Can We?
Posted on February 3, 2008
by: Big Jar
I have been supporting Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich since the race began, but in the back of my mind I always knew that he would never gain the widespread support of the American people. As expected, Kucinich has dropped out of the race, and the most promising progressive candidate at this point seems to be Barack Obama.
But how progressive is he? Obama (so he says now) would not repeal the Patriot Act if elected to office. He has, on numerous occasions, made statements about bombing Iran. He has also expressed admiration for one of the least progressive presidents in America’s history. His campaign has spent more time attacking Hillary Clinton than it has proposing solutions to the festering stinking garbage heap of problems that this country faces in the next four years.
But there’s also another side to all of these statements. Like it or not, this is how successful candidates play the game of politics, and it’s promising to see a Democratic candidate actually acknowledge that. If Obama gets the nomination, he will not become another inept milquetoast like Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore and John Kerry were come November. The man is unafraid to get some dirt under his fingernails, and those other idiots were terrified to play that kind of political game, and that’s a big reason why they lost.
Obama is incredibly popular right now, and he clearly possesses the knack for bipartisanship that Bill Clinton had. But while Clinton did some very positive things during his presidency–such as leaving office with a surplus–he also pared welfare down to near nonexistence and spent hundreds of billions of dollars on military expenditures. Will Obama take the same track? Is it possible for him to be successful and avoid that path?
I like the guy, and I think he would be a wonderful change for the United States. But he is not a savior, not a folk hero, not an activist, and not your best friend. He is a politician, and like all politicians, he is motivated by personal gain and self interest. That may lead him to fuck up the country less than his predecessor in the hopes that his historical legacy will be more lauded, but it doesn’t change the fact that Obama is in this thing (like every other candidate) for Obama.
Will.I.Am, Scarlett Johansson, John Legend, Herbie Hancock, and numerous other celebrities have made the music video below in support of Obama through DipDive. It’s kind of uplifting, but also just a little schmaltzy. It’s also directed by Jesse Dylan, who happens to be Bobby’s eldest son:
A little background information regarding this phrase “Yes I Am”. The United Farm Workers and Caesar Chavez developed this as a rallying cry in the sixties and seventies as they campaigned for labor reform (though they used the Spanish “Si se puede”). Obama’s commodification has ignited some hostility, since this is a very sensitive subject to the UFW (if you visit the link above, you can read about their legal battle with Aero Mexico over the phrase).
Is Obama using this rhetoric because he genuinely cares about the immigration situation? Is he concerned about the rollbacks on labor rights that have taken place over the last eight years? Or is this just another political maneuver aimed at garnering the former John Edwards supporters?
I’ve given up hope for a candidate like Kucinich, and I think it’s important to support Obama because he clearly would be a better choice than McCain, even if they both are political hacks. In the 2000 election, Nader often pointed out that there was absolutely no difference between Bush and Gore, but clearly there is, even if Gore wasn’t an ideal candidate at the time. I don’t like some of the things that Obama says, but at the same time we are stuck together in an imperfect political system with unappealing alternatives. I wish my support for him could be more idealistic and I wish I could believe in his candidacy the way that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does.
But you know what? FDR made some questionable decisions as well, and Congress imposed the two term presidential limit to avoid having a politician become as powerful as he became. Even so, if John McCain had been elected to the presidency in 1932 (and I haven’t checked, but he actually may have been an eligible candidate at the time) this country would still be in The Great Depression, and we’d all be conscripted and crawling through tunnels in North Vietnam. I don’t gush over Obama, but I think he’s the best chance we’ve got.
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15 Responses to “Can We?”
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dude, im totally going to kill you. and you’re missing the whole point about Obama. Explanation to follow.
An explanation of how you’re going to kill me?
Um, I think perhaps you didn’t read the whole post or maybe missed my point. I support Obama; the point is that I don’t feel entirely comfortable supporting him because of certain things he has said. I don’t really know how you can argue with that, since that is based entirely upon my personal political beliefs, and not a misunderstanding of Obama. I think he would be great for this country, but that doesn’t mean that I think he’s a perfect choice for the presidency and it doesn’t mean he’s above my criticism and scrutiny. Alan, if we don’t critically assess future and potential leaders and choose instead to blindly follow their campaigning promises, do you really feel like that promotes a healthy political climate? It sounds sort of Fox Newsy to me.
you’re fox newsy
We’re going to war with Iran no matter who we end up with… I’ve just learned to smile about it!
