by Adam Tenney
I’m not ashamed to admit that attending Obama’s inauguration will probably be one of the big moments in my life. Being there with millions of other Americans to celebrate our victory over the forces of reaction and racism is a moment to remember. This was a particularly momentous occasion for those us who have grown up under the Bush Administration. Finally, we are moving out of era defined by defensive struggle to one in which we can work with a president who holds many of the same ideals that we do.
This was not simply a celebration of our election of an African American president. I doubt that there would have been such a public celebration if Colin Powell or Condoleeza Rice had been elected. What makes this such a defining moment is that we have elected an African American president who holds progressive and democratic values.
This election has proven to be a difficult one for some progressives and Leftists. On Nov. 5th there was a lot of questioning about what to do now. Bush is gone, but now what? There are questions around how to approach the Obama Administration. Is he a progressive or centrist? How do we “go beyond the Obama election”? Frankly, I don’t really know what the latter question means even though I’ve seen it quite a bit. However, these aren’t the questions we need to be asking. It doesn’t matter if Obama is progressive or a centrist now nor does it matter if you can “go beyond” his election. The question to be answered is whether or not we understand this moment and the peoples response to it’s historic call for change.
In his inaugural speech, Obama highlights two main themes that point in the direction we need to take: understanding change and the development of a new progressive patriotism.
In his speech Obama stated, “what the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them—that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply”. How true this is for some on the Left. There were those of us progressives and Lefties who came to DC to fully rejoice with others in the culmination of an election that we poured our hearts and souls into. Others begrudgingly came to DC with a thinly veiled line of wanting to support Obama but also wanting to make sure people understood he was still a tool of capitalism. In truth, they simply did not want to look like racist jerks for protesting the first African-American president and behind closed doors believe that Obama is just like George Bush. While others still were blatant in their stupidity and proclaimed with tinges of racism that Obama was simply capitalism with a "black face".
It can be hard to go from a movement of protest and being on the defensive to one of celebration and going on the offensive. A new political moment requires a re-examination of tactics and new outlook on what is possible. There will be some who aren’t able to change. Groups will still be hung up on Bush. They will continue to apply the same tactics of protest and will continue to be hung up on what Bush did while in office. Yes, it is important to continue to highlight what happened during the last eight years. The disasters created during the Bush Administration will continue for years to come. However, he is not in power anymore.
There will be those who from the sidelines, because they refuse to change their tactics, angrily denounce Obama for not ending the Iraq War fast enough or doing enough to help revive our economy. On the sidelines they will stay and continue to be politically irrelevant.
To understand the new possibility of change is to understand the idea of progressive patriotism. This new moment represents the possibility to reclaim our progressive heritage; to redefine what means to be an American. In these times of hardship and crisis people want to believe we can be better. That our country is not about greed and profit but puts value in “hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity”. The parts of Obama’s speech that got the most applause and response were the parts that invoked these feelings.
In his speech Obama said, “The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.”
Obama made it clear that it was the masses of working people that built our country. “It has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things—some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor—who have carried us up the long rugged path toward prosperity and freedom… For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.”
In speaking these words he is calling forth the best and the most progressive in our nation’s history with a touch of materialism in understanding that is labor that creates wealth. These statements are not cliché soundbytes that overlook our darker moments such as slavery and our struggle with racism. Obama bluntly points out that the struggle for equality and freedom is “the meaning of our liberty and our creed—why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent Mall, and why a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most a sacred oath.”
Obama is redefining what it means to be patriotic and what we are being patriots about. Patriotism doesn’t have to be the reactionary patriotism touted by the right wing. Many of the great leaders who have lead struggles for social change have done so out of love for their country. It is these struggles for justice, equality and freedom that define us as Americans.
This struggle over patriotism is something the Left will have to come to grips with if it wants to be part of the movement for change. People have rightly been disgusted with the actions of our elected officials and have felt ashamed at what our government has done in our name. The consequences of these actions will linger on for years to come. However, it will be impossible to mobilize broad masses of people for change under a banner of shame about being an American.
Slogans being pander about on the Left like “Stop Thinking Like An American And Start Thinking About Humanity” are based on a gross misunderstanding of the current situation. Their anti-Americanism is an expression of their disconnection from the struggles of working people and their disbelief that people can make change. They refuse to recognize that the people have spoken and view this election cycle to be repudiation of the anti-people policies of that the ultra-right as pursued for the past 30 years. The working class has always been thinking about humanity and did a great service by kicking George Bush and the Republicans out of the White House and Congress.
It is no coincidence that those from the Left who are the loudest critics of Obama are also those that spew such an anti-working class perspective. It’s a classic case of the ultra-left meeting the ultra-right. The ultra-left ends up doing the dirty work of the right wing by helping to tear down the coalition that elected Obama. Instead of working to build the movement to support Obama, the ultra-left wants working class people to critique and bash Obama in order to somehow create change.
Yes, there will be times when there is healthy disagreement between the Left and progressive forces and Obama. Yet, when these arise, the real question is how we deal with them. Do we use this as an opportunity to strengthen the movement for progressive change or work to tear down the movement around Obama and strengthen the hand of the ultra-right? Joining in the chorus of people on the Left who want to see Obama fail will only help the right.
The lunacy and folly of this tactic is already being clearly highlighted in the battle over Obama’s economic stimulus package. The Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to either defeat this bill or water it down with tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations to the point of making it meaningless. They don’t want $13 billion to increase Pell Grants, $40 billion in aides to states, and want to slim down the money going to build infrastructure projects that they feel won’t instantly create jobs. Bashing Obama for not going far enough in this bill and labeling it as bad because it does not fulfill every revolutionary fantasy will only help ensure that working people will not receive the much needed relief we need.
In the coming months we will see more battles and fights. The Republicans may have lost the election but they are refusing to acknowledge that their time is up. It’s going to take a broad, united movement in order to ensure that Obama’s agenda for helping working class people is carried out. For there to be a broad movement, the Left and progressives can’t sit on the sidelines bashing Obama and yelling anti-American slogans. It will be a hard process, but this might just be the change the Left and progressive movements have needed.
