Because It Had to Be Said...

It's about time! I've been waiting for this one. 

thanks Al. This had to be said and so glad you did. I am so so tired of the high priests and priestesses of the 'progressive left' yelling about the falling sky. Obama has done so much already and he will do things we do not agree with but these people are like the mirror image of the conservatives yelling FAIL before we even got started.

Thank you, Al.  These people, like Ms. Klein, are starting to bore me.  I read their blogs, or listen to them on the tv or talk radio.  And I seriously don't understand where they are coming from.  No one I know who voted and worked to get Obama elected thought we'd "hope hard" for change.  And no one I know is particularly unhappy, much less feeling like we're at some "last straw" with Obama.  

I am pretty good at reading people, and I do believe these people expected some type of special relationship with this new democratic administration, and they aren't getting it.  They are all coming from the same perspective, with the same level of hopelessness that seems personal to them, as if their own personal chances at relevance are fading.

It must be hard for them to be on the outside looking in.  They would like an embrace from Obama in a similar manner that Bush embraced the religious right.  And he's just not going to do it. He truly believes that he doesn't need them, and I think their style runs completely counter to his.

So all they can do is write the type of articles you are addressing.  And these articles usually make no sense, for example, she sites Obama's alleged "non-handling" of the Gaza strike in December, without discussing the recent developments of Rahm Emmanuel pressing Bibi about Obama's intent for a 2 state solution in 4 years.  And what about the account written last month by Seymour Hersch about the fact that behind the scenes Obama worked to have the bombing halted?  I know, a dirty detail. 

In the end, the problem for people like her is that they are not privy to information, and it is killing them.  So they are left to fantasize about nationalization, and fantasize about throwing the whole Bush Administration and the CIA into jail, and fantasize about whatever else they are complaining about, and then they can write articles about how it's Obama's fault their fantasies haven't been fulfilled.

It's actually quite sad on some level.

I first started noticing this stuff early in the primary season.  Many people who were so anti-Obama were in the same breath defending truly odious candidates like Clinton.  So much of it was clearly contradictory.  One example I ran into a lot was the "Clinton is the proven leader in the Senate who has gotten so much done.  What has Obama ever done, huh?  HUH?!?!"  Nevermind the reports that showed Obama's two year US Senate record far surpassing Clinton's 6 years there in terms of sponsored and authored legislation, the majority of it far more "Left" than Clinton's as well.

That's when I started wondering what the real motivation was of this nonsensical and extremely hostile anger toward Obama.  Then Harriet Christian showed up and it was clear:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KACQuZVAE3s

It's very overt with people like Sister Christian, but I think it's some of the same stuff even in the highly "educated" crowd.

It's been eye-opening for me.  I was going in this direction already and was feeling confused, but then discovered Al and his explanations for why many of these folks are not on his "team."  I held onto the idea that there was value in all these different approaches and viewpoints for "our" cause, but these last weeks have made me understand what Al's been talking about.

I've been seeing frequent discussions at some of the leading Poutragist blogs about reaching out to the Teabaggers and finding common ground in order to really "go after Obama."  'nuff said.

It's all so self-destructive, and I understand Al what you mean now about not wanting these people in your "foxhole."

For a great comeback to an AWFUL essay.

Ugh...

Here's the quote that got me sick(er):

"A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion designers, and that sort of helped."

Really -- if you were REALLY upset by the boycott, then how could fashion designers, no matter what their minority status, make you feel better? 

First off, I'll defend Obama; why go to a conference where you will not be listened to? No matter what your position on Middle East politics is, it would be a waste of time to defend the human rights of everyone, when the organizers have already decided Israel does not have a right to exist. 

This statement (and the others by Ms. Klein in this essay) was so superficial, self-absorbed, and... well, putrid, I couldn't stand it.  I'm sorry I had to read it, but glad that someone of your abilities was able to answer, Al. 

While I only did a little of the footwork (certainly less compared to others I know) to get Obama elected, I have a feeling I did much more than Ms. Klein on the phone and on the ground to create the change we were looking for.

The Buyers' Remorse comes when you realize that certain "progressives" you've been reading over the last four years will never be remotely satisfied, no matter who is in office. And really, most of those people sniped repeatedly during the campaign as well. Nothing, nothing, nothing will please them. Ever.

