By now everybody acknowledges that Barack Obama is good at making speeches that inspire people with hope of a better America. "Yes We Can!" and all that.
But one of the recurrent raps against Obama is that he's naive, that he doesn't understand the realities of power, that he has his head in the clouds and doesn't understand that there are powers that must be overcome in order to accomplish the kinds of transformation of which he speaks.
If we had only these inspirational speeches to judge by, we might reasonably suspect that possibility.
But there is some other evidence available to us. And with this evidence in hand, it ceases to be reasonable to imagine Obama to be some naive fool ignorant of how power works in the world. That evidence comes from his book DREAMS FROM MY FATHER, a book published in 1995, when Obama was 33 years old and before he was involved in electoral politics.
Here's a passage from that book, from the part where he's describing his experience living in Indonesia, the native country of his stepfather whom his white American mother had recently married:
"In America, [power] had generally remained hidden from view until you dug beneath the surface of things; until you visited an Indian reservation or spoke to a black person whose trust you had earned. But here [in Indonesia] power was undisguised, indiscriminate, naked, always fresh in the memory. Power had taken Lolo [his Indonesian stepfather, who'd been forced by a new regime, following the coup that brought down Sukarno and that proceeded to murder at least half a million people for being thought political enemies] to return to Indonesia and get coerced and intimidated into a more lowly and more suppressed position than he'd hoped and been headed for] and yanked him into line just when he thought he'd escaped, making him feel the weight, letting him know that his life wasn't his own. That's how things were; you couldn't change it, you could just live by the rules, so simple once you learned them. And so Lolo had made his peace with power, learned the wisdom of forgetting..."
Here's an earlier passage in which Obama conveys how, as a boy of six or so, he learned about power from Lolo, not only from his life but from his teachings.
(Of him, Obama says:) So it was to Lolo that I turned for guidance and instruction...[H]is knowledge of the world seemed inexhaustible...He knew more elusive things, ways of managing the emotions I felt, ways to explain fate's constant mysteries.
Then Obama provides this iin illustration of the teachings he imbibed from this man of great "knowledge of the world":
"Have you ever seen a man killed?" I asked him.
He glanced down, surprised by the question.
"Have you?" I asked again.
"Yes," he said.
"Was it bloody?"
"Yes"
I thought for a moment. "Why was the man killed? The one you saw?"
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
Obama is like the NRA, as far as I can tell. He has an enormous collection of small contributors, but he talks to major corporate crooks every day. This is not an endorsement of Hillary who is equally bad or even more so.
The crook media gets all the money from every campaign and crook media owns and operates the race track. Needless to say, all the horses are drugged in crook media's favor.
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John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1482 comments)
on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 9:20:14 AM
that holds the whip. It's in truth and integrity. Having read both his books, researched his vision statements, watched him (and Michelle) in action, I agree with you, Andy, Barack truly understands power.
Another thing I feel vastly important and credible is the fact that he hasn't been in the halls long enough to have been lobbied to death nor glued to the hindends of old power brokers! Deliver me from the person that will pick and choose the same old department heads that have been chipping away at world freedom and our Constitution since the '80's.
Change is about much more than party. We need new faces with new thoughts and a NEW vision in this country and in the world. War is NOT the answer and we've been doing it too long!
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joanakelly (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 14 comments)
on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 12:14:41 PM
Don't judge somebody until you've walked a mile in their shoes.
There's two sides to my comment. My first is that I can't find anyone saying that Obama 'Does not have the expierence' that has enough experience to make that judgement. My second is that experience IS the problem, same-o, same-o...That's why we have Term Limits. Look at the boldness that the intoxicating power gives to the 'Old-Guard' in both the political arena and behind corporate doors.
Obama became my hero when he pushed to end the sinceless, runaway spending in Iraq. He got chastised by Mr Howard the PM. of Auzieland and My hero came back at him with this: "You've got 1,500 troops in Iraq right now, if your willing to commit 20,000 then I'll listen to you"...The next week the Australian parliament and both U.S. political parties demanded that John Howard keep his mouth shut. I think that Barack Obama Passes the test.
We all stumble and make mistakes in our jorneys but at least my hero is honest about it and learns with lightning speed; he's not like that opponent that stubornly makes the same mistake over and over again until she can make it right!
Write-On, Andrew Bard Schmookler, I look forward to reading your next piece.
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Mokey (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments)
on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 8:48:58 PM
In the United States power is supposed to come from the people, transferred to the Executive and Legislative branches of government through free and open elections and to the Judicial branch through trial by jury.
Forget the Judicial branch. The Supreme Court has already ruled that trial by jury is not necessary in the United States, even though the sixth amendment to the Constitution specifically states that "in all criminal prosecutions" the defendent has the right to trial by jury. In effect, the Supreme Court has amended the Constitution, even though the Constitution specifically excludes them from that power. So we have a judicial branch of government today that consists of criminals practicing law. Law means whatever the criminals in the Judicial branch say it means.
