Obama's failure, a truth-telling tour, and a march on Washington, D.C.

This morning I read an opinion piece by Drew Westen that completely summed up the deep disappointment I feel in our president, Barack Obama.  I urge you to read all of it, but these two paragraphs frame Obama's failure.

When Dr. King spoke of the great arc bending toward justice, he did not  mean that we should wait for it to bend. He exhorted others to put their  full weight behind it, and he gave his life speaking with a voice that  cut through the blistering force of water cannons and the gnashing teeth  of police dogs. He preached the gospel of nonviolence, but he knew that  whether a bully hid behind a club or a poll tax, the only effective  response was to face the bully down, and to make the bully show his true  and repugnant face in public. 

IN contrast, when faced with the greatest economic crisis, the greatest  levels of economic inequality, and the greatest levels of corporate  influence on politics since the Depression, Barack Obama stared into the  eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the  people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of  it. He never explained that decision to the public — a failure in  storytelling as extraordinary as the failure in judgment behind it. Had  the president chosen to bend the arc of history, he would have told the  public the story of the destruction wrought by the dismantling of the  New Deal regulations that had protected them for more than half a  century. He would have offered them a counternarrative of how to fix the  problem other than the politics of appeasement, one that emphasized  creating economic demand and consumer confidence by putting consumers  back to work. He would have had to stare down those who had wrecked the  economy, and he would have had to tolerate their hatred if not welcome  it. But the arc of his temperament just didn’t bend that far.

 Tavis Smiley and Dr. Cornel West believe that Barack Obama is ignoring the plight of poor people.  They have launched The Poverty Tour: A Call to Conscience, to help wake this country up to what poor people have to go through every day, how their lives and the lives of their children have been stunted and cast aside.  Their inspiration also comes from Dr. Martin Luther King: "I choose to identify with the underprivileged, I choose to identify with  the poor, I choose to give my life for the hungry, I choose to give my  life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. .  .This is the way I’m going.  If it means suffering a little bit, I’m  going that way.  If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way.  If it  means dying for them, I’m going that way, because I heard a voice saying  “DO SOMETHING FOR OTHERS.”

Poor people are organizing on our own behalf, too-- not just in the small ways we do every day, but for major mobilizations.  The Assembly to End Poverty, which was formed from the poverty resolution at the 2010 United States Social Forum, is calling for a march on Washington, D.C. on June 30, 2012. I don't know yet how we're going to do it, but Arise, and poor people from all over Western Massachusetts, will be there.

We are fighting for our lives.

Photo from Racole's photostream from Flickr.

Damn civilians! They're undermining the war effort!

No, I'm not talking about the civilians from WikiLeaks, responsible for the 90,000 Afghan War documents the New York Times  published this morning, I'm talking about the 52 women, children and men who dared to get themselves killed on Friday when a NATO rocket smashed into the house where they were cowering, trying to get away from fighting between NATO Forces and Taliban fighters.  Didn't those civilians know they'd make us look bad, might make even more people question what the hell we're accomplishing in Afghanistan?

In mid-year a report issued this month by the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, every day for the last six months, six civilians are killed and eight are wounded, for a total of 1,074 civilians  killed and over 1,500 injured in armed violence from January 1st to June 30th.   We all have six family members and eight friends.   Is it easier to get our minds around the smaller figures?  Since this war began (and these are conservative figures) there have been between : 13,372 - 32,969 direct and indirect deaths (indirect meaning you're not an "impact death," you die later) and 18,000 - 44,000 people injured.  The population of Afghanistan is about 29,000,000, so that's a little more than one person in a thousand killed.  In my city of Springfield, that would be about 150 people killed and 180 injured.  What a crime wave!

Now NATO forces are only responsible for 40% of those casualties-- but I think we can say the war is responsible for all of them, as well as responsible for the nearly 2,000 Coalition deaths and 1,207 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan since the war began.

I suppose Obama will feel he's got to muddle through at least until his planned withdrawal begins in July, 2011, or he'll sound like a quitter-- although, does this sound like withdrawal to you?

"We didn't say we'd be switching off the lights and closing the door behind us," he said at the White House, a day after naming Gen David Petraeus as his new Afghan commander.
"We said we'd begin a transition phase that would allow the Afghan government to take more and more responsibility."

You can hear the words out of his own mouth at the BBC.

A win is a win is a loss

Well, I've been trying to write a decent post about the Scott Brown win yesterday and find I just can't do it. I think I'm already in the "Just deal with it" mode.

So let me just say two things I don't understand.

