to zees Republikans who vant to make it illekel to have zee abortion!

    Sicilian: Either your brains or your vote will be on this ballot.

    Italian: What’s-a da deal with us always having to cook-a da pasta for everybody?

    Arab: OK, what I meant by that was this: oil profits are bad – but only if they’re donated to a Republican.

    Swedish: Just the other day I was having dinner with ABBA …

    Chinese: Vote for me, this no joke, me not put pee pee in your Coke.

    Canadian: What is it with us always having to do da kick-saves, eh?

    California: Duuude, don’t bogart a woman’s right to choose.

    Japanese: Repubricans are rike Godzirra – they must be stopped.

    spyder
    Minister of Defense and Offense
    Ministry of Offense and Defense
    WAAGNFNP

  9. on 30 Apr 2007 at 12:47 pm 9. Sven DiMilo said …

    As a Swede, I resent the linkage to (shudder) ABBA.

    As for Obama, yes he sez some good stuff, but anybody who makes that big a deal out of his Faith in God is living in a fantasy world.

    Realist To Be Named Later for President!

    [Or maybe it’s time to resurrect Wavy Gravy’s old slogans: Who will get us the hell out of Iraq? Nobody! Who will do something about government-sponsored habitat rape? Nobody! (etc. etc.)

    Nobody for President!!!]

  10. on 30 Apr 2007 at 12:57 pm 10. Seattle said …

    Somebody I know said to me, “Do you know why there so few black male leaders these days? We aren’t stupid-we saw what happened to the leaders of the 1960s. They mostly got killed.” So everyone holds their breath when a Barack Obama comes along, wondering if he’ll survive the political process at a very basic level. Even our fiction reinforces the concept-what happened at the end of the second season of “24″? The black president was assasinated. Which was when I stopped watching that DVD set.

  11. on 30 Apr 2007 at 2:38 pm 11. Patrick DeTemple said …

    The thing is that everyone on this post is wise enough to know the invariable answer to the defeatist line of thought: start fighting! Whether it’s Obama, Edwards, even Hillary - or if there’s some other method for connecting to a genuinely broad base in struggle. It’s always been the answer, always will be. We all know it. People in a fight aren’t depressed and cynical or immobilized by visions of defeat. It’s not that those are irrational or baseless perspectives - it’s just that they aren’t helpful. It’s not about Obama - you all know what to do. Come on! The discussion of ‘what to do next?’ is so much more interesting than ’should we do anything?’ or worse ‘why we shouldn’t do anything’.

  12. on 30 Apr 2007 at 3:03 pm 12. christian h. said …

    Indeed, the answer is to work harder. Nevertheless, it’s of course reasonable to discuss how to fight, and what for. It’s not that I particularly dislike Obama. I just don’t see myself spend any energy on getting Democrats elected to any office.
    As I noted before, for me, this primary campaign more than any since the collapse of the Soviet Union is an opportunity to broaden the range of acceptable debate, on issue like class struggle, Imperialism, racism and sexism. For that, the mix of candidates is almost perfect. The election itself is of marginal interest to me.

  13. on 30 Apr 2007 at 3:45 pm 13. Patrick DeTemple said …

    Fair enough. Then the question is: if the Obama campaign can overcome the next organizational hurdle of turning the potential mobilized base into a real one (that might just be broader, more diverse etc. than anything we’ve ever seen in electoral politics)how will you orient to that base - if at all? Principled abstention (a la NPA vis a vis Cory)?, Critical support? Question is coming soon.

  14. on 30 Apr 2007 at 3:49 pm 14. Oaktown Girl said …

    The election itself is of marginal interest to me.

    Yes, and that is an incredibly privileged position in which to be.

    As much as people like to say “Democrat/ Republican, Coke/Pepsi – it’s all the same”, the reality is that the person holding the office of President makes an incredible difference to the everyday lives of millions of people, most of them women.

