> This is inspired.
>
> http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002071.html
Yes Obama uses empty platitudes and is likely to do nothing of any
substance altogether different from the current regime (save putting
little bows on the bombs and tying ribbons around the ruins of the US
welfare state. His choice of advisers and rhetoric virtually ensure
that the Obama mania will not extend to the level of actual policy.
But for some reason all this criticism of him (along with the
adoration) resonated strongly with a book review essay in the Nation a
few weeks ago. I'm sure there is some insipid history in relation to
this author (his position makes him sound like he has sleepovers at
Todd Gitlin's place where they reminisce about the times when the
revolution was still strong), but in any case, the description seemed
rather apt:
<Blockquote>
The fate of the student movement of the 1960s, she argued, was
determined when its leaders made the "curiously apolitical" decision
to start thinking of themselves as revolutionaries:
"Because revolution was effectively impossible one did not have to
dirty one's hands in compromise, nor mingle much with the hoi polloi
(meaning: the middle class; the un-Chosen) along the way. And it was
also ahistorical and smug, since it mistook revolution, a rare
historical event, for a moral choice."
That the New Left "mistook revolution...for a moral choice" is the
best one-sentence summary I've ever read of the complexities of
late-'60s radicalism. I would suggest a corollary that seems implicit
in Langer's essay. The movement's revolutionary turn was not so much a
measure of its un- or anti-American character, as conservative critics
would have it, but rather an indication that, if anything, the New
Left might have been a bit too American for its own good. Its
impatience with the half-measures of liberal reformism, its lack of
interest in creating a stable constituency or institutional base, and
its promotion of a politics of confrontation and risk ("putting your
body on the line," as the saying went) revealed the movement as an
exotic but recognizable descendant of the powerful Protestant
antinomian tradition of radical individualism--one whose adherents
defied social custom and religious law to follow the inner promptings
of God's voice wherever they might lead. "John Brown is a good symbol
for us," Langer noted in passing. "At one point he wanted to run a
school for Negroes but he came to find the idea too small: he had to
attack Harper's Ferry."
<end blockquote>
full available here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080211/isserman
It now seems like every kind of American revolutionary movement has
taken on this antinomian quality, pretty much since the 1960s. I see
shades of it in the Ron Paul Re-love-lution (with the militant stencil
graphic reversing the word love and making me wonder if it is supposed
to make love subversive or if it is really a revolution which subverts
love. I'd say that any pure Libertarian movement is limited to taking
a position at one of these two poles depending on the hour of the
day.) That the Paul is standing out as the anti-Obama for some people
on the list, is striking in this regard.
I would say that the difference between Obama and Reagan or Thatcher
is that the issue of the collective is quite differently articulated.
On one side, there is no society, only individuals; on the other "yes
we can." Perhaps it is a dangerous (or at least naive) illusion to
say that there is something different this--whether as a rhetorical
strategy or as an idea that seems to have a broad resonance. I guess
the question is if we'd rather have a cult of the individual or a cult
of the "we." Obviously both have had their periods of overindulgence
cum political terror, but it seems like Bush has been struggling with
how to carve a path between his own antinomian delight in the rugged
individual (yet evangelical) cowboy and the obvious collective demands
of the country. Yesterday he said this about the tornadoes:
"Loss of life, loss of property — prayers can help and so can the
government," Bush said. "I do want the people in those states to know
the American people are standing with them."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hEVVdA-Jj41Pg6oB6TwkpA_6ygZgD8UL4MGO0
This is not an uncharacteristic statement, even if there is some
dissonance it creates for people who recognize what he has actually
done i.e. FEMA, Katrina, the Gulf coast rebuilding etc. But it does
speak to something that, try as he and the conservative movement
might, they can't quite get out from under. They have tried to
re-frame it in terms of the government helping to answer their prayers
about circumventing alternative lifestyles homosexuality and tried to
re-frame all the economic and security woes into the xenophobic issue
of immigration. But they can't quite get back to the government's
role of doing nothing. When Romney, who tried to bill himself as the
truly conservative candidate, spoke in Michigan, his most memorable
line was that he would "fight for every last job" in Detroit.
Of course his plan for how to do this was conventional,
( e.g. "increased government spending for research on advanced fuels
and vehicles, aid to automakers to deal with the costs of health care
and pensions for retirees, and tax cuts for most taxpayers to help
them buy new cars."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/politics/13campaign.html?_r=1&oref=slogin )
but the call to put the wheels of government back in the service of
the people seems to be the basic rallying cry, even if the empty
signifier is as dangerously unstable here as in Laclau's "a people
must be constructed" approach. It does make Frum's comments about
this being the end of the Conservative "revolution" seem more
pertinent, but I can also see why people would be suspicious of a
Clinton, round 2. The problem there was, as indicated above, he ended
up doing things that the right wing free traders would only have
dreamed and made it seem like a really swell thing for everyone (a
consensus that even now doesn't seem to be fading). That Obama would
likely be elected with a similar kind of evangelical support as Bush
(though with him as the leader rather than Jesus
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/02/05/barack_obama_is_not_jesus/#more
) is certainly important to consider--not because he would not be able
to do all the vague things he says he would, but because he'd be able
to couch whatever he's doing in the same vague terms. If I understand
correctly, this is the other basic reason for resistance to him on the
list.
I also think Edwards losing wasn't evidence that the progressive
message he was using was not appealing: the race got chalked up in
most places to being between the two front runners in most major media
outlets and since Obama was preaching a message of Change as well, it
seemed like a wash, despite the details to the contrary.