I don't understand how Pres. Obama and Congress have come up with a health care plan that's so incomprehensible that it can be misinterpreted at best and lied about at worst.  As Ernest Rutherford said, "If you can't explain your physics to a barmaid it is probably not very good physics."

I don't understand how the self-proclaimed "outraged, average Joe" voters of Massachusetts voters have come to think that the Republican party will even come close to representing their needs.  Does anyone remember the eight years of extravagant spending of George Bush on war?  Of course Obama inherited this, but he also continues it.  Would Scott Brown had won if he'd directed his outrage toward military spending?

"Don't ask, don't tell"-- Obama continues to disappoint

b"Syracuse, NY -- Lt. Dan Choi vowed Tuesday evening to fight to stay in the military after an Army board in Syracuse recommended he be the first person discharged from the New York National Guard for violating the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

A four-officer panel meeting at Hancock Air Base notified Choi at about 5 p.m. that it would recommend he be discharged because he has publicly said he is gay.

The recommendation now goes to Lt. Gen. Thomas Miller of the First Army Division, and Gen. Craig McKinley, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who will make the final decision.

"Today was a setback for me," Choi said at a 6:10 p.m. news conference. "I got in trouble for saying three words. 'I am gay.'"

But he said he refuses to lie about being involved in a relationship with another man. Choi said the relationship has made him a better person, a better Christian and a better officer.

Choi, an Arabic-speaking officer who served for 15 months in Iraq as a member of Fort Drum's 10th Mountain Division before joining a New York National Guard unit based in Manhattan, said he would appeal to the higher-ranking officers to stay in the National Guard.

There is no deadline for a final decision in Choi's case." Read more at Syracuse.com.

Yesterday, at a speech commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, Pres. Obama said, "We've been in office six months now. I suspect that by the time this administration is over, I think you guys will have pretty good feelings about the Obama administration."

Wait a minute-- assuming he anticipates winning a second term, does that mean eight years from now?

You can sign a petition to President Obama with the following text: "President Obama, The time has come to end discrimination in our armed forces. We, the undersigned, ask you to stop the discharge of Lt. Dan Choi and any other soldier as a result of the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. We ask that you uphold your pledge and push Congress to quickly put a bill on your desk to repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'"

Photo courtesy Lt. Choi from the Syracuse Post-Standard.

Richard Holbrook talks nonsense to Wolf Blitzer

I listened to Richard Holbrook being interviewed on CNN Thursday and I was so struck by the meaninglessness of his statement that I replayed the segment and transcribed it. Most of his words lack any clear referent to reality; they sound good but are empty of substance. Anyway, you can judge for yourself (if you ignore my few editorial comments).

Wolf Blitzer: President Obama is ordering an additional 17,000 more forces to Afghanistan, a controversial move with no guaranteed results. So is the Obama Administration making the right move?

We’re interviewing Richard Holbrook – former ambassador to Iraq and current special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

WB: You’re just back from a critically important mission to Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region. A lot of folks are fearful that this whole troop buildup in Afghanistan right now could turn out to be a waste, given the inherent problems in that country. Can you look in the camera and tell the American people right now that it’s not a waste, that this is going to work?

Richard Holbrook: There’s no question that these troops are necessary. (WHY?) This is a request by Gen McKiernan, the commander in Afghanistan, and General Petraeus that was put to President. Bush last summer. It did not get acted upon and it landed on President. Obama’s desk on Day One. There was no question, and I can tell you this having just been in Afghanistan, that these troops are needed to stop the deteriorating situation. (WHAT SITUATION IS THAT?)

WB: but will it work?

RH: It will turn the tide but I cannot tell you for sure what will happen after that because there are many other variables. (HUH?) This is a war that includes political components, military components, (WHAT ARE THOSE COMPONENTS?) and the president has asked us to give him a full scale strategic review, which we’re doing right now, and we are going to try to revamp strategy in a way that upgrades the civilian and economic and reconstruction components and above all, Wolf, we’ve got to deal with Pakistan. We’ve got to stem the deterioration in the tribal areas.

WB: I want to get to Pakistan in a minute but Russ Feingold, the Democratic senator from Wisconsin, a member of the Intelligence Committee, says that you guys may have it reversed.. “We need to have a strategy in place for Afghanistan that will actually work before we commit thousands more American troops. A military escalation without a strategy to address the complex problems facing Afghanistan and the region could alienate the Afghani people and make it much more difficult to achieve our top national security goal of defeating Al Qaeda.”

WB: So you saying you’re going to come up with a strategy, but the decision to send troops, additional troops, double the current U.S troop presence has already been made.

