Here's Nobel laureate Barack Obama explaining the guiding logic behind his support for the continuation of Bush's tax cuts:
Now, if that's the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done. People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people. And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are… .
Gosh, I can't help but feel I've heard this same line of reasoning before—but where? Oh, right.
So for the liberals out there squeaking in outrage over this latest betrayal by their hero, I have to ask: how can you criticize Obama for applying the exact same logic you use during every single election? And I also wonder (sincerely, without the tiniest hint of schadenfreude): how does it feel to be beaten with your own stick?
Speaking generally, this is how it works: most people have some line they won't cross, and for too many of them 1) anyone whose line stops before theirs is a purist and 2) anyone whose line is farther than their own is a sellout. Their position, and theirs alone, defines the acceptable point of compromise between principle and pragmatism. Or as George Carlin put it (and thanks to SteveB for the pointer): anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac.
Will the repeated instances of being called idiots by their maniac President stop liberals from doing the exact same thing (and following the same underlying logic) the next time the election siren sings them onto the rocks? Nobody breathe until we find out!
The Distant Ocean 
“Nobody breathe until we find out!”
You must work for Al Qaeda.
[whistles in the dark]
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That outrage will only squeak until their line is redrawn appropriately. Although I have heard a few more defectors interviewed lately on KPFA (well, ok, one maybe).
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Some are “sanctimonious.” Others are sanctified:
http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
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I gave up blaming anyone for being a maniac a few years back. Mania seemed sane in the circumstances. Then I realized it wasn’t just the present circumstances.
Everyone driving slower than me still seems like an idiot, though. Sometimes I feel it’s wrong to feel this way, to be so impatient with friends and acquaintances, like I’m gifted with this special insight, when I am really just someone trying not to drive too slow in the left lane myself.
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“Everyone says what they do is right.”
http://bit.ly/dSjiie
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“most people have some line they won’t cross”
Oh how I’d like to believe that’s true…
I have repeatedly asked my Democrat friends what EXACTLY a Dem would have to do to be on the other side of the line, seeing as telling you right up front that they plan to give a trillion taxpayer dollars to Wall Street and continue killing people in illegal wars based upon what we know to be lies is somehow on this side of the line.
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I’ll have a whole posting about that once I get back to the 2000 election series, Chris, which I’ll do as soon as I can…uh…get this wild mongoose unclamped from my throat. Yeah, that’s it.
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Related to the above.
(Shorter than the obnoxious posting from last night: Apologies, John)
http://www.protestobama.org
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Thanks for the pointer. The target list seems a bit slim, given how many in the “left establishment” actually spent their time pimping Obama. And I’m surprised to see Chomsky’s name on there, given his animosity to third-party organizing; I’m wondering if he actually took a close look at it.
Anyway, I signed, and hopefully others here will too.
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Oh yes. Noam took a very close look-requiring several revisions before signing off. I should say that was the letter, not the website he signed off on.
We’ve added a disclaimer on this point.
I wouldn’t describe Noam as actually hostile to third party campaigns. Indifferent would be a better word, probably.
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Ah, ok. I had to hunt to find the disclaimer–you might want to put it on the letter page, given the usage of “We” throughout the site.
“Animosity to third-party organizing” was sloppy shorthand on my part (since I didn’t want to take the time to flesh it out), but I don’t think “indifferent” captures it either. Chomsky’s a consistent and vocal supporter of safe state voting and lesser-evilism, but he goes well beyond that with statements like this one:
“Elevated point of view”, “I don’t care about you”–that’s a pretty high-powered rhetorical attack on people who’re committed to building third parties but who disagree with him on the issue of whether or not it ultimately matters if we’re dragged to destruction by a Republican or a Democrat.
Anyway, I don’t want to go into that too deeply since I plan to write about it at some point, but that’s what I had in mind.
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I think I actually asked you to write on that topic at some point. We actually agree on it.
Looking forward to what you have to say.
Have you checked http://www.protestobama.org lately? Over 1000 sigs, including Michael Lerner (ick), Emmanuel Wallerstein, Nell Painter, Robin Hahnel, etc.
Lots of great comments of the sort one never hears in polite company-so to speak-from complete unknowns (like us), of course.