  15. on 30 Apr 2007 at 3:53 pm 15. James Killus said …

    One of the ways that people strive to keep their sanity during times of insanity is to disengage. I understand that; I really do.

    But let’s not delude ourselves here. Disengagement is disengagement and it’s not a virtue to rationalize it as something else. When I first moved to Berkeley, I heard many a hipster (archaicism used with malicious intent) opining that there was no real difference between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., one of the stupidest fucking opinions I’ve ever heard. But that was a simple time, and the choice for President was between Ford and Carter. Besides, the “Nobody for President” campaign was fun, although I was on the bandwagon for George Papoon.

    But the Ford wing of the Republican party is long gone, devoured by malignant thugs who would be right at home as commissars, provided the Party dropped Marx from the letterhead and replaced him with Christ, in name only, of course, since they have a decidedly different opinion about money changers, among other things.

    This isn’t a time for utopian yearnings and too-pure-to-be-of-this-world philosophy. I’ve thought long and heard about who I want to replace George W. Bush and it comes down to this: is he or she going to be better than a psychotic gerbil? That’s the standard that W. has set, psychotic gerbil, yes or no? And there is no Republican candidate at the moment who passes the better-than-a-psychotic-gerbil test, because every goddamn one of them is pandering to the same base of 33% of the country that will support Bush until hell freezes over so long as they think there’s a chance he’ll round up all the liberals (plus me) and put us all in Gitmo, or better still, just push the Big Button and let God sort ‘em all out. The psychotic gerbil isn’t heavy enough to push The Button, you see, so there’s another thing in his favor; that and his sophisticated views of foreign policy.

    So I don’t have any problems, myself. I registered Republican long ago, so I could vote against Reagan in every Primary he was in from that point onward, which means I voted against the guy more times than just about anyone, for all the good that did any of us. And The Republicans send me all the secret info about how they’re going to scam the next election and that’s pretty interesting too. But that means I don’t have to decide on Obama, or Hillary, or Edwards, or Richardson, or whoever. I just know that none of them fails the psychotic gerbil test, and damn the lot of us for not lynching Nader or Delay when it would have done some good.

  16. on 30 Apr 2007 at 3:58 pm 16. christian h. said …

    Yes, and that is an incredibly privileged position in which to be.

    I was talking about the primary. I may be a Trotskyite, but I’d still prefer a Democrat win the presidency. Anyway, more later, gotta run.

  17. on 30 Apr 2007 at 4:09 pm 17. Liam said …

    I thought this line was great:‘sure, here’s 3 great ideas to solve that problem and if all you do is elect me none of them will get done – you have to get engaged, mobilized etc. etc.’ But I am a little hazy on what exactly Obama is asking for. Even after poking around on his website, I still don’t know exactly what stuck out to you. Furthermore, how is Obama opening doors to a new political structure that candidates haven’t done for a while. For example, JFK’s most-quoted line: “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

  18. on 30 Apr 2007 at 4:49 pm 18. Patrick DeTemple said …

    In reply to Liam’s question about what stuck out for me: two things - 1) listening to him. On the website check out the speeches, not the short little clips with the music but the full length ones. There are a lot there. While there’s some repetition you’ll start to get the idea of something considerably deeper than either the media analysis or the any summary statement emanating from the campaign. The Springfield announcement, the Selma speech, etc. listen to a lot of them and the books of course, esp. “Dreams of my Father” - that’s where it sinks in that for 3 years this guy got up every morning and thought ‘how can I be the best community organizer around?’ with all that implies re/ the focus on leadership development, working yourself out of a job, mobilizing latent power etc.. 2)get around some of the people that are drawn to the campaign. It’s weird. Really sane, regular people - very diverse bunch. Not much attitude, mostly pretty turned off by politics in general. They really see him as a possibility and are taking the invitation to help out seriously. Diverse age groups too. Just being surrounded by people like that - and I’ll bet you’ll find them in Obama groups in most communities - changes your perspective. You know how on some campaigns you do the work but you kind of put up with a lot of the people drawn to the issue? Well this one really isn’t like that. I Don’t really have a clear explanation for it.
    In a similar vein, the campaign staff is both younger, smarter and more flexible than most I’ve dealt with…and totally dedicated to the uniqueness of this campaign. Real life is, of course, rough on idealism but I’d say we’re off to a decent start.

