WAS OBAMA'S MOVE TOWARDS THE POLITICAL

The following is a slightly edited version of my response to an Obama supporter who posts under the screen name bernbart at Salon.com in regards to comments he made to this article by columnist Micah Sifry.

bernbart said:

Not true Obama's Orgnaizing [sic] for America is oeperating, [sic] full steam. I don't think anyone expected Obama to fill his cabinet positions with community organizers. I know I don't want grassroots organizers in the top jobs. Obama picked very well qualified people in his cabinet as I would expect him to.

Is he talking about the same Obama that you are in this article, Micah? Is he unaware that Obama filled his cabinet with Wall Street insiders and many of the same people from the Bush administration who favor big business over the common person's interests to a radical extent? And this commenter would rather see these people in office than community organizers? At least the latter people would stick up for the interests of the majority working class in society and probably do a far better job than the "talented" and experienced individuals that bernbart speaks so highly of.

I must say that I wanted to give Obama a chance and I wanted to believe that he would be different (very naive in retrospect, I suppose). But early on, before he was elected, I saw many red flags, including his shift to the "center" with things like his support for the war in Afghanistan, his support for Patriot Act policies, the fact that he was not depending entirely upon public funding for his campaign, etc. These were all early warning signs that there was trouble afoot.

I had a big argument with my closest friend over my anger with Obama's move towards being a "centrist." My friend explained to me that Obama had no choice but to do that otherwise the rednecks and the swing voters wouldn't vote for him, while I argued that capitulation and abandonment of the progressive base that worked so hard for him and put so much time, money (which they do not have in abundance), and faith in him in order to appease those who did not carry a progressive agenda was not justified. I saw the same excuse used to justify Bill Clinton's "centrist" capitulations to the Right on numerous issues, such as when he screwed over the gay community with his support for the Marriage Protection Act and his screwing over the poor with his notorious Welfare Reform Act, along with his pro-business policies in general (i.e., "he had no choice but to do it due to pressure from certain political forces blah blah blah...").

We need to stop expecting less than the best from those we choose to support and whom we put so much faith behind, and we need to find politicians who truly stick up for the interests of the working class majority in society. And yes, contrary to what bernbart seems to think, we need to put more working class people who actually understand what it's like to live as a member of that class into important positions, as opposed to an endless slew of wealthy corporate entities from Wall Street who live a privileged and pampered existence that is as far removed from that of the majority class as Heaven is from Earth.

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