Some things are right with the world, in fact.
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I really don’t think that mocking people for supporting Obama in the past is the way to win them over. I keep your blog bookmarked because I agree with a lot of your perspective, but good god, it’s going to be slow movement building if this is the welcome potential apostates receive.
People have irrational tribal loyalties. Mocking them for having them isn’t going to make them go away any faster.
Incidentally, I’m just finishing up Lawrence Goodwyn’s The Populist Moment, which is definitely the best account of the challenges to successful third party formation I’ve ever read. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in building institutions that can buck the current political mainstream.
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That Chomsky comment. Ugh. I will never, never, if I live to be a million years old, understand this kind of logic. It’s the classic notion of, “Well, you could have that tomorrow, but let me explain why tomorrow will never arrive.”
What do people who oppose any move towards alternative electoral politics expect of us? In the name of helping those with nothing, we should tithe meekly to people whose primary goal in life is making sure WE have nothing, either? If organizing is hard now, how much harder will it be once the people dominating the system have added a few billion more People With Nothing to their ranks?
No, sorry. I don’t hate Chomsky or anything, but I do hate that kind of guilt-mongering. It’s pretty fucking condescending and offensive no matter who happens to be spouting it. And if the person whose spouting it is themselves in no imminent or long-term danger of becoming a Person With Nothing, where in hell do they get off telling me what to do anyway?
[growl]
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RobK, not to worry. I’ve been mocked and insulted by Democrats now for well over a decade. It hasn’t made me want to rush back into their arms, either. So in a way, it gives us something that almost resembles an accord. :p
I’m pretty sure from either side, the point of mockery is to preach to the choir anyway.
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RobK: I really don’t think that mocking people for supporting Obama in the past is the way to win them over.
Sure, but I don’t see where in this posting you feel I was mocking people for supporting Obama in the past, and that wasn’t my point (or either one of my two points, to be more accurate).
As for what people respond to, in my experience it differs depending on the person; some people need Michael Lerner-style group hugs and others need something that will jolt them out of their mental rut. I like to think I’m challenging but fair, but maybe your mileage differs. I know for a fact that things I’ve written have prompted some people to rethink their positions, though, so my approach does work for them.
ms_xeno: And if the person whose spouting it is themselves in no imminent or long-term danger of becoming a Person With Nothing, where in hell do they get off telling me what to do anyway?
Bingo. You almost never see this line used by anything but well-off and truly special liberals, which is what makes their pretense of being the sole selfless guardians of the poor and working class so galling. And that’s why I was surprised and disappointed to see Chomsky using it. Not one of his best moments.
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Hi John,
Here’s Tom Hayden’s response to this and my response to him.
Thought you might find it amusing-and revealing.
So I started reading this letter which sounded pretty good and it looked like I signed it, so I read further and discovered that it was to as a member of a group I didn’t know I belonged to called the “Left Establishment.” As I kept reading, it was a vile, toxic diatribe ending with a demand that I, along with the rest of the “Left Establishment”, endorse a demonstration this week in Washington featuring civil disobedience at the White House fence.
To whomever sent the letter, I have to say I’m sorry that I just don’t respond positively to nasty invitations. I hope you can understand. Calm down and tell me who you are before the conspiracy theories mushroom.
Actually, I thought the Dec. 16 action seemed somewhat justifiable in light of current events – the WikiLeaks releases and erupting divisions within the Democratic Party. And I love the people who plan to get arrested. Maybe a big crowd will show up, but not because it was a smart idea to begin with. Mid-December is not the best time to turn out masses of people. But stuff happens, and now many people are boiling.
My personal best to those who are being arrested. They include a former Pentagon official, former CIA agent, a former New York Times reporter, and a mother who lost a son to war and was radicalized as a result. The lesson for me is that people can change from hawks to doves, from spies to whistleblowers, if organizers organize and events reshape their perceptions. That’s the lesson of WikiLeaks, that folk on the inside sometimes come find their situation intolerable and break away from old thinking.
Civil disobedience is a moral expression, and can be a personal healing. Sometimes it ignites a larger movement, or inspires other individuals to step up. We need more of it.