Hey, we’re gonna kill more brown people we’ve been fucking with for close to 60 years? Hooray!!
Alan: You’re right, I know, I know. I just can’t get that Brit Hume out of my head.
Dr: We let them get away with those Crusades victories for well over nine centuries. It’s time for some payback, motherfuckers!
I wonder, Brendan, are there any politicians that escape your self-gain analysis? I happen to think that Kucinich would have a devastating effect on the US economy, yet he does seem to be genuine. Perhaps you think he is like any other politician?
As for Obama, I feel like he doesn’t have enough of a track record for me to judge. I feel like there is still the possibility that Obama is just a realist. His campaign promises seem to stem around changing those things where we can build consensus. Perhaps he should aim higher, but what he does propose sounds modest enough that it can be done. And I think there is something to be said for that.
Blake,
To be sure, it’s a lofty and unrealistic expectation. I readily concede that. Off the top of my head, there are a few congressional candidates (Including Kucinich, but also Feingold, Leahy, Tubbs Jones, R. Paul) who seem like they aren’t self serving. I can’t delve inside any of these people’s heads, but they seem to pander less than your average politician.
I can’t say I agree with you about Kucinich and the economy. To me, there are three main reasons why the economy is in such a terrible state right now: 1. the war 2. tax breaks and incentives for big business and 3. incredibly high healthcare costs, which prevent small businesses from growing.
Assuming he could work with Congress, Kucinich would bring the war to a halt, he would put a stop to big business payouts, and he would work towards a more equitable healthcare system. Neither Obama nor Clinton (to say nothing of the Republicans) are willing to stray enough from their moderate positions to do any of those things (at least, they won’t say as much this close to the election).
Please share more about why you think Kucinich would be bad for the economy. Is it because of the increase in social programs he would be likely to encourage? We spend close to forty percent of the budget on military expenditures and less than five percent on all social programs combined. I think there’s a lot of misinformation disseminated by obvious parties about the negative aftereffects of increased social programs on the economy. Remember, The New Deal was instrumental in reviving the American economy during the Great Depression!
Something Awful has decided to endorse Hillary… It made me chuckle…
I am not worried about the effect of Kucinich’s domestic spending on the economy. I am concerned that he wants to pull the US out of NAFTA and the WTO. He is a protectionist. Erecting barriers to trade is a short-term fix for job loss in certain U.S. industries, but it creates the long term problem of slowing growth (both in GDP and standard of living). The Soviet Union and the rest of the Eastern bloc countries lost 40 years of development by persuing the same strategy.
Yeah, having your IT job outsourced to India sucks, but that same IT guy in India is programming on a Dell computer and his office is wired with Nextel phones and Cisco routers.
Not to jump in between you guys…
Well, my counter to your point Blake would be where are those computers phones and routers produced? It’s not here, and the people who are making those products are basically slave laborers.
The reasons we should quit NAFTA and the WTO are mainly because both allow and in fact run on slave/dirt-ass-1-cent-a-day-making-in-a-labor-camp-living-6-year-olds… Am I oversimplifying? Yes, but you can’t say you support the policies that allow that to occur, can you? I know utopia isn’t something we can push for, but equality in working conditions between trading countries? That doesn’t sound so isolationist to me. I know Kucinich doesn’t make the arguments I just made, I just wanted to make clear my stance on why we need to make a new policy.
I know things are going to cost more to produce this way, and maybe even some of that production work could be brought back over here. The people who see something made in a country like China or Indonesia and see a similar product made in the USA or any other country that doesn’t use slave labor for $5 more, and then buy the Chinese manufactured product ’cause it’s cheaper are the problem. My computing stuff, I don’t have a choice. I suppose I could not buy any technology anythings, but we are in the technology age, and it makes my life more complex and far simpler all in the same go. My favorite purchase of the past year wasn’t an iPhone, or a PS3 or any of that stuff. It was my shoes. Seriously… I don’t remember the time before that purchase when I felt good, not satiated, but :good: about a purchase… They were made in a union shop (mine were made in a shop in Portugal) and I know the people who made them get breaks, they get paid a living, family supporting wage, they’re fully recycled rubber and the upper sole is made entirely of hemp. $100 bucks. That’s what sneakers cost. And I know the people who made my shoe are doing alright. Not sure where this rant was going, but yeah. I’m better than all of you sons of bitches… or something like that.