I applaud accountability. I cheer disagreements. But I also don't expect politicians I vote and volunteer for to follow everything I believe in lock-step.

And I do appreciate, deeply, the difference when a quality person is in office. Like now.

Klein's article is incredibly patronizing, self-absorbed, and shallow, not unlike MoDo's stuff (but less clever with words). It's hard to take seriously. If she is "hoping" that the Obama movement is going to "transform itself into an independent political movement" (led by whom? bloggers?), I think she is the one who's going to need a "lexicon of disappointment."

"Hopefiend." Please. I thought the Maureen Dowd school of elite punditocracy had been put to bed in 2006. At a minimum, if you are going to pretend to be a writer you better 1) use the language with an accuracy free from pale-faced cliche and 2) demonstrate a modicum of historical awareness. Poor prose and the lack of a historical sense disqualifies Klein from leading even her movement of one. (In the end, her so-called liberal enthusiasms for a theoretical progressive promised land to be bestowed upon the nameless, faceless, voiceless masses is just so much arrogant drivel.)

Klein writes from within the vacuum of her own liberal completion; she is the perfect finished product, the epitome of progressive evolution, it would seem. She is one of several reasons (all uninteresting columnists) why after 12 years I let my subscription to The Nation lapse last year. Her writing gives me no insight whatsoever. And in the heat of the general election battle, neither she nor her fellow-travelers gave me any useful tools (language or ideas) to help take my state from the Republicans. 

hopelash? I read her article when it first came out and didn't understand the concept and I still don't get it. Is it hope lashing us, like a whip? I just don't understand her point

Some of these folks are acting like privileged juveniles. It's like they revert to what the know best or better and it's highly unbecoming, to say the least, besides coming off as creepy.

A terrific column! While there are sometimes breakthroughs that happen very suddenly, real change is almost always a battle of inches and all too often involves a lot of false starts and setbacks. Anybody who expects anything different is living in a fantasy world. Too many on the left seem to imagine that one can simply wave a magic wand and change things. When the time comes to do the real work of organizing for each small victory along the way, they are too busy on their soapboxes to help.

P.S. Do you know of a good introductory reference on the Mexican bank nationalization you mentioned?

And, with uncanny timing the NYT dredges up incredulity that Obama is not kicking ass and taking names! We heard this last summer ad nauseum: Oh why Oh why will Barack not fight back and take and eye for an eye? That much of the progressive blogosphere learned its lessons last year and has not en masse returned to such faux-outrage (Klein's clan excepted) is progress. That the NYT now trots out such tired cant is... well... unsurprisingly belated. Sometimes I really think that the NYT wishes for its own irrelevance. Sad. 

I wouldn't put Klein in the same boat as Sirota, Hamsher and the rest of the poutraged crew, who are still sore that their candidate was overtaken by a better one.  Klein's beef is with American imperialism and whoever sits in the seat of power she is gonna throw stones at.

Unfortunately (for her), Obama doesn't really fit the imperial storyline, so she her range of narratives is limited. Amy Goodman's crew at Democracy Now and Noam Chomsky are in the same boat.  So they're left with flogging him repeatedly for approving a 17,000 troop surge in Afghanistan and painting him as a kindler, gentler warhawk.  It's pitiful, really.  I really respect those people.

Of the big name Left, only the amiable Howard Zinn is even willing to give the president as chance.  The rest have grown too cynical to believe any fundamental change could happen.

"Really -- if you were REALLY upset by the boycott, then how could fashion designers, no matter what their minority status, make you feel better?"

I'm pretty sure that line from her was snark.

I noticed that article today, and it read like a typical baseless politico article filled with personal feelings masked as objective reporting of relevant people's views.  I agree, the timing is interesting. 

Ha! I was going to send you Klein's article for dinner, but then I realized you'd see it eventually.

Look, the election is over, everyone is returning to form. Except for the new bunch that voted this past year. They are the majority, and I suspect they dont have time to read blogs or The Nation; they’re working two jobs. I mean, even on the other side, John McCain without Palin drew bigger crowds than the tea-baggers. We're watching something die, and its’ last hurrahs. We'll see it next week when Obama is back in-country and the squeals about what he did or did not give away in Trinidad will start in earnest. OMIGOD, he talked to a socialist! It's all after-party noise.

