Saturday, November 7, 2009

Borosage: Obama's First Year: It Ain't No Crystal Staircase, Betrayal on Climate Change

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/obamas-first-year-it-aint_b_346124.html&cp

Obama's First Year: It Ain't No Crystal Staircase

By Robert Borosage
Huffington Post: November 4th, 2009

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners...
- Langston Hughes


Barack Obama is a leader of great capacities and great contradictions.
Perhaps the measure of his capacities is the magnitude of his contractions.
He is a man of exceptional grace. But the grace misleads; this is a
politician of intense ambition, discipline and grit. He understands and
wields the power of the word. But his soaring oratory misleads, for his
temperament is moderate; his predilection is for compromise. He rouses a new
generation to politics, but prefers to cut the deals in the backrooms. He
calls us to a new direction, then staffs his administration's team with the
acolytes of the old ideas he scorns.

One year is too soon to measure a president or assess an administration.
Hell, this administration has less than half of its political appointees in
place. But here in brief are six propositions on Barack Obama's first year:

1. This is the most progressive president since Lyndon Johnson.

His election ushered in what could be the greatest era for progressive
reform since the 1960s. After fighting for years simply to stave off further
horrors, we're now fighting over how to get to comprehensive health care,
how to address global warming, calling the world to move towards nuclear
disarmament. It is a big difference and should not be ignored.

Obama leads this wave. Listen to the music of the administration. Time and
time again, on the economy, on civil rights, on disarmament - Barack Obama
sounds a transformative call. His soaring words show us that another world
is possible. The hard slog of his first months reveals just how hard it will
be to get there. This ain't no crystal staircase.

2. This president seeks to do big things.

This isn't Bill Clinton running on school uniforms and TV monitors. Defying
conventional wisdom, in his first year, Obama summoned the country and the
Congress to address challenges that can no longer be ignored: a recovery act
to stave of potential depression, comprehensive health care reform, progress
on climate change, financial reform, new engagement with the world, and yet
to come - immigration reform, empowering workers, and more. Powerful
interests are challenged. The arguments are brutal. But the stakes are at
least worth the game.

3. He is a man of the establishment, not the left.

Barack Obama is an establishment reformer, not, despite the ravings of Rush
and Beck, a radical in any way. To a remarkable degree, Obama has chosen not
to include leading progressives in his administration. Foreign policy is
transformed, but only from the lunacy of the neocons to the "realism" of the
national security mandarins. Economic policy is rescued from conservative
supply side quackery, but entrusted to the dubious aegis of Bob Rubin and
Goldman Sachs protégés. Not surprisingly, the populist outrage of Americans
at the arrogance of Wall Street barons profiting from the taxpayers' bailout
caught this administration by surprise.

4. He is weakened by his moderation, not his boldness.

The president is chided for having tried to do too much. Progressives are
told that our disappointments come from exaggerated expectations. In fact,
the reality is somewhat different. His accomplishments far exceed the
expectations of the beltway chattering classes but fail to meet the needs of
the moment.

His accomplishments in one year are impressive. A recovery package that
helped stave off a depression, a bold first budget with new priorities; the
largest aid to the poor since the 1960s built into the stimulus, a
transformation of our relations abroad, and much more. Yet the successes are
outstripped by the country's needs dictated by grim reality. The stimulus
was too small; unemployment continues to rise. The banking bailout left Wall
Street more concentrated and less accountable. The energy bill will not
catch America up with the allies on global warming, much less seize the
opportunity of leading the green industrial revolution.

The health care bill may generate a storm of protest not because it costs
too much to government, but it isn't affordable to those families and
individuals required to buy insurance. He personally calls a halt to the
march into Afghanistan, but a moderate response, giving the generals more
troops but fewer than they want, won't keep us from wading ever deeper into
the muck.

5. He deserves a progressive movement that is more independent, and less
obedient.

Obama's remarkable leadership inspired millions. New activists, new
resources, new energy - all roused by the hope he has engendered. The
administration, not surprisingly, has sought to discipline this energy, to
channel it into support for its agenda. But with his agenda delayed by
entrenched lobbyists and diluted by compromised Democrats, the president
would have been better served by independent movements demanding far bolder
change from the White House, challenging those in both parties standing in
the way, exposing and confronting the lobbyists and the clubbable
legislators, mobilizing outside populist anger to counter inside
establishment dealing. The mobilization around the "public option" on health
care, when Max Baucus, the insurance lobby and the White House were ready to
discard it, shows the potential. The populist challenge to this
administration should not be abandoned to the crackpot right. Roosevelt had
a disputatious left, an aroused labor movement; Johnson had the Civil Rights
movement; Obama deserves a movement that will march on him, not just with
him.

6. It ain't over; it's only just begun.

The crisis that the president inherited continues. The administration is
still finding its legs. Democrats haven't adjusted to the power that they
now wield. Progressives are only beginning to challenge the limits of the
current debate. The gulf between the president's vision and his
administration's reality continues to grow. Will that gulf be deepened by
Washington's potent, permanent status quo - the corporate lobbies, the
establishment's convention, the national security apparatus, exerting ever
greater power, with the president's enemies emboldened; his supporters
discouraged; the public dismayed? Or will it be overcome by renewed purpose,
greater mobilization, the democracy overwhelming the interests.

Obama will increasingly have to choose - whether to hold to his vision and
raise the stakes, or compromise his vision to cut the deal. And those of us
whom he has inspired also have to choose. Whether to sit back and hope he
does the right thing against the odds, growing cynical when he fails our
expectations, or to stand up, mobilize, challenge the Congress and the
President to get on with the change we need. The first year is but the
opening scene. We should still have the audacity to hope, and the commitment
to act.

***

From: Lgartt@aol.com
Sent: Friday, November 06, 2009 5:16 PM
Subject: ANOTHER OBAMA BETRAYAL.....


.....This tme it's on climate change. Does anybody understand where this
President is come from? If so, please share it wih us. Read this news
item by Naomi Klein. Lila Garrett

Flash forward to the high-stakes climate negotiations that have just wrapped
up in Bangkok. The talks were supposed to lead to a deal in Copenhagen this
December that significantly strengthens Kyoto. Instead, the developed
countries formed a bloc calling for Kyoto to be replaced. Where Kyoto set
clear and binding targets for emission reductions, the US plan would have
each country decide how much to cut, then submit its plans to international
monitoring - with nothing but wishful thinking to ensure this all keeps the
planet's temperature below catastrophic levels. And where Kyoto put the
burden of responsibility squarely on the rich countries that created the
climate crisis, the new plan treats all countries the same.

These kinds of weak proposals were not altogether surprising coming from the
US; what was shocking was the sudden unity of the rich world around the
plan - including many countries that had previously sung the praises of
Kyoto. And there were more betrayals: the EU, which had indicated it would
spend between $19bn and $35bn a year to help developing countries adapt to
climate change, came to Bangkok with a much lower offer, one more in line
with the US pledge of . nothing. Oxfam's Antonio Hill summed up the talks
like this: "When the starting gun fired, it became a race to the bottom,
with rich countries weakening existing commitments under the international
framework." -Naomi Klein

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