  19. on 30 Apr 2007 at 6:24 pm 19. christian h. said …

    Seems like I missed some of the fun. Anyway, James, I understand your urge to frame the debate, but nobody here is “disengaging”.
    And when some didn’t see a difference between the Soviet Union and the United States, they were certainly wrong as far as the methods of internal control are concerned - they are much more benign in the US - but surely there wasn’t much difference in external, violent oppression. It amazes me how many people in the Western world manage to ignore the externalization of violent, brutal exploitation done in their names. From the point of view of, say, a citizen of Angola, or Namibia, or Mozambique in the seventies and eighties it was perfectly rational to conclude that the Soviet Union was on their side, while the US was on the side of their torturers.

    I am happy to support concrete policies that move us forward and strengthen the working class. I won’t support the party of NAFTA, Plan Colombia, welfare “reform”, Vietnam, hawkishness on Iran, a larger army (Obama supports it),… .
    Should Obama’s campaign in fact result in a movement that goes beyond things like DFA or MoveOn, I’ll consider my position towards it. I doubt it, but if so, all the better.

  20. on 30 Apr 2007 at 8:29 pm 20. James Killus said …

    Oh, come on, christian h, you can do better than that. Angola? Namimbia? Mozambique? Try Cuba, Chile, The Dominican Republic, Nicaragua. For those, at least, the lines are clearly drawn, without all that European Colonial Crap muddying the waters.

    But truly, I’m always a bit torn when in the presence of Trotskyites. On the one hand, there’s the sense of not wanting to tamper with rara avis, and on the other hand, the wondering what it’s like to be (in the words of an old Red Diaper friend) in favor of socialism everywhere but those places where it actually occurs.

    Still, no matter. Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

  21. on 30 Apr 2007 at 8:58 pm 21. spyder said …

    the reality is that the person holding the office of President makes an incredible difference to the everyday lives of millions of people, most of them women.

    Back in the days of my idealized youth, i made the effort to do all those things that were thought to have made a real difference, from the inside. I worked for one of the most radically progressive Senators of his time, i worked as a community organizer for the Tom Hayden for Senate campaign, i paid my dues in the trenches while trying to be a grad student and young professor. I learned one thing; it isn’t about the President; it is about the city council, the local courts, the county commissioners, and so forth. If you really want to fight the good fight, and engage and charge forward, then push from the bottom up with at least equal fortitude. Nothing good is accomplished from the top down (yes a giant generalization based on my life experiences), but so much gets done from the bottom up. I work every day on local issues, using the system to facilitate antidotes to the evils prepetrated by Clinton, Bushco, and the neo-feudal lords of capital that support them.

  22. on 30 Apr 2007 at 10:23 pm 22. Oaktown Girl said …

    I learned one thing; it isn’t about the President; it is about the city council, the local courts, the county commissioners, and so forth.

    It’s about both. People can walk and chew gum at the same time, and trust me, they are. One of my reasons for optimism is that people over the last few years are really starting to understand just how important the local offices are, and they are moving on it and getting organized and teaching others. We’re 35-40 years behind the Republicans on this of course, but we are catching up at a rate that has the GOP more than a little nervous.

  23. on 30 Apr 2007 at 10:45 pm 23. JP Stormcrow said …

    I will say that I have been in Christmas decorations going up even before Halloween mode. Do not know if that is healthy or not, and I do realize that I am basically operating in oppositional mode to the current criminal syndicate. This is undoubtedly too tactically focused, so I do appreciate Patrick (and others like him) who are out working in the reality that not only won’t Nobody be on the ballot, neither will Generic Non-Criminal Sane Person. However, I will be “conservative” in this time period, as what I absolutely require in any candidate is the ability to expand on the beachhead established in the 2006 elections. Once again, maybe the time is right for a bold Democratic electoral strategy and maybe Obama is the one to do it, but I remain as yet unconvinced (and like Oaktown things like the Bankruptcy vote certainly dampen my enthusiasm.)