RH: It’s not a doubling, Wolf, it’s about a 40 or 45 percent increase, the doubling is some kind of misunderstanding. But let me go to my friend Russ Feingold’s point because in an ideal world, Senator Feingold would be correct. You do everything in the core order he suggested, but in the real world, the military, having waited for six or seven months for action on their request, made the case to the pres. That if these troops were not sent immediately, the effect on the situation, our ability to support the government of Afghanistan in their elections, and to help with reconstruction would be severely compromised. (SO IN THE REAL WORLD, STRATEGY COMES SECOND? AND WE HAVE TO SEND THE TROOPS BECAUSE WE HAVE TO SEND THE TROOPS?)

"Afghanistan needs troops--but it needs troops of doctors, troops of teachers, troops of Peace Corps volunteers, and troops of farmers to go and replant the fruit orchards."

--Kavita Ramdas, President and CEO of Global Fund for Women
Photo from Reuters/Omar Subhani

Withdrawal from Iraq

Having the widget "Withdrawal from Iraq" on my blog is having an interesting effect on me-- probably exactly the effect it's supposed to have! Every morning I find myself wondering what progress Barack Obama is making to withdraw us. (Afghanistan is another story.) Wouldn't it be nice is there was a place on WhiteHouse.gov that specifically addressed Iraq? I've been thru every posting on the WhiteHouse blog but Iraq isn't mentioned; Iraq is listed as on the President's Agenda but it's a simple statement of intent straight from the campaign trail; I suppose I can go thru every press briefing in the Briefing Room although CNN does a pretty decent job of hitting the highlights.

Found another widget...for a March on the Pentagon on the 6th Anniversary of the war, March 21 sponsored by ANSWER. Went to the United for Peace and Justice website, and they are calling for LOCAL actions on March 19-- anything to avoid working with ANSWER. MoveOn.org barely makes a mention of Iraq on its front page, although on another page withdrawal from Iraq is listed as Number 4 of four priorities as voted on by its members. (And if members had voted on the exploration of Mars, would MoveOn be promoting it?) The International Action Center is calling for an April March on Wall St. called Bail Out the People, Not the Banks.

Unity between factions in the anti-war movement has been achieved only sporadically in the last six years.

Compare and Contrast

From The F Word, Contemporary UK Feminism

Obama saves wolves!

January 21, 2009

Seattle, WA -- White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel Tuesday sent a memo to the heads of all executive departments and agencies, ordering a stop to all pending regulations until a legal and policy review can be conducted by the Obama administration.

A rule that would eliminate Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains except for those in Wyoming was scheduled to be published on January 27. Now it will fall under review with the new administration.

Among others, the Bush administration recently finalized rules that significantly weaken the Endangered Species Act, allow for mining deposits to be dumped within 100 feet of flowing streams and exempts large-scale factory farms from notifying government officials when they release unsafe levels of toxic emissions into the community. Earthjustice, a public interest law firm, filed suit against all of these rules.

The following statement is from Patti Goldman, Vice President of Program for Earthjustice:

"While we are pleased that the new administration has put a stop to these hasty actions, there are some rules we continue to monitor.

"Under the Emanuel memo, the wolf delisting rule will be withdrawn. This rule was extremely controversial and was rushed through even though a federal district court had declared the wolf delisting illegal in July. It defied the law which prohibits a state by state listing when the wolves do not respect state boundaries.

"For the vast majority of the midnight regulations, the Bush administration got them published in time to evade the Emanuel memo's freeze. Earthjustice has brought dozens of legal challenges to Bush rollbacks, which provides the ultimate pathway to reining in the excesses of the Bush administration."

Contact:

John McManus, Earthjustice, (510) 550-6707

House Negro

My sister was pretty tied up in meetings today so just now when she came upstairs I (being temporarily housebound) was able to give her an informed running commentary on the news which was playing in the background. Al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's 2nd in command, was spouting off.

"Today he called Barack Obama a "'House Negro,'" I said.

"Yeah, that's right," she said, grinning, "A White House Negro, and they'd better not forget it."

Hate crime? Hours after election, black church burns

Sometime after 3 a.m., just hours after Barack Obama was declared the next president of the United States, the fire department in Springfield Massachusetts received an urgent call: the nearly constructed new home of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ was on fire. By 7 a.m. this morning, the building was declared a total loss-- about $2 million in damages. Three firefighters were slightly injured while fighting the blaze.

