Clinton, Obama, MLK: Leadership for Change?
(Ed. note: Professor Ganz has consulted for the Obama campaign.)
The recent flare-up between Senators Obama and Clinton over Martin Luther King, Jr., LBJ, and civil rights tells us less about race than it does about a different understanding of leadership and how to make enduring political change.
Clinton has for months tried to frame Obama as someone who “hopes for change” while she can “make change”. Despite all the noisy charges and countercharges these past few days, that was her point about Dr. King’s “dream” of change—that it couldn’t become “real” without a President able to “make change.”
But she misunderstands the history. The civil rights revolution represented a major mobilization of the public, starting with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955, (itself encouraged by Brown v. Board of Education the year before)--and was then built by the courage, sacrifice and “good organizing” of thousands of leaders, many of whom were young people.
The most outstanding of them was Dr. King. When he raised his voice, however, it was not so much to speak “for” others as to stir others to raise their own voices to speak – and to act -- for themselves, their families, their communities, and their country. A decade later, following JFK’s assassination, LBJ rose to the challenge King and the millions who supported civil rights had created. But the occasion was not of his own making--and his action only came in response to an organized, creative, and purposeful movement that insisted.
Clinton’s idea of leadership is very different. Her effort to reform health care shortly after her husband took office was notable in that no one mobilized the public. Her team took polls, conducted focus groups, and engaged interest groups. But they never mobilized the public. And although an outsider at the time, she tried to play the insider game. But in the insider’s game, only the insider’s reality counts. So she lost – and so did the millions of us who never had an opportunity to help make the health care “changes” we needed and wanted and deserved.
Now Clinton wants us to hear what she will do “for” us, what “she” will deliver – much as a lawyer, drawing strength not from her client but from her expertise, argues a case. Obama, on the other hand, urges people to join with him in acting for themselves and each other. A former community organizer, he learned that changing ourselves and changing the world go together, and that without mobilizing the strength of people who want change, it won’t happen.
America doesn’t just need “change”—it needs the kind of change that mobilizes those who want and need it, rather than relying on those who resist and fear it. Clinton made her key mistakes on health care in 1994; fourteen years later, what the imbroglio about Martin Luther King and LBJ shows is not racial insensitivity but that she’s never learned the real lesson about how to make change that matters and lasts.
Although they both became lawyers, Clinton wrote a senior thesis about community organizing; Obama practiced it.
Comments (85)
I thought a truce had been declared. Stop shilling for your candidate.
Bill Moyers summarized the flap on his PBS show the other night. He made it quite clear that pressure from the civil rights movement pushed LBJ to move faster than he initially intended, however once he realized that King et al would not let up he agreed to move forward on the legislative front.
What's wrong with saying that LBJ was needed to get legislation passed? It doesn't take anything away from those who applied the pressure. He was the president after all.
By the way, Moyers was in the Whitehouse at the time, so perhaps he knows what he is talking about.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
January 21, 2008 7:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is pressure comes first. If Hillary or Obama get elected on the basis of nothing more than discontent and disgust with the Republicans, and people's hopes for vaporous "change," they will sell out.
January 21, 2008 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
The point is that both Clinton and Obama are running for President: LBJ's slot. Essentially, Clinton said to Obama that he was no LBJ and he twisted it into a slur on MLK. It is the extreme sensitive to a feeling of powerlessness that so many read this as a claim by Clinton that LBJ could have done this without MLK -- LBJ couldn't and hadn't. MLK knew that the Civil Rights Movement had to be translated into laws -- that was why he was putting pressure on LBJ in the first place. Hillary understands this and it was Obama who dreamt up the slight and ran with it.
January 28, 2008 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
There is nothing at all wrong with saying Presidential action was required to secure passage of the Civil Rights Act. But the point was that in Clinton's original comments she was attempting to make a point about the difference between "dreaming" and "action", leaving the impression that she thought everything that happened prior to LBJ's involvement fell into the dreaming category.
January 21, 2008 7:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Where did you learn history?
The purpose of this article is to present the facts and not to shill for a candidate; we will leave that to Bill Clinton.
Neither Bill or Hillary can point to a time in their lives where they risked anything to bring change for anyone. They have spent their lives looking out for Bill and Hillary. Now they are using the same tactics they accused the "vast right-wing" smear against them. Does the word hypocrisy ring a bell?
January 21, 2008 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
You must be very young. Hillary used her maiden name in Arkansas at a time when to do so was to insist on the right of a woman to have her independent worth acknowledged whether or not she was married. At the time it was held to threatened Bill's electibility and she ultimately was forced to use her married name.
One of the first things that Bill did upon taking office was to try to improve things for gays in the military. He did not get that accomplished then but he tried and it cost him politically.
I have thought for a long time that one of the reasons Obama's appeal has been so much stronger with the younger demographics is that those who have watch the Clintons for a long time recognize how phony Obama's picture of them is.