That leaves us with what remains of elections as a means of controlling government. When President George Washington instructed the American people in 1792 that it was the duty of all Americans to "discourage political parties", he was addressing independent voters, which all voters in the United States were at that time. They did not stay independent very long. The election of 1800 saw the rise of the Republican-Democrats and one party government. The 1830's saw Jackson and van Buren consolidating political power by leading an effort to convince Americans that political parties are necessary in American government, and independent voters are not, which ultimately set the stage for the Civil War. The post-Civil War period saw an unprecedented period of political corruption ending in political primary elections, the final means of excluding independent voters in the government.
All of these manifestations of party power will fail. Party power is "artificial authority", just as George Washington said it was. Party politicians like Obama are never organizers of liberty. They are organizers of party faction, which is where their power comes from. It was one of Obama's backers, Governor Janet Napolitano, who prevented independent voters from voting in the Presidential primary elections after Arizona voters passed an initiative opening Arizona primaries. While she was Attorney General of Arizona it was she who single-handedly stopped independent voters from voting in the Presidential primaries. Then as Governor she signed into law a bill which removed the option to register independent from the Arizona voter registration form, causing independent voter registration in Arizona to decrease from 80,000 per year to 13,000 per year. Make no mistake, Obama is the same kind of party politician that Napolitano is, someone who pretends to be friendly to independent voters, but who will stab them in the back when it comes time to say what election laws mean.
There is only one means left of restoring freedom and unity in America. Americans have to become candidates for office. They have to oppose these corrupt party candidates. They have to register as independent candidates for office. If they do not, the parties have a plan in place to phase out all opportunity to oppose their corrupt candidates and set up a party state like the ones we have seen arise in Europe. This party state will be founded on a division of power between the two most active groups of criminals in America, white collar criminals represented by one party and blue collar criminals represented by the other, all meeting as white collar criminals in the Executive and Legislative branches of government. To prove that they are not criminals, they will subpeona sports figures from time to time and question them about steroid use.
It is exactly the kind of government the Germans ended up with by supporting the Nazi Party. All political parties are exactly the same and have the same goal. They all seek control of the government by their party and exclusion of all other people from the government.
Party politicians like Obama and Napolitano should be opposed by independent voters registering as independent candidates. Party politicians have election laws at state level written to exclude independent candidates from appearing on the ballot in most states. Independent voters can still register as write-in candidates. Neither one of these two corrupt major parties is ever going to represent the people of the United States who are registered as United States citizens registered to vote. They only represent their own party members.
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Robert Winn (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 29 comments)
on Saturday, February 16, 2008 at 9:15:58 PM
That was an excellent analysis of our present party system which, as you described, is no picnic.
I don't know why so many sheople are willing to just accept the idea this is business as usual and the best type of government we can realistically hope for. I hear more people in this election talking about who they are voting against, than I do people who are truly enthusiastic about their choice of the next person to lead our nation. There is so much apathy out there, and our two-party system relies on this apathy to continue to shove people who are supposedly "good enough" down our throats and into office.
I am a strong Mike Gravel supporter and I believe it is inexcusable how such a pure advocate for the people can be silenced by our political machines. I have heard so many people say that they agree strongly with the positions Gravel has outlined on so many issues, yet they are quick to dismiss his chances of succeeding. "He doesn't stand a chance", they say. If the truth be told, the American people don't stand a chance.
Too many people base their votes on a 30 second sound byte from someone telling them how they are going to keep everyone safe from those evil terrorists out there who are bent on taking away our freedom and how they are not going to be the one to raise taxes. Then they rap up their campaign summary telling everyone how they are against gay marriage and how they believe decisions should be made "by the military commanders on the ground, not some bureaucrat in Washington!" Unfortunately, for many people, all it takes to convince them to vote for someone is rhetoric.
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Kris Malmquist (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 107 comments)
on Sunday, February 17, 2008 at 9:12:34 AM
Call me naive, but I am hoping that maybe Obama is "playing dumb" by kow-towing to the important power brokers in this country to get into office, and then once he is in, he will be free to be a true advocate for the American people. We all know that in order to be elected as president of the most powerful nation in the world, one must first court the devil and convince him that he will faithfully execute the evil agenda of the powerful military/industrial complex that threatens to consume us all.
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Kris Malmquist (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 107 comments)
on Sunday, February 17, 2008 at 8:49:17 AM
I would say that what would happen once he's in office is not a given, but depends on the correlation of forces.
How much he would be compelled to continue to accommodate the existing dominant forces would depend on how powerful is the popular mandate, and how mobilized are the popular forces behind him.
IF he is elected but only weakly, he will need, in order to accomplish anything, to deal with the existing powers. But if he manages to inspire enough Americans with enough fervor for genuine change, that will tilt the balance of power away from the now-dominant forces, and toward whatever agenda Obama, as president, both 1) chooses to put forward and 2) succeeds in rallying the people behind.
A president gets power from the Constitution, but there is plenty of other power distributed around the system, and what the president can accomplish always depends upon his ability to get those other powers to ally with him.
In the particular case of Obama, what makes it exciting is that his strategy is based on inspiring an upwelling of power from the citizenry. It is his success at THAT which will determine whether he can be a transformational president, which I believe to be his goal.
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Andrew Bard Schmookler (321 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 153 comments)
on Sunday, February 17, 2008 at 12:19:21 PM
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