This is a new day. A new consciousness. All around the world. Something has changed profoundly. Really changed. It’s like a molar that broke off the jaw at the root. It cannot be reattached.

Take the US alone to see the upcoming consequences. More than one-quarter of the entire US population -- not just the voting population, the entire population -- will be between 18 and 34 by 2016. More than one-quarter of the entire US population will be of voting age and under 34! Think of it.

After the mess they’ve watched the vaunted Baby Boomers (of which I am one) make of every aspect of government, finance, foreign policy, and social contracts, they are going to punch these old lefties and righties in the balls.

Klein can get sneeringly word-cute and proclaim that she isn’t seeing the revolution that the Obama election promised to bring about. But no one needs to do it that way to succeed. Didn’t work last time, why now? Klein’s eyes are closed, as are so many pounding keys on the net.

A much more interesting article is the one in TIME about the Cialdini-led (or maybe Cialdini-inspired) behavioral scientists who worked as Obama’s top secret dream team creating the messages and methods that helped him win. The article is call How Obama is Using the Science of Change. Everyone carrying water for the old paradigms is missing the point. The past political labels are gone, and “progressives” and whatever that means is one of them. Ditto R. Ditto D. And ditto how the populace is supposed to react following an election.

I remain of two minds about the Obama Administration so far.  I think part of the problem is we have spent SO MUCH time in the wilderness, it is hard for us to _win_.  We want it all, and we want it all now.  We elected a slightly left of center guy, and now we are offended when he is not as liberal as we would like.  On substantive things like FISA and economic reform.

Yes, there is much that is laudable in the conduct of the Obama administration so far, but much that is troubling too.  I think part of the problem is that Obama is willing to be open, so all the blood, horror, and bile is right out there in the open.  He CAN'T change it all, and probably doesn't even want to change some of it.  And it makes us angry.   Because we want a better America, and a better World, and now that the fog has lifted, we can see how far it is from this Valley to the Mountaintop, much less the Promised Land

I agree about the part about not knowing how to win. But, I believe it has to do with the fact that Klein does not know what she is fighting for. If she is truly fighting for change, then this is not the way she would write and these are not the things she would say.  Wanting it all, as Al says, IS intellectual masturbation. It is called living comfortably in the realm of abstraction without doing any of the work to make it happen. This is predicated on the assumption that Klein is "right" about what constitutes change and everyone else is "wrong." How does she know she is right when she hasn't even demonstrated a basic capacity for research and a modicum of historical knowledge? Does she even realize that change according to what she believes, i.e.,revolution would mean that even she cannot continue to have precisely the comfortable race, class, and, yes, US imperialistic based position from which she speaks? Or, are all the sacrifices to be made by everyone else? Isn't it the case that those whose lives and livelihoods will not be affected are precisely the ones who yawp the most about a "revolution" and castigate others on their version of ideological purity?

Brendan is right. She like so many other liberal "activists" thinks that she is a finished product, that is, she is the end result of history, even as she perpetuates one of the most tired cliches: Obama must be twice as good to be considered even half as worthy. Yet, he must also be superman and fix everything, even before he was been sworn in. Amazing how the ground shifts when a person of color is being judged. 

Perhaps Naomi Klein should consider the fact for women of color the very fact that a black woman is considered a fashion icon and is even considered a lady IS a revolution. Perhaps she should consider the fact that for millions of people across the world, who other than white, seeing Obama and Michelle as the first family of the most powerful nation IS a revolution. She has always seen people who look like her at the helm, so it is easy for her to dismiss what she takes for granted. How can she want it all when she cannot even see how her posturing excludes precisely the people of color who made this historical moment possible and, as Al says, any progressive change possible? 

No, what she wants is a position that she has not earned and is using her privilege to mock those she knows nothing about. And this is the attitude that is going to end US imperialism?

Ultimately speaking most of the people who take the stance that Obama is duping people or whatever are not bad people.

They just don't have any practical reason to not be a Republican.  For them voting is a matter of principle rather than practicality.  They lead comfortable upper middle class lives and don't generally worry about who gets in charge (Though I am sure they are worried about their investments if another Republican gets in charge right now).

They are probably atheist or mostly atheist and simply don't really culturally fit with the current Republican party.