January 28, 2008 7:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't really think that anyone can say that using one's maiden name was risking a whole lot beyond a little social disapproval by the cotillion crowd and IMHO Bill's ill-advised move on gays in the military was less a risk than a well-intentioned, but bungled effort.
January 28, 2008 1:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
rdf, I don't think you quite understand what Ganz is saying here.
This is not about the King/Johnson flap. Johnson did what Kennedy would not do for a variety of reasons, including his personal experiences on the wrong side of wealth and power. Johnson would not have done the right thing absent a popular political movement that made civil rights impossible to ignore. We can agree on how that went down, and pass out pats on the back all around.
But the real point Ganz makes here is about the difference between power over and power with. For Clinton, public policy is a specialists game, and the outcome is dictated by a triangulation of analysis and the current political state of play. For Obama, public policy is dictated by active engagement with a constituency, and the outcome is dictated by analysis and changing the political state of play. For Clinton, leadership is an executive function - power over. For Obama, leadership is a channeling function - power with.
Full disclosure: Personally, as a policy wonk, Clinton's stated positions often appeal to me more than Obama's. But as someone who spent a considerable part of my professional career in public policy getting hosed by Bill Clinton's frequent triangulations, I have zero interest in repeating the experience with Hillary. That said, the point of Ganz's comment is important, wherever you come down on the Clinton/Obama continuum. The key question in choosing between Clinton and Obama is how they would lead, and Ganz has identified a critical difference.
January 21, 2008 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, LBJ was always against black civil rights in the South. He eventually came to pass the Civil Rights Act, not because it was his personal goal, but becasue thanks to MLK, the Kennedys (particularly RFK) and Northern Democracts and Republicans, it had become a politcal inevitability which Johnson was left with carrying out.
LBJ is most famous for his ability to twist arms, do favors, and known as a power broker. He's also famous for his fear of black civil rights "losing the South" and undermining his political capital with Southern leaders. Had LBJ been elected instead of JFK, he would have frozen out MLK and black civil rights and been affraid to lead on that issue, just as he was in Vietnam.
January 21, 2008 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
A good quote from Jim Clyburn about LBJ and the reality of LBJ's work on civil rights:
The article.
January 21, 2008 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kozmik, "Actually, LBJ was always against black civil rights in the South. " is completely untrue. LBJ had many faults. His life long support for black civil rights was not one of them. In the 1950's as Senate Majority Leader he managed to get Congress to pass the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. Most / perhaps all historians agree that no one else but this power broker could have done it. There had been many earlier tries, but the solidity of southern opposition had always triumphed before. I recommend Caro's hardly sympathetic multivolume biography e.g. his Master of the Senate for perspective. Saying that LBJ is famous for his fears of black civil rights "losing the south" misses the point. He signed civil rights legislation accurately predicting that this act would lose the South for his party. It is hard not to see this as to his credit. It is very easy nowadays to underestimate and forget the fanatical and insane but widespread oppostion to civil rights back then. A mass movement, some sympathetic politicians and many years were what it took to overcome it. The actions of everyone back then have to be judged in terms of the real situation they confronted, not just abstract right and wrong.
January 22, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reality is LBJ wasn't personally a segregationist, but his power flowed from the vast majority of Southern Democratic segregationists, so he was always against Civil Rights throughout his political career. He was Senate leader thanks to their support in the 50's. In 1957 LBJ passed a very weak and unenforced Civil Rights Act which was designed by Dixiecrats to sandbag Civil Rights and maintain a Dixiecrat majority in the Senate.
LBJ was like a General who is pragmatic enough to cede battles fully as they are lost, retreating and retrenching. He was very persuasive to other Southern leaders about the need to retreat and retrench when they resisted stubbornly. But make no mistake, he was so effective in the South specifically becasue he was always against Civil Rights, becasue they were anathema to his power base in the South.
So there has to be a clear distinction made with the understanding that the South was transforming during his era from Democratic segregationist to Dixiecrat segregationist to Republican segregationist, while the country was going from Democratic segregationist to Democratic Civil Rights and Republican Civil Rights to Republican segregationist. LBJ and Southern Democratic segregationists were fighting a losing battle of attrition, even though they were in the majority for a time and still powerful enough to slow the tide.
***
In 1948 Truman endorsed Civil Rights and Strom Thurmond ran for President as a Dixiecrat. Most Southern Democrats realized at that point the inevitability of CR, and the decline of the Democratic party in the South. Dems nationally were clearly going towards urban, social and economic liberalism, while Republicans were exploiting that to reposition themselves in the South towards rural, social and economic conservatism, and it was clear the South would swing towards the latter.