Pastor of the predominantly African-American church Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr. said that the church was down but not out. "Our belief in God will sustain us. ... Our faith is of such quality and maturity that we will be building." Robinson said. Springfield Republican

There were few reasons for the building to burn, Springfield Fire Department spokesperson Dennis Leger said, because the building was vacant and utilities to the 90%-completed building had not yet been connected. The fire is considered suspicious and by this morning the site was being examined by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

State Representative Ben Swan, who was on his way to meet with Bishop Robinson when contacted, said that the community would be kept informed of developments. Bishop Robinson is a member of the Black Pastors Council, which held a Get Out the Vote for Obama rally last Saturday. (I was honored to be asked to speak.)

Springfield voters gave 75% of its vote to Barack Obama yesterday but at least a few of the 25% who cast their vote elsewhere suspect Bishop Robinson had the church burned for the insurance money, or that maybe church members went to the church to celebrate and set it on fire with a candle . Bishop Robinson says he's at a loss to understand why anyone would want to harm the church.

Bryant Robinson Jr. was Deputy Superintendent of Springfield Public Schools for many years and in line to become superintendent in 1989 when the when the Springfield School Committee decided to conduct a national search instead. Many Black leaders remain convinced to this day that the search was conducted so that Robinson could be passed over.

I want to live in Barack Obama's country

One quick observation before I run off for the day: Last night, I looked at the crowd surrounding McCain at this concession speech, and the faces around him were all white. I looked at the crowd surrounding Barak Obama and I saw white, Black, Asian and Latino/as cheering and hugging each other.

That's the country in which I want to live, and as a community organizer, I am more than ready to take on his challenge to "join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it’s been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years – block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand."

PS: You notice I've chosen a green map, not a red and blue one, to illustrate what our future can hold.
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Why I'm voting for Barack Obama

In spite of our history of Republican governors, Massachusetts is one of those states that can always be counted on to vote Democratic in the national elections. That has freed up many of us up to "vote our consciences" without fear of jinxing the Democratic candidate, but has also sometimes had an enervating effect on progressives using the electoral system to organize. I did see that start to change during the Deval Patrick campaign. The opportunity to have a Black governor was too good for many to pass up.

Through the years I've mostly voted Democratic, but I can't say I've been a great Democrat-- haven't joined ward committees and have rarely worked on a campaign. One exception was the Jesse Jackson campaign of 1984. I was inspired by the Jackson of 1984. By volunteering for his campaign, I was taken under the wing of some of Springfield's most dedicated and political African-American leaders-- then State Rep. Ray Jordan, E. Henry Twiggs, Candace Lopes, to name a few-- and the contacts I made there have lasted 25 years. I also learned the basic skills of looking up numbers in reverse directories, phonebanking, door to door work and stand-outs. I know that the Internet has added to a campaign organizer's toolbox, but still, nothing beats the basics. I wish some of my progressive friends could bring themselves to roll up their sleeves and labor with the on-the-ground Democrats.

Twenty-five years later I am far less likely to be idealistic about any candidate because the options for a political platform in the United States are very narrow and defined by the parameters of capitalism and Christianity. Unlike most other democracies, we have two major parties only, and while I agree there's a difference between them, it's the difference between one and three on a scale of ten. I will never forget sitting in a homeless shelter lunchroom watching Bill Clinton be inaugurated on the TV, when all of us expected him to include ending homelessness in his address, and the slow slumping of shoulders when homeless people were ignored yet again.

I am a faithful voter, however, because of what every organizer knows: Use what you've got to get what you need.

Within this framework, the candidacy of Barack Obama is so extraordinary that for months it barely seemed real to me. If truth be told, I still find it difficult to believe that the U.S. is ready to elect a Black man to the Presidency. but I'm starting to think I'm wrong. I want to be proud of my country. If Barack is elected, it'll be one of those too-rare moments when we can say to each other, Well, I guess the struggle is worth it after all.

So here's my short list of reasons I'm voting for Barack Obama.

Save the environment, save the world. I won't need to worry about policy decisions that make things worse and can expect some positive movement. (Nuclear energy and clean coal be damned.)

Jobs, jobs, jobs. I'm tired of seeing people work and struggle to get by . I'm tired of seeing young people grow up not knowing the value of work. My first jobs out of high school were in factories, making things, and relatively speaking, they were still probably the best-paying jobs I've ever had. Moving toward energy independence could almost be like a national jobs program.

Peace and civil rights. I'm not a pacifist (maybe in my next life) but I believe war should be such a last resort as to make it nearly impossible. I doubt Barack Obama will find it necessary to start any new wars and he'll help us get out of the ones we're in.

So I'm off to the polls then home for a long night in front of the TV with my sister and her husband and a six-pack of beer (sorry, Sarah Palin). Michaelann the organizer is voting Obama.

(BTW, it's time for Blogger to stop underlining Barack Obama as if it's a misspelled word!)