But they don't culturally fit with Obama either.  In fact they are such a small percentage of the population that tends to center around a certain age that they really didn't even have a candidate to vote for. 

They are often the face of the left to CNN, Fox News, and the like even though they don't really make up that large a percentage of the population because they are the conservative caricarature of the left.

They don't organize because they have no practical reason to.  You can't blame them for the three "lost" decades except in the sense that they probably didn't vote for the democrat because no one was organizing them.  I think its unreasonable to blame them for the lost decades as they have never really mattered either way.  If someone was expecting the college professors to come down and save them then they were just mistaken to believe that.

How many times in the past weeks have I read some liberal blogger or heard him/her on tv or radio and I responded with a loud "Get a life." I had grown very, very tired of the "why hasn't Obama done" and "what Obama must do" tirades and finally realized that these commentators learned nothing from the campaign and aren't paying attention now. Everyday and in every speech I am amazed at how thoughtful, informed, detailed, and appropriate are Obama's responses, actions, visions, policies. Amazingly, I also see that being articulated by the men and women he has gathered around him in his administration. If anyone is paying attention, they will see what you, Al, so skillfully articulate.

Thank you very much for putting Klein, et al, in their place--mid-air with no base.

Because of the Summit of the Americas, and the excellent reporting, I come to the "Sphere" via The Field several times a day.  I also check OFA, but not as much.  I check a few sites, just to see where they are going for the day.  I read the Klein piece, and thought she's really lost.  I have not read any of her books, so I just filed it.

When Al's opinion appeared, I began to read.  No comments had been entered.

I cheered! I clapped!  I jumped up several times and realized how grateful I am for authentic journalism.  I have been baffled by how the left sounds like the right with Obama and people like me.

I am one of the people that worked in late 2006 early 2007 in the "Draft Obama" movement.  I realized he would run, went to Springfield, IL for the official announcement. Here's what I learned via Obama for America: how to read and write on blogs; first time I volunteered, July 2007, Obama had just received protection and he came over to our group of 40 and spoke to us briefly, and shook our hands. I said "Thank You" to him.  I went to Camp Obama in Aug, 2007 in STL, and began working as a volunteer in earnest at that point.  My family is still involved with OFA.  The "Listening Tour" comes to town in late April; held at the Electrical Workers Hall in my neighborhood.

Why have I shared all of this with you?  I am one of the sort of educated white women in their 50's that woke up to Hope and Change in ways that made me work for my children, grand children, your children, your grandmother.

The Left always kind of left me behind.  Obama stood up, my family said OK.  We volunteered as a family. Catholic Republican family members voted for Obama because they were so sick about what BushCheney had done and they liked him.

The excellent comments from various people whom I learn so much from, inspires me daily. I can't wait for Rowe!

Al, thanks. I just dropped another $$ in the hat. The Fund for Authentic Journalism gets the $$ I used to give to Obama. 

I read Al's article and was reading the comments, trying to formulate my own response, when I came upon your comment.

I think you encapsulated what Obama and his campaign was for so many of us. He handed over a huge chunk of his campaign to those of us not living in the rarefied air of the elite left and told us to run with it.

Big thanks, Al, for telling Naomi Klein to go suck it.

Al,

I would like to once again THANK YOU for speaking truth to power.  I particularly appreciate that you are such a conscious ALLY to people of color like myself.  I would like you to understand that as a working class black woman I have NEVER been part of the same coalition as the Bowers, Hamsher, Klein, and Sirota clan.  They have never spoken TO ME and they certainly do not speak FOR ME.  There are few white progressives that I have been able to organize with over the years.  The Obama campaign was one of the first times in 20 years that I found white progressives who truly GOT IT and that I could organize with.  I am hopeful that more of those folks will start their own blogs and begin to speak in the way that you do.

Thank you for always keeping it real.

In solidarity!

I couldn't understand the left-wing whiners and MSM Obama impatience until you hit it on the head, Al.  Please keep up the clear-eyed commentary. 

As another lady of color, I second @Will Twiner's comments that folks like Naomi do not appreciate the revolution of color change alone.  But that is not all, it is having an adult in the house, with the courage to accept responsibility, listen to others and work for solutions, that is the real hope-changer. 