    But I do appreciate the write-up and it does seem that to some extent you yourself are somewhat surprised by your early “enlistment”. I do loathe the media narratives that get tested and developed during this phase and I find that I have to consciously work at not letting them frame my thinking - but it is good to be reminded that those distractions will always be there - and there are avenues to just listen to the candidate’s words directly.

  24. on 01 May 2007 at 8:38 am 24. The Constructivist said …

    Before I gave a talk at the Japan-America Society of Fukuoka on the prospects for U.S. foreign policy in Asia following the 2006 elections, the organizer of the talk asked me if the poster I blog about here advertising the talk was to my liking. Was it ever! If you want to see how I ran with his “Return of the Democrats”/Hillary as Leia/Barack as Luke/Edwards as Han Solo act of genius, click here for the .pdf version of the talk. This post goes some way to persuading me that Obama and Clinton are not ideological twins separated at birth, but I’ll need more convincing.

    To wit: how are the senators and ex-senator reacting to Kucinich’s articles of impeachment on Cheney?

  25. on 01 May 2007 at 8:48 am 25. The Constructivist said …

    Oh, and in response to the idiot spyder quoted in #8, my few encounters with Japan’s elite in Fukuoka and my many conversations with my wife have convinced me that Japan’s business and political leaders are far more comfortable with Republicans running the U.S than Democrats. Even though Japan-bashing began under Reagan and the elder Bush, many buy the narrative that Clinton’s first term represented the low-point of post-Occupation Japan-U.S. relations. And they look at the work of Honda and MI congresspeople as the beginning of more bad news for the Japanese government and multinational corporations. Never mind that any Democrat I imagine as President wouldn’t be anti-Kyoto and would push for gas mileage standards that would benefit Asian car-makers or that Democrats are more likely to raise human-rights issues with China after the Olympics than pro-corporate Republicans. Or that Democrats are more likely to make their key ally just a little less hated in the world.

    I know, the idiot was probably referencing Japanese-Americans, most of whom can trace their ancestry in the U.S. back farther than he is likely to be able to. Whatevah!

  26. on 01 May 2007 at 9:02 am 26. Seattle said …

    I think it would be great if we got an update from Patrick a little further into the campaign. The evolving run for pres. of Barack Obama from his perspective.

  27. on 01 May 2007 at 9:18 am 27. Seattle said …

    I lived in Japan during the Reagan-Carter presidential campaign. It was the first election I voted in, and the first presidential candidate who lost even though I voted for him (put me in my place THAT did…) I was annoyed that people kept asking me who I supported, being as I was 18 and considered that a private issue. Everyone who asked me about the campaign supported Reagan. Why? He was strong on defense. Carter had demonstrated himself to be weak. Etc., etc.

  28. on 01 May 2007 at 9:29 am 28. The Constructivist said …

    I’m glad you got to vote. Either the local election board or post office screwed up and sent me my absentee ballot months late!

    BTW, I have to admit Hillary did a great job winning over “upstate NY” (no, not Westchester County, NYCers), which leans pretty heavily Republican outside the bigger cities and college towns. But probably global warming will do more to revitalize my neck of the woods than Chuck and Hillary combined!

    When I get back in the States in August, I’ll be quite interested in hearing from my students what they think of the contenders. And from my WNY union and Democratic Party connections. My position as a registered Democrat right now is “anyone but Hillary” (well, except Kerry or Gore) just so she gets pushed as hard and as far as possible during the pre-primary season. With everyone moving their primary votes up, it seems, we’re locking ourselves into 2007 being about the race for the nomination and 2008 about the race for the presidency. Why?!