But I also think we need an outside/inside strategy that shifts public opinion more and more against the war. We need to persuade the undecided, not simply to create images of dissent. The peace movement will grow steadily in the months ahead, on its own, but also in its relation to other compelling causes, among them: Wall Street regulation, clean energy/green jobs, and the steady shift towards an unfettered market philosophy over our lives. Civil disobedience can light a flame, but the case for thoroughgoing radical reform must be made on our streets, our workplaces, our religious institutions, and yes, within the Democratic Party – whose overwhelming majority support progressive objectives. Members of the Progressive Democrats of America, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, are vital elements of our movement.
I would like every person who signed this letter to read it again, and be kind enough to retract their signatures or explain why.
This is not the time to inflict internal damage on a community which is already weak enough. It’s important to get a grip.
The peace and justice community is a fragile form of social ecology, with diversity being an essential quality. Everyone is entitled to a different approach, but there also is an essential unity that can be achieved, unless a malign force is introduced.
I have been working every day since 2002 to end these wars. I will never stop. I supported Barack Obama for president in 2008, and am glad I did so. At the time I also said progressives should disagree with him on Afghanistan, NAFTA, global warming and Wall Street, and I have pursued progressive alternatives every day. I have been so busy on the WikiLeaks crisis since August that I just haven’t had time to drop by the White House and pick up my marching orders.
TOM HAYDEN
Director
Peace and Justice Resource Center
My response:
Dear Mr. Hayden,
You refer to our letter urging you to strongly support militant protest against the Obama administration as “vile” and “toxic”.
These words are misapplied.
Rather these are adjectives appropriately directed at the policies of the Obama administration, those which we mentioned, and provide documenting links to, along with others which we don’t. (For many of us, the omission the Obama administration’s disgraceful policies with respect to Israel and Palestine was regrettable.)
We note that you do not attempt to defend any of these noting merely that you remain “glad . . . that you supported Barack Obama for President.”
Rather, the main focus of your response is protest directed against Obama’s expansion of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular, the civil disobedience action on Dec. 16 which you refer to as “somewhat justified.”
This action, and other protests to come, are not “somewhat” but absolutely justified on any reasonable moral, practical and political grounds. They need strong unqualified support, from you and the others who claim to speak for the left, not the provisional, weak endorsement you provide here.
You then accuse us of undermining the “fragile social ecology” required for growth of the peace movement.
Again, this is a charge which is not appropriately directed at us but at you.
For citizens do not protest only when they feel their protests are “somewhat” justifiable. They do so when they are aware of the fact of the matter: that protest against this and numerous other Obama administration policies is now, and has been for some time, an urgent necessity.
We hope that you reconsider your continuing failure to come to terms with not only with the catastrophe which is the Obama administration but also for the damage which your insufficiently critical support has inflicted on the only force which has the capacity oppose it: mass, organized, and militant expressions of popular protest.
We therefore thank you for this response which demonstrates far better than we could why you are a deserving recipient of our letter.
Best Regards,
John Halle
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What prompted the omission of Obama’s Israel policy? Did some of the signers object?
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No. We just didn’t think of it-we’ve supped full of horrors (as Macbeth says somewhere)
J
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Hayden:
…I have been working every day since 2002 to end these wars. I will never stop. I supported Barack Obama for president in 2008, and am glad I did so…
Ah, I love the smell of willful cognitive dissonance in the morning.
Shorter Hayden: I got mine, so fuck you all.
I suspect that this is what responses from Moore, Ehrenreich, and the rest of those trained seals will likewise boil down to.
Dear Tommy,
Fuck you, too.
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Self discrediting (to use an expression I learned from John), if you ask me.
Favor: Can those who feel like it make sure this gets wide circulation? Not to be self-important about this, but it seems to me that it deserves to be seen.
J
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John, I can link to it on LJ tomorrow. I think at least four or five people who don’t hang out here still read my blog from time to time. :p (Of course it would help if I posted there more than three times a year, right?)
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Great Ms. Xeno.
I wish someone would post it at Kos just to watch the shit storm.
Also, It would be amusing to see it reposted at OpenLeft-where I’ve been banned from “the community”.
Apologies for the obscenities-it’s been that kind of day.
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The response to Hayden was very well-done, JH. Better than the letter itself, I’d say.
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