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A fire on Obama's left flank
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President-elect Barack Obama may have been called a “socialist” during the 2008 campaign, but to those on the political left, the Democrat is little more than a center-right politician who should be watched with great trepidation.
From university-sponsored forums to left-wing radio, progressives are warning that Obama is unlikely to change the fundamentals of American domestic and foreign policy unless the grassroots organizations that helped him get elected pressure the new president to pursue an aggressive agenda of social and economic liberation.
While many progressives say that Obama will be a vast improvement over President George W. Bush—and many are happy he defeated Republican John McCain in the Nov. 4 election—they are nevertheless concerned that Obama will become what community activist Ana Edwards recently called “the ruling class’s pacifier to the people.”
“I’m very concerned that what is being perceived as a victory for humanity is yet another con game in a long line of historical trickery,” Jared Ball, a professor of communications at Morgan State University in Baltimore, said during a panel discussion at Virginia Commonwealth University. “What we have to remember is that [Obama’s] ascendancy to the presidency was not on the crest of a wave of a revolutionary social movement. In fact … his ascendancy is … a response by the system to stem any potential revolutionary activity coming from this country or other places around the world.” (See interview with Dr. Ball here.)
Speaking on the progressive radio show Democracy Now, journalist Arun Gupta said Obama was “ultimately a conservative,” pointing out that he supported the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street and has floated the names of potential cabinet secretaries like Larry Summers who represent a “Washington consensus” to cut social welfare programs.
Yet Gupta said he is not giving up hope that an Obama administration can bring true change to America.
“I think one of the things to understand about Obama, there is the potential there for it to be a transformative presidency if it comes from below,” Gupta told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman. “He, himself, is not going to be a transformative president. He’s very conservative on economic issues [and] foreign policy.”
Australian journalist John Pilger, who also appeared on Democracy Now, said Obama can show he is different from other politicians by dismantling the war-making machine erected by the United States over the past half century.
Pilger said Obama should end the embargo on Cuba, begin talks with the leaders of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, withdraw the U.S. military from Iraq, and recognize that the conflict in Afghanistan is about colonialism rather than a war against terrorism.
Political philosopher Noam Chomsky did not address these issues specifically, but he agreed in an interview with Examiner.com that an Obama administration is unlikely to usher in any major alterations to American policy unless progressives remain politically engaged.
“Obama energized a great many people, mostly young,” said Chomsky, a linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “If they fade away, or simply take instructions, we can expect little from his administration. If they become organized and active, and undertake to be independent voices in policy formation and implementation, a great deal can be achieved.” (See transcript of the full interview here.)
Not everyone believes that progressives should try to push Obama to the left, though.
Historian Mike Davis, for instance, said leftists should not be fooled into believing that a Democratic administration will listen to their concerns. Instead, Davis said socialists should wait for the inevitable failure of Obama to manage the economic crisis and foreign conflicts as a way to illustrate the failure of capitalism itself.
“The great challenge to small bands of the left is to anticipate this mass disillusionment [with Obama], understanding that our task is not ‘how to move Obama leftward,’ but to salvage and reorganize shattered hopes,” he said during a roundtable discussion sponsored by SocialistWorker.Org. “The transitional program must be socialism itself.”
Others on the left draw parallels between Obama and the world that President Franklin Roosevelt faced when he was sworn into office in 1933.
Economist Robert Kuttner told Democracy Now earlier this month that critical economic events may push a naturally conservative Obama further to the left, much like Roosevelt was forced to dramatically extend government’s reach during the Great Depression.
In addition, Kuttner said that Obama has surrounded himself with a few progressives who may hold sway with him, including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and Georgetown economist Dan Tarullo.
As Kuttner put it: “I think the jury is still out on what kind of policy Obama is going to ultimately pursue, not because he’s not a centrist—his history is that of a centrist—but I think events are going to force him to be bolder, more progressive, the same way they did with Roosevelt.”
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