If we are going to push Obama to be the candidate for change, we will need to confront the elephant in the room, MoveOn.org, before this election is over.
Recall the following---
On June 28, 2008, an Obama supporter, Sarah Rath, started a group called, “President Obama, Please Get FISA Right.” It did not take long for the group to become one of the biggest groups on MyBarackObama.com, a social networking site supporters can join to participate in the Obama campaign.
Unfortunately, Obama got FISA wrong. A man who should understand the Constitution very well voted to damage one of the Constitution’s most precious provisions, the Fourth Amendment.
What Obama did get is an act of compromise between Democrats and Republicans that he could use to show his ability to know when the “right decisions” need to be made and allow the “best” of both parties’ ideas to be integrated into policies or bills that will enact change.
Obama’s decision to ignore a group that now has over 25,000 members is astonishing and in fact, inexcusable. Yet, it is symptomatic of the top-down system the Obama campaign is running and begs the question---
If Obama cannot be moved to listen to 25,000 people who “support” him, how many people will it take for him to listen to the people and restore the Constitution if elected in November?
How many million must we organize for real change before Obama will consider those organized important enough to influence the actions he takes or the compromises he brokers?
Finally, recall the following---
Just as July came to an end, The Nation magazine put together a letter titled, “Change *We* Can Believe In,” praising Obama for inspiring a “wave of political enthusiasm like nothing seen in this country for decades.” The magazine went on to praise his “vision of a better future” emphasizing the fact that he is now the head of a movement that “believes deeply in the change you have claimed as the mantle of your campaign.”
After praising Obama, the letter proceeds to attempt to apply pressure to Obama. The letter states that “troubling signs that you are moving away from the core commitments shared by many who have supported your campaign, toward a more cautious and centrist stance--including, most notably, your vote for the FISA legislation granting telecom companies immunity from prosecution for illegal wiretapping, which angered and dismayed so many of your supporters” have occurred.
The letter ends listing positions The Nation magazine has agreed with and then details positions that have “varied from the positions” held by, as they put it, his “friends on the left.”
Those who wrote this letter clearly believe they must challenge Obama’s positions and that is good. But, the letter fails to grasp or understand the fact that Obama isn’t and has never been a progressive or liberal. Therefore, rhetoric he has used that progressives liked was just that---rhetoric to get progressives to vote for Obama in the Democratic primary.
Norman Solomon, in his article, “Obama and the Progressive Base,” understands this. He highlights Obama’s response to people who say he has been moving to the center and illuminated it beautifully:
But on July 8, Obama made a valid point — even if it wasn’t exactly the point he was trying to make — when he disputed “this whole notion that I am shifting to the center” and argued: “The people who say this apparently haven’t been listening to me.” Overall, his career as a politician has embraced conciliation and compromise rather than pushing against centrist corporate agendas.
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