How Do We Respond to Obama?

By Bill Fletcher, Jr.
April 21, 2011

April2011http://www.blackcommentator.com/423/423_ml_bring_obama_home.php

Rather than dwell on the question of whether we can

bring Obama home, whether he ever was home, etc., I

want to refocus on this question of how to respond to

him, particularly as we start to think about 2012.

First, what do we now say about 2008? Contrary to those

who have thrown up their hands and feel betrayed by

what the Obama administration has not done, I start in

a different place. I continue to assert that Obama was

knowable in 2008. He was a charismatic, smart candidate

who made the right call on the Iraq War and stepped out

on the issue when it was necessary. He was also, as I

said at the time, someone who could appear to be

different things to different people. The problem was

that too many of his supporters saw what they wanted to

see rather than what existed.

What existed? Well, from the beginning he was a

corporate candidate. We knew that. The question was not

whether he was one but the extent to which his views

could be shifted in order to take progressive, non-

corporate stands. Second, he was a candidate who was

going to avoid race as you or I would avoid a plague

ship. He went out of his way to prove that he was not

an `angry black man' and that race was not going to be

an issue that he would harp on. Third, he was clear

that he wanted to change the image of the USA around

the world, but it was not clear to what extent he

wanted to change the substance of the relationship of

the USA to the rest of the world.

Raising these and other issues in 2008 was exceedingly

difficult. Raising concerns regarding Obama and his

views in 2008, even when one offered critical support

to the campaign (as did I), was often met with

accusations of throwing a wet towel on a fire, and

other such metaphors. Of course, there were those who

denounced Obama all the way, but they offered very

little as an alternative, with the exception of what we

must frankly characterize as symbolic political action.

What these fierce critics failed to address was how to

account for and speak with the masses of people from

various social movements who were gravitating toward

Obama's campaign, individuals and groups looking to

create something very different in the USA (and around

the world). In fact, it was because of these masses of

people, incorrectly described as a "movement" by some

but certainly an energized base, and the potential of

that base to become a transformative force, that it was

correct to critically support the Obama campaign,

despite the limitations of the campaign and the

candidate.

What did we learn? We learned immediately that it was a

mistake to give any elected official, but particularly

someone reflecting more `center' politics, a honeymoon.

Virtually every social movement and organization

stepped back in the interest of providing Obama space.

It did not work. There was space, alright, but the

political Right seized it.

We also should have learned that it is not about the

`man' but it is about the administration. We, African

Americans, tend to focus too much on Obama-the-man. We

like his speeches. He is smart and seems to have a

great family. He sounds so sincere. He understands and

appreciates our culture. That is all well and good, but

Obama-the-man is not as important as Obama-the-

administration. This became all too clear during the

Honduras coup in 2009. A democratically elected

government was overthrown in a coup. Obama initially

condemned this but then did nothing to unseat the `coup

people' (a term made famous by President George H.W.

Bush in 1991, describing those who overthrew President

Gorbachov in the then Soviet Union). Not only that, his

administration took steps to keep the democratically

elected president out of office and came up with a so-

called compromise that resulted in the forces of the

wealthy elite returning to power. In that sense, it

does not matter whether we like Obama as a person; it

is a matter of what we say about the policies of his

administration.

Of course, we had a more recent example of this when no

one from the administration could quite explain why the

return of Haitian President Aristide from South Africa

was being opposed by the US government. Does Obama like

or hate Aristide? It does not matter; what matters are

the actions of the Obama administration.

What should we do? First, we have to focus on policies

rather than intent. Those who uncritically supported

Obama in 2008 should not feel ashamed but neither

should they now flip into despair or abstentionism. We

have to keep in mind that this administration, as all

administrations, is affected by pressure. This

administration SEEMS to be more affected by pressure

from the political Right than pressure from

progressives and those on the Left but that is largely

because the left and progressives have failed to offer

sustained pressure on the administration. At each

moment that many left and progressives stand up to the

administration, they are more often than not met with

bared teeth and a growl, which then results in silence

on our part. The political Right understands that

pressure is not about barking. It is about biting.

So, in this sense, it is not about bringing Obama home.

It is about pressuring him to do not only what he has

promised but to go beyond what he has promised. This

will not come about through email exchanges or social

media, but it will come about through building mass

pressure. What could this look like?

    1. Forget running a candidate against Obama in

    2012. That would be a sure way to alienate much of

    his black and Latin base. Instead, there needs to

    be a progressive strategy focused on Congressional

    races. That means identifying key races to run

    genuine progressive candidates against conservative

    Democrats and/or Republicans.

    2.  We need to build an electoral organization

    that can run such candidates. There are examples of

    these around the country but we need to expand,

    ultimately building something at the national level

    that rivals the vision of the National Rainbow

    Coalition from the late 1980s. It needs to be an

    organization that has a mass base and can run

    candidates inside and outside the Democratic Party.

    3.  We desperately need mass action. Wisconsin was

    wonderful for many reasons but one important one

    was the sustained presence in the capitol. A

    protest movement focused on power needs to be

    prepared to break the law, not through the actions

    of a few individuals, but much as happened in

    Wisconsin, as well as in the Civil Rights movement,

    with masses of people making a situation untenable.

    But we have to also develop key strategic targets

    for our actions where we are clear on what we want

    them to do. This will largely happen at the local

    level at first, but it can also happen at the

    national level, such as through selective boycotts.

    4. We have to think and act globally and locally.

    We must link with social movements around the world

    challenging US foreign policy, providing such

    movements with whatever level of support we can. We

    cannot allow more Honduras coup situations, and we

    have to make it clear that US policy in Afghanistan

    is a disaster.

None of these "to dos" had Obama's name on them. That

is because we are not simply confronting or attempting

to influence an individual. We are up against an empire

and the spokesperson for that empire happens to be

someone in whom many people placed excessive hope. The

hope should have rested with the millions who supported

him and were seeking a better day. Those are the people

upon whom we need to focus so that we can go beyond the

Obama moment and move in a progressive direction.

---

 Originally published on 

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Bill

Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute

for Policy Studies, the immediate past president

ofTransAfrica Forum and co-author of Solidarity

Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path

toward Social Justice(University of California Press),