Perhaps that is why the MSM commentators now seem so stale, unlike Al.  They rarely reach out for comment or insight from those actually impacted by policy changes or who work for change.  And yes, those Sunday morning talk shows have waaay too many white faces.  Is that why there was so much coverage of the "teabaggers" vs. protests that involve the non-wealthy, non-white classes?

Rant done.  Go Al.

I think that some in the blogosphere are feeling left out.  Many - in fact most -- became financially and professionally succesful during the Bush years.  There was an endless need to hear opposition to Bush's policies and also a need for many more news, information and analysis sources -- since there was no information from the Bushies and the media was heavily restrained..

But that is no longer true, and we don't need the interpretations or challenges (what they know how to do) as much.  The President has news conferences, his people talk to the press and us and he has articulated policies (whether we like them completely or not -- we know what they are). He seems infinitely patient with our questions and critiques and doesnt seem to evade much.  He cautions us over and over that these complex issues will take time to resolve and/or evolve to where we can hope to resolve them.  Surely even the most impatient must know that all the problems that he inherited could not even be begun to be addressed in 90 days, much less resolved with all the issues smoothly tied in a bow?

But that is their fallback.  He is imperfect, he is taking too much time, he did not decide one narrow issue the correct way and in the time frame that they want.  Mostly, he did not ask them their opinion or recruit their opinion.  They are just another blog writer and host out here with an opinion.  They are probably not getting the hits or the audience adulation that they are used to.  Obama is sucking all the adulation oxygen out of the public sphere...who can top his command of the issues and sense of cautious but solid optimism.  He connects to us without an intermediary or interpreters.  They want to insert themselves as interpreters of his actions.  The negative interpretation gives them power --  if they can get enough people to believe the negative...

They were better off under Bush -- they were listened to and revered more.  Now, they are somewhat irrelevant and like you say very rightly Al, they have no interest in real organizing so right now, they are without a growing constituency...

I'm going to copy your comment and save it.  A great explanation of the feelings I've been having but haven't been able to articulate very well.  You've provided some excellent "talking points" for future conversations.  Thanks!

is a huge component of it and was a big topic on the Townhouse mailing list in 2007.

The netroots proclaimed themselves the coming democratic grassroots only to see some upstart do the job better and faster than they ever could... and he did it all without their input.

Now that they're on the outside, what else are they going to do but continue what they did non-stop during the primaries and general?

First of all, I appreciate this article. A lot. It, along with various other things all at the same time, has helped me make some necessary shifts in my own understanding of the current political landscape.

I never realized that I could be someone who would perceive leftists as in the same category as right wing fundamentalists on any level.

But there are ways that self-referential ideologies operate and feel similarly even when their contents are very different. I am still letting this sink into my active perception and don't even know if I am saying it right.

But. Here's the part I hate to say. Over the past few days I've gotten a couple of emails from outside of white-progressive-land that have some energy that to me feels a lot like what I am finding so nasty in white-progressive-land. Both were forwarded by an indigenous activist I know. One was a piece from Mohawk News Network and begins with what I can only describe as a flat-out unnecessarily inaccurate reference to President Obama's inauguration speech, I presume as a way to rhetorically position him as a Bad Guy in some really clear way (in case others have seen it or want to read it, it's pretty recent, I would assume it's on their site and on Brenda Norrell's site too I think; google-able). Another forwarded email, which I read less closely because I decided I am done with this stuff, was by someone else and about immigration issues -- rhetorically playing with Obama-Bush comparison in this weird sort of way, saying (from what I glimpsed) no they're not the same but yes they are.

To me, it's not so much that there isn't information and analysis of value somewhere in these kinds of things. It's more the ... energy of it. It's like -- I don't understand the need for inaccuracy and/or hyperbole when there are real issues that could bear some real scrutiny and critique. It feels to me like there's a sort of frantic-ness in dramatically defining President Obama in a particular role -- a move that to me seems to have little to do with the actual substance of any critique of him.

I know that a lot of what I am calling the frantic energy related to President Obama is in fact coming from white-progressive-land. But these forwarded emails have pushed me in ways I would prefer not to be pushed. I would prefer that this be only coming from white progressives for the analytical reasons detailed in the essay and also in some of the comments here.

Sigh. I have no actual point, I don't think. Other than to say what I hate to say here.

I agree with most of what you say in your article, but I vehemently disagree with your pejorative use of "college-educated" in regard to Klein's condescension. If you had called her out for being an unworldly academic, an ivory tower fantasist or something similar, I would agree whole-heartedly, but you are wrong, clearly wrong, and absolutely wrong to attribute Klein's follies to her college education. Since when was it progressive to sneer implicitly at someone for going to college?  Do you really want to align yourself with the praise of ignorance that has become the stock-in-trade of the deeply anti-progressive Christianist rightwingers like Palin? Please think again about how you expressed this, and if you can, correct it.

" I would agree whole-heartedly, but you are wrong, clearly wrong, and absolutely wrong to attribute Klein's follies to her college education."

And I would agree that "college-educated" wasn't the best choice of words.  But considering that one of Al's heroes is Abbie Hoffman (Brandeis, Class of '59), I doubt he holds anyone's college education against them.  It's the rigid adherence to theoretical academic models that ticks him off. 

I like your term "ivory tower fantasist".  I think it explains pretty succintly what's been going on with these folks.

That's an amazing piece, the strongest critique of the "progressive" left I've seen.  It helps me understand what you were trying to say in some of the comment threads last year.  This part, for example:

"And when you go to give your next speech at some university or activist hall, look around at the white, privileged faces that occupy more than half those seats. Study how many of them choose to self-marginalize from workers or racial minorities with their freak-show narcissistic – and yet humorless! – antics. You know what I’m talkin’ about. And you probably wince regularly as they ask you to sign your book for them." 

I do know what you're talkin' about!  I used to go to those events and I did wince, often.  The last time it happened was when a friend dragged me along to Ralph Nader's visit to Austin last summer.  The sea of white faces, the utter lack of real solutions or actions being discussed - I couldn't stand it, left early and haven't gone back to events like that since then.  I didn't go see Klein when she came here in Octobter because I knew the audience would be mostly white and/or privileged folks, like me, who already know and identify with her point of view.  What the hell is the point?

There's just one thing I want to question, Al - you say, "“Demanding” is necessary but without “organizing” to back it up it is merely an act of intellectual masturbation. It accomplishes nothing. It never has won a single battle."  I think that's true a lot of the time.  But how do folks "organize" around, say, the prosecution of Bush admin. officials who authorized torture?  That's an issue that seems ill-suited to being addressed by community organizing.  Not only that, but it appears that on some level the "demanding" over the past week on this issue has accomplished something, with Obama today opening the door to maybe holding certain people accountable. 

Am I wrong or missing something?  What do y'all think?  (I realize I'm a little late to this comment thread.)

Thanks so much for this post, Al.  It's moved me to put some long overdue coin in the kitty. 

I hope you read this.  I don't think Obama changed any position in his statement on Tuesday.  It always seemed like he wanted to hold the CIA people harmless.  And it always seemed like he wanted to move forward...in fact I think he still does. 

What I think happened was people needed more.  He never mentioned Bush officials and Bush and Cheney, or high officials at the CIA.  Because of that deliberate omission, people on the left and the media were left to speculate.  They wanted to know if the DOJ was looking into this.  They wanted to know if he was thinking about prosecutions.  And since he was, in my opinion, purposely vague, people speculated and were looking for any sign. 

Rahm, then, made a statement which really looked like misspeak to me.  He was fumbling over the wording, and I don't think he intended to broaden the scope of whom the Administration wanted to hold harmless.  But his misstatement did that, and forced Obama to clarify the situation.  Obama's clarification, to me, was no different than the statement he issued the day the memos were released.  He only stated clearer that the CIA people following the memos should be immune, and everyone else - that's up to Holder. 

In the end, I don't think Obama needs people calling him out on this issue.  He is the President, and if this goes to court, he cannot be seen as too intricately involved...his statements can be used and can be damaging.  He has to remain very neutral in this.  That is something I feel like some on the left, clammoring for prosecutions, don't get.  He cannot be running around proclaiming torture was committed and everyone involved needs to go down.  That's not his role.

So, I think people should continue to discuss torture, highlight the illegalities of those involved, but quit acting like Obama can be a spokesperson for prosecutions.  It's not his place to be, and by pressing him to react to something inappropriate, it is making the whole issue more political than it should be.