BTW, I’m going to caucus for Ron Paul at the Republican caucus in Wayzata tonight, so that should be fun….. . . . . .
Blake,
I think it might be a gross oversimplification to say that the Soviet economy tanked because they didn’t participate in free trade. Those countries had huge problems with corruption (and still do), which I think had a much more negative impact on their growth.
I would also question your assumption about whether a pullout would slow growth. It would certainly lop off a huge portion of profit from the megacorporations and redistribute that to smaller businesses and the working class, but I think that would be incredibly beneficial to the economy. The healthiest marketplace is one that is competitive, and one where people have money to spend.
Aside from the economy, the WTO does nothing to impose environmental regulations. This is going to be a really big issue in the next four years, and if it’s not too late already to do something about it, the next president really needs to enact steps towards a solution to this problem if we want to have an economy in fifty years.
Hi Brendan,
I agree that economies are sufficiently complex machines that one cannot predict their rate of growth with a single variable. I happen to disagree that corruption is a particularly relevant factor, however. For instance, consider this list of countries which experienced positive economic growth in the period 1980-2000 (source “The End of Poverty” by Jeffrey Sachs):
Albania, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovak Rep., Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Mexico, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Uruguay.
I am quite certain that several of those countries have major problems with corruption.
Or if you still don’t like using the USSR and the Eastern bloc as examples, consider the economic collapse in the US and Europe in between the World Wars. In 1930, the US congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the most protective tariff act in US history. This depression mirrored an earlier one in the 1873-1896 period which was also characterized by high barriers to trade.
I also disagree that protectionism only hurts megacorporations. Certainly protectionism makes it harder for multinational corporations to function, but there are many small businesses that sell products internationally. Furthermore, I know of several people working at start ups that use programming talent in India, for example. On a more mundane level, almost all office supplies come from international sources, so trade barriers necessarily increase the cost of running a small business.
I understand John’s concerns about foreign labor conditions. I am somewhat conflicted on this issue, but Jeff Sach’s makes a good argument in “The End of Poverty” that sweat shops are basically the bottom rung on the economic development ladder. Such businesses begin the development process which raises countries out of extreme poverty. Yeah, the working conditions are horrific, and I don’t wish that situation on anyone. But, by closing trade with industry in poor countries, we are ensuring that those countries stay trapped in a cycle of poverty. I could imagine an entire host of consequences from refusing to trade with the developing world, but that is a subject which I have not studied, so I will keep my speculation to myself.
And John, you know that Ron Paul proposes that we return to the Gold Standard, right? I could go on for hours about why that is a bad idea…
Again, I think the point here is that the elements that factor into a recession are too complex to attribute to one overwhelming cause. It may be possible to overcome corruption problems if the corruption is moderate as opposed to extreme and a country has a host of other factors working in its favor. It seems contrary to logic to suggest that corruption doesn’t affect an economy, though, doesn’t it?
Consider that there are no African countries on that list. Corruption may be a major problem in Brazil or central Europe, but it is clearly more rampant in the African world.
Check out this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index
Brazil was the most corrupt country on the list you posted, and they finished 72nd out of 179. Corruption may be a problem there, but it’s a bigger problem in places that aren’t experiencing growth. Also, Hong Kong is seeing a major reduction in corruption, and they are growing through the roof right now!
In regard to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, I again would like to point out that there are many contributing factors that lead to a recession. The Act certainly didn’t help matters back in 1930, but it’s misleading to suggest that this was the overwhelming cause of the Depression. Note the date: this act was passed a year after the stock market crash. Not only that, the main reason it failed was due to the incredible debt many loaning countries were suffering due to the first world war. The current world economy doesn’t resemble postwar Europe, so if the U.S. were to pull out of the WTO, it would not have the catastrophic effect it had back then.
Whoa! We got seriously sidetracked. The only point I’m trying to make is that, yes, things would be different, but I don’t think it would cause cataclysmic problems, and maybe it’s better if small businesses take a more local solution to their needs.
Yeah, I was only listing the middle-income countries. If you are curious about growth in the low-income countries (which includes most of Africa) I can look that up when I get home.