  29. on 01 May 2007 at 10:33 am 29. James Killus said …

    There is still a fairly strong legacy vote for Republicans among Japanese-Americans; I don’t know how that translates to Japan itself. The legacy contingent is due to the creation of an entire generation of Japanese Republicans after WWII, after they’d been released from the internment camps set up by a Democratic Administration.

    This was, as christian h reminds us, an entirely rational thing for Japanese-Americans to do. The fact that Eisenhower was President during their time of entering politics did not hurt.

  30. on 01 May 2007 at 11:21 am 30. The Constructivist said …

    Even after this Bush, I wonder?

  31. on 01 May 2007 at 2:37 pm 31. Seattle said …

    Yes, well, back under Carter, the absentee ballots arrived on time, if not the hostages…. ; )

  32. on 01 May 2007 at 5:27 pm 32. Oaktown Girl said …

    I just wanted everyone to know that I invited Patrick to write this post. He did not click the “Submit a Post” button on his own. So any thought that he showed up to evangelized the gospel of Obama could not be farther from the truth.

    I invited Patrick to do this because regardless of my misgivings about Obama (and all the other candidates), I found it really intriguing that someone who’s been a lifelong activist, serious grassroots stuff both here and abroad, was now enthusiastically working for the Obama campaign. How could this guy not be so jaded that he just doesn’t wait to see who the candidate will be, then hold his nose and vote like most of the rest of us will? How could someone with his experience be attached to a Presidential campaign this early on?

    Anyway, I really wanted to hear more about that, and hear why he was so jazzed for this candidate. If Patrick had been someone who had just fallen off the turnip truck and had never been involved in activism or politics before, I would not have cared. But I was really interested to hear how someone with his background got from where he’s been to where he is now: volunteering for the Obama campaign with what little time he has outside of work and other life obligations. I find that sort of story just fascinating on a purely human level. But clearly that’s just me. The rest of you, at least the ones who left comments, not so much. As the kids today say, “My bad”.

    So after meeting and speaking with Patrick, I thought his story was an interesting one, and sold him on this “great new community blog” that we have here and asked him to write it up for us because, like I said, I thought other people would find it interesting too, regardless of the politics. I knew (and Patrick certainly knew) that he was going to take some flack for this. But my thinking was that in the comments people would move beyond their frustrations (highly justified, of course) over Presidential campaigns and electoral politics in general and get to a discussion of issues, or ask him details about what he’s doing exactly, or maybe that they’d be inspired to share about someone or something that inspires/inspired them to action like Obama has inspired Patrick. Or that like me they’d simply find his story interesting, regardless if they agreed or not with his choice of candidate or his choice of where to put his activist energy.

    So anyway, thank you Patrick for contributing to our blog. I really appreciate you taking the time, and I thought it was a fabulous write up.

  33. on 01 May 2007 at 7:27 pm 33. The Constructivist said …

    Oaktown Girl, I think you made the right call. It never hurts to hear why someone is excited about a candidate–although I’m still waiting for an answer to my impeach Cheney question (yeah, I’m seriously thinking of wasting my primary vote on Kucinich again)….

    Probably at TPMCafe or Firedoglake or Hullabaloo or other more party-affiliated blogs this would have sparked a 500-comment thread. Actually, I’d love to see that happen, secure in the knowledge that we heard Patrick’s perspective first!

  34. on 02 May 2007 at 12:42 pm 34. Patrick DeTemple said …

    It’s been a pleasure participating in this blog and I didn’t mind the sharpness of some of the comments at all. It took me 4 electoral cycles to even vote for a democrat so I’m familiar with the sentiments. I do want to underline one thing. I’m not viewing Barack Obama as a savior or even as my team to root for in the great electoral playoffs. Obama got me on board because he indicated that he shared a perspective on power, where it belongs, a common concern about the degeneration of the pre-conditions for democracy (e.g. increasing class polarization)and within the contradictory universe of elected office and candidacy (i.e. phenomenal visibility, potential to inspire, significant executive power, vs. remarkably persistent constraints such as the responsibilities that come with being commander in chief of the greatest military force in world history)he is willing to do his best and would like help. I’m not always going to agree with him but that’s trivial if we’re basically pushing in the same direction and he has created an opening for people’s increased consciousness and engagement. The inspirational stuff is the opener not the object of the candidacy….to quote that great inspirational leader Joe Strummer “London Calling now don’t look to us. Phony beatlemania has bitten the dust…” Hope to continue the dialogue some day and thanks Oaktown Girl and Christian for the opportunity.

