It's inexplicable. The ingredients for radical action are present in the U.S., but nothing seems to happen nationally in an organized fashion. (Vermont creating a single-payer health-care system is an outlier.) We've become inured to lack of progressive success; incremental reform, we're told, is about all one can hope for. While a good share of the blame rests on reactionary and mean-spirited GOP policies and leaders, fed by a base that glories in its voluntary ignorance, one can also blame Obama and the corporate media for some of this inertia:
OBAMA'S DISAPPEARING ACT
Obama (who, for sure, is far better than McCain/Palin would have been) talks a good fight about change but seems mostly content to operate within a very narrow, Beltway box, always protecting "The System" and those who wield the power within that system. Thus, tiny reforms are passed but little of systemic import gets realized. In addition, the HardRight media keep the status quo in place. Meanwhile, the Democrats, seemingly forgetting that they control the White House and Senate, play fearful defense, while the unpopular Republicans, always on offense, behave as if they're in total control. What hath Karl Rove wrought?
True, the Republican/conservative juggernaut in the House and state governments makes it difficult to get decent legislation passed. But Obama and the Dems should realize that the GOP will be content only with total destruction of the opposition and full implementation of their extreme policies. Obama, for example, could use his presidential, prime-time bully-pulpit to help shape that fight and to educate the citizenry on key issues like Medicare, Medicaid and the EPA. But, more often than not, Obama goes into retreat mode and sells out his base by watering down liberal proposals in a futile effort to placate those who wish only for his destruction. I don't get it.
By backing away from the fight he promised, as a "transformational" president in the mode of FDR, Obama has committed the unforgiveable sin of destroying hope in democracy. Many millions of voters, especially young and minorities, abandoned their cynicism and participated in the 2008 electoral process, many for the first time in their lives. They did so because their candidate promised a new day, structural changes in the way "The System" worked, a return to adherence to Constitutional principals with regard to civil liberties, avoiding imperial wars abroad, with leaders held accountable for their misdeeds, etc. etc.
And then Obama dashed progressive hopes and dreams by revealing himself to be pretty much a traditional, triangulating Beltway politician, who says one thing to get elected and operates in a different way when in office. Yes, yes, he's faced huge obstacles in governance and the economy, and a totally negative GOP opposition in Congress, but we all know his behavior has wrecked his once-formidable political operation and created despair among millions who wanted, and were promised, better.
It won't be easy winning those folks back to voting for him in 2012 -- unless, as seems possible, the Republicans select an extremist neanderthal as their candidate. If a decent, charismatic progressive were to run against Obama from the Left or as a third-party candidate (Russ Feingold? Bernie Sanders? RFK Jr.?), that might shift Obama's attitude. Or perhaps not, as Obama has a tendency to bash his progressive base as he moves toward the center/center-right. But, who knows, maybe such pressure from his left might help maneuver him into supporting a temporary job-creation program, a la FDR's Works Progress Administation, or pulling away from his neo-imperialist war policies abroad.
MORE UNFOLDING CLIMATE DISASTERS
In area after area of social concern -- in the U.S. and elsewhere -- the predominant political direction is retrograde, reactionary, dangerous to the polity and planet.
Scientists, for example, are warning that the global temperature might continue to rise more than three degrees by 2100 as a result of human-influenced carbon pollution/climate change. Sea-level flooding will be speeded up, with disastrous consequences. Precipitation patterns will go haywire, there will be more catastrophic storms and flooding and mudsliding, hundreds of thousands of deaths, billions and maybe trillions of dollars in damages, agriculture will be even more calamitously affected, leading to even more key food shortages and starvations worldwide.
Because CheneyBush and the economic forces behind them were philosophically (read: $$) opposed to doing anything about the global-warming issue, America, and the world, lost a key decade's worth of possible mitigation. Lacking U.S. leadership, most other nations did little as well. It may very well be too late to rectify most of the damage done, but at least a few countries are making some attempts. Germany, for example, is one of the leaders of the "green revolution" -- way ahead of America in developing "green" sources of energy (wind, solar especially), with U.S. industries lagging way behind the curve. Germany is also moving away from nuclear energy, and will shut down its 17 reactors within a decade, and transition to cleaner, safer forms of energy-development.
THE NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE
The U.S., the country that possesses the highest number of nuclear reactors, will "stay the course," and, under Obama, is open to building more such plants. This even in the face of Japan's nuclear catastrophe, which continues to disperse deadly radiation into the soil, ocean and air, with unknown health implications across the globe. The private company that runs the Japanese reactors lied and continues to lie about the meltdown dangers, as does the Japanese government. Scientists are talking about a concrete, Chernobyl-like sarcophagus that will have to be built to contain the worst of the leaking radiation. The media, especially the U.S. media, basically have dropped this story. Too scary?
It goes without saying that FUBAR is the new normal. All across the globe, in region after region, on issue after issue, the center is not holding. The relative stability enjoyed in so many areas for decades is disappearing, sometimes quite suddenly -- social and political earthquakes as the underlying tectonic plates undergo wrenching shifts.
Every sane person realizes that things must change, and soon. And yet very little changes. "The System" continues on, protecting its own at the top. The rest of us, the "little people," are told to get by as best we can. Socialism for the wealthy, capitalism for the poor and middle-class. And thus, to crib from Albert Einstein, everything "has changed save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."
If that's not a prescription for radical change, I don't know what is. Organize, Organize, ORGANIZE! Build that non-violent, revolutinoary boat! And in doing so, social action becomes an effective antidote to political depression. #
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