Obama and the narrow spectrum

The election of Barack Obama was an event of undeniable symbolic importance. That even North Carolina"which last century habitually deployed crypto-fascist Jesse Helms to the Capitol"went for a black man (though barely and only because of Northern Democrat immigration and Bob Barr's Libertarian Party candidacy) suggests America has, to some degree, changed for the better. But is the candidate"soon to be the president"of "change" going to deliver the revolution his enthusiasts have imagined? In Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Paradigm Publishers, 2008), historian and journalist Paul Street answers: probably not. Although careful to refrain from specific predictions, Street makes a strong case that "based on Obama's record and on the deeper history, structure, and culture of US politics…an Obama administration [will] be likely to move in a relatively conservative direction unless and until…pushed to the left from below by an aroused and organized populace." Likely the only Obama book sporting praise from Noam Chomsky or John Pilger on the back cover, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics considers Obama and the Obama Phenomenon from a progressive perspective, a view rooted in "a left-libertarian" "moral and ideological heritage" inspired by the likes of Rudolph Rocker, George Orwell, Rosa Luxemburg, and Chomsky. Street's analysis is equally divided between the title subjects and finds Obama solidly within the bounds of the "Narrow-Spectrum Two-Party Money-Media Single-Member-Plurality-System-Winner-Take-All-Strong-Executive-Imperial Plutocracy". If Street's hunch proves correct, and the Obama administration tilts rightward once in power, Obama enthusiasts may find themselves feeling betrayed. If so, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics will help them understand why and will serve as an accessible introduction to a more radical understanding of the American political and economic systems. For progressives, Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics is especially valuable in that it is written from the perspective that "reform and revolution are not polar opposites," but "inseparable and mutually reinforcing aspects of a left "democratic political project""a book that is constrained neither by the "Narrow Spectrum" nor by what Howard Zinn calls "some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant." Street correctly observes that apparently cosmetic distinctions between political parties can literally mean the difference between life and death for those vulnerable people living on what he calls "the wrong side of American hierarchy and policy" but maintains his skepticism that progressive "principals can ever be meaningfully honored under the currently hegemonic, corporate-state profit system." Appended to the text is a list of poll findings suggesting that American citizens share far fewer of the conservative and imperialist views of the "political and policy-making class" than is commonly thought. Among the findings: "Twice as many Americans back more government services and spending (even if this means a tax increase) as the number who support fewer services and reduced spending." "69 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of the federal government to provide health care to all US citizens." "59 percent of Americans in 2004 thought the US should remove its military presence from the Middle East if that's what the majority of the people there want." "93 percent of Americans support minimum standards in international trade agreements for working conditions and 91 percent support minimum environmental protection." If one keeps a "glass full" attitude, these polls are good news. However, there's still much bad news, as evidenced by the many times during the campaign the word "socialist" was applied to Obama, as on AM radio (where Rush Limbaugh wondered if voters realized they were about to elect a "socialist" government and a guest host declared many of the Democrats elected in November "neo-Marxists") or in the business press (where a July editorial in Investors Business Daily titled "Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism" explained "'Economic justice' simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat.") or by John McCain himself, who complained "At least in Europe, the socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives." Whether by "socialism" one is referring to a revolutionary social order prioritizing people's needs over private profit (to which both Karl Marx and his anarchist rival Mikhail Bakunin committed themselves), or to the "vilest and most dangerous lie" of the Bolshevik "Red Bueracracy" (to quote the prescient Bakunin), applying the term to president-to-be Barack Obama is completely absurd. In Audacity of Hope, Obama praised the "modest hopes" of the ordinary American, that "every child" should have "a decent shot at life" and look forward to retiring "with some dignity and respect." But "nothing", writes Street, "about the indecent right of some children to receive limitless 'shots' at "indeed an inherited guarantee of" luxuriant hyper-affluence while a much larger number of less fortunate others are socially preselected for lifelong poverty and despair, receiving perhaps one or two passing shots at middle-class 'decency' if they are lucky…One might interpret Audacity to imply that modestly hopeful Americans…know better than to push for actual equality and decent lives for all. They embrace 'realistic' "that is, savagely scaled down" ambitions that are marvelously aligned with the core neoliberal project of…reducing government's essential roles to serving the needs of the investor class, fighting class wars, punishing/warehousing the poor, and repressing dissent." It is equally absurd to believe that the far-right wing of the investor class fears the establishment of a Soviet USA under Obama, but their success in promoting the ridiculous fantasy of Joes Sixpack and Plumber laboring in collectivized breweries and pipe factories is, like the Democratic Party's widely accepted fantasy of Obama as the realization of Martin Luther King's dreams of a radically just society, evidence of the work progressives have ahead of them, and of the necessity of works like Street's. Nick Holt works as a legal advocate for poor and low-income people in Charlotte, NC. His website is gritsandroses.org