  35. on 02 May 2007 at 3:11 pm 35. JP Stormcrow said …

    Thanks for the post.

    I was thinking about TC’s comment on how this would have likely played out on some of the bigger more “party”-oriented blogs, as well as my observations of the primary stuff to date and how it worked (or didn’t) in 2004, and it is clear to me that the whole Primary side of things is a delicate business that the blogs struggle with mightily. (A trip through Kos on probably any day between now and whenever it is decided will bear that out.)

    The ability to have any reasonable discussion on questions such as you pose, “How I came to support X?” is almost always swamped by partisan bickering and suspicion. I almost feel there should be a blog which only takes posts from folks who have committed to one candidate or another, so that you get that out of the way right up front - and anyone reading knows and understands that - and then the writer is basically saying “within that context I would like to discuss subject xyz”. Still probably hard to do, the persuasive and analytical rhetorical stances do not work very well together, even though one hopes that any decision to adopt the former is based on a compelling and honest analysis. But with attention being the scarce resource in political campaigns (and the Internet) just the request to read anything period associated with a particular candidate is interpreted (rightly or wrongly) as a persuasive act that many view as requiring overt challenge.

  36. on 02 May 2007 at 4:47 pm 36. christian h. said …

    Many thanks to Patrick for his post - which I enjoyed, even if my comments may have given a different impression; and to MoJ Oaktown Girl for persuading him to write it for us. Maybe I should say that I certainly hope Patrick is right and this campaign - or any campaign, for that matter - leads to a broad, popular movement for progressive change.

  37. on 03 May 2007 at 8:03 am 37. spyder said …

    I think veiled (or not) in my snarky cynicism was a sensation of déjà vu all over again. I can’t really apologize for that, although this process has reawakened many of those questions and for that i am appreciative and grateful for the efforts of Oaktown Girl and Patrick to provide this post and thread. I suppose i am just too jaded by it all, to be less than skeptical about a charismatic renovation of the same core values of the American Soul for a political campaign that should, need, be essential common sense. Sadly, i just haven’t seen something that Patrick has said that is different now than it was then. As christian says: “I certainly hope… this campaign leads to a broad, popular movement for progressive change.” We have had broad popular movements for progressive change, exponentially more dynamic and powerful than anything that could possibly happen in this campaign cycle, and while they did facilitate modicums of change for the better, they were essentially bought out, and then crushed. And is that what this is about?

  38. on 03 May 2007 at 12:31 pm 38. The Constructivist said …

    There’s a new blog called Democrats Now that may be of interest to those who like, pardon the expression, Inside Baseball. In his most recent post there, Andrew Levine seconds our own Peter Ramus, who like JP and me, also posts at Mostly Harmless. It’s things like this (and what spyder refers to above) that make me torn between Edwards and Obama and willing to wait to commit until I get back to the States in August.

  39. on 04 May 2007 at 12:26 am 39. Colin said …

    While, I’m not as enraptured as Patrick seems to be, I too have been quickly swayed to the Obama side after seeing him speak. Hell I may even end up doing some campaign work too. If so it would be the first Democractic campaign work i’ve ever done (rather than Green).

    His message of hope rather than fear is really what grabbed me. If elected, I’m betting he’ll pass some bill that I hate, but in the very least he’d be able to give a damn good speech. I’d love to be able to watch our state of the union and marvel at the president’s oratory skills rather than hang my head in shame.