In the mid 1950's there were three major groups in the Southern Dem party:
a) a few Dems who were from more liberal constituencies who supported CR whole heartedly
b) Dems who would slow CR and try to straddle the segregationist and integration fence by passing only the weakest legislation
c) Dems from very racist areas who would switch to the Republican party in time.
LBJ was in the largest group, the "b" group. Strom Thurmond was of smaller but growing "c" group that would eventually become the Southern Republican base.
LBJ's whole job on Civil Rights was to pass the weakest possible legislation, after it had become inevitable from pressure from Northern Dems + Reps. At which point his Southern coalition would OK him to take the "lead." But make no mistake, LBJ maintained his power base on the allegiance of pragmatic Southern racists. And they maintained their voting base (or staved off attrition as much as possible) by continually suppressing Civil Rights to the minimum possible.
In 1960 LBJ was offered the VP due to his support in the South from that "b" group of conservative Democratic voters. The Kennedys (particularly RFK) had supported MLK against LBJ's recommendations. RFK basically saw LBJ as a relic of a bygone era, which was why LBJ hated him so much.
By the mid 60's it was clear that Civil Rights were winning overwhelming National support and had become a shameful disgrace to the South, and the South was going Republican. Also, with JFK's assassination in Texas, it was doubly clear that LBJ had no choice but to pass the Civil Rights Acts of the 60's and continue the trends begun under JFK, and even going back to Truman, or he would never win the Democratic National nomination.
Much later, Reagan was the final nail in that coffin, positioning himself as a folksy rancher of conservative values (racism, homophobia, fundamentalism) and making the final sell of Northern originated laissez faire economics, with supply-side "voodoo economics" combined with rhetoric which called anything short of laissez faire to be communism. Which utterly completed the Southern transition begun in the late 40s.
But LBJ was never a "leader" on Civil Rights. Absolutely not. Totally the opposite.
January 22, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I watched that Bill Moyers program and found it excellent - one of his best ever. But in terms of MLK's legacy, perhaps we should be listening to MLK's son, who wrote this letter to John Edwards:
While the media has been busy covering the other two candidates' battle over the legacy of MLK, this letter has gone completely unnoticed.
I think it speaks for itself.
"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it." --Robert F. Kennedy
January 24, 2008 3:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thom Hartman gave it some airtime.
January 24, 2008 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
In terms of foreign relations, Obama will be the instant change agent, much like Sarkosy's victory in France, replacing the prickly Chirac. The int'l community will be excited about Obama (especially in Africa) while they'll be more or less ambivalent about HRC.
January 21, 2008 7:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
We always have a president, but we do not always have a visionary and motivating leader like King.
Congress and LBJ were only doing the job they were elected to do, represent the People and faithfully execute the laws, respectively. It was less about vision than avoiding insurrection.
And let's remember that LBJ escalated Vietnam while King protested against it before that was fashionable. Clinton should avoid any comparisons.
January 21, 2008 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points! Sometimes I wonder where those who were not alive during King's life learn history.
January 21, 2008 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Truce or no truce I think this is a good post. One of the things about Obama that I've been particularly drawn to is his past as a community organizer. Partly that's because I've worked as an organizer myself and I appreciate what a tough and very particular job it is. Prof. Ganz does a good job showing what a difference being an organizer really means for the campaigns in terms of practice.
January 21, 2008 7:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Somebody tell Bill Clinton.
Besides, if presidential action is required for change, how much progressive change did we see from the Clinton administration? LBJ is the President Hillary mentions. Did her "35 years of experience" result in significant, memorable progressive change?
January 21, 2008 8:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Two wrongs don't make a right. If Bill Clinton posts at TPMcafe I'll be happy to tell him to lay off as well.
The truth is that the GOP loves to see the Dems hacking at each other. Whatever they say now will be brought back during the real campaign and used as ammunition against the successful candidate.
Aren't there enough things wrong with the GOP candidates and the present state of the world to keep the Dems busy without them picking on each other. As far as I can tell Edwards doesn't play this game, but sticks to his knitting, so it can be done.
How about it Dems? Take the high road.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
January 21, 2008 8:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
True, Edwards sticks to his public knitting... just like Kucinich (and Richardson, Dodd, and Biden, before they took theirs back inside). Having absolutely no chance gives you a lot of freedom, whether to propose truly progressive policies (Kucinich), stay sunny (Edwards), or just act kinda crazy (Gravel).
While I'm sympathetic to the "don't attack fellow dems" line, I get tired of hearing it. First, the Republicans are slagging each other pretty thoroughly this year, so there's room for the Democrats to mix it up. Second, to the extent that candidates have weaknesses and differences, fights and debates bring them out. Finally, I get bored with platitudinous love-fests -- in politics, I thrive on a diet of red meat and blood!
January 21, 2008 10:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mister Foo, I hear what you are saying with respect to some candidates having more freedom than others due to what is at stake for each particular candidate. But Edwards knitting? (is that a term