The Lessons of Obamamania

From CounterPunch:

Obama’s capitulations are galling, and so is his milquetoast leadership style. But the real kicker is and always has been his austerity politics. In fairness, though, on that score, he is no worse than anyone else presently occupying the commanding heights, and probably better than many. The entire political class of Europe and North America is of a similar mind, and it would take a genius of Freud’s stature or greater to figure out why an intellectually bankrupt nineteenth century economic philosophy would have them all in its thrall. Obama deserves plenty of blame on this account, but so would anyone else likely to be in his position.

In any case, the Occupy movements broke the spell — for the more than 99% who are the victims of the system in place. If only for this, they deserve the unflinching gratitude of every (small-d) democrat. For too long, the 1% or less that owns our political parties has had the whole show run for their benefit alone. It took seemingly forever for the vast majority to take consciousness of how intolerable that situation had become. The Occupy movements made that happen.

As this awareness deepens and expands, new forms of struggle are bound to emerge, and they are unlikely to have much to do with ordinary electoral politics. For now and for the foreseeable future, the most elections can do is ratify changes that take place outside the electoral arena. Victorious candidates will not, and probably cannot, initiate changes except at the margins. Electoral outcomes can still be consequential; they do matter. But elections are not where the action now is. This is the lesson of the Occupy movements.

More here.

This was a lesson I learned when back when I was teaching: if you work within an institution, and you depend on your paycheck from that institution, you cannot change it.

Same with politics in the US. The problem is that American politics are controlled by vast concentrations of wealth; politicians utterly depend on those concentrations of wealth in order to succeed in their chosen career, politics. It is impossible for politicians in this current context to change the situation. They're in way too deep, so deep, in fact, that it totally colors their perception of the situation, the way they think about how the nation functions. It's actually far worse than loss of career or pay: in order to do the dirty filthy work of fundraising, of hitting up the wealthy and corporations for the millions in campaign donations needed to win elections, American politicians have internalized the values and worldview of the people who dole out the money. Most politicians, from both parties, are just fine with corporate control of the nation. To them, it's as American as apple pie.

So we simply cannot depend on our leaders to make the changes our nation desperately needs. We've got to create first an overall culture that demands change, that demands democracy, that demands economic justice, a culture that you can feel walking down the street, that is the topic of conversation at dinner parties and night clubs alike. We've got to make America shame the entire leadership class, the entire corporate sector. Once that happens, electoral change will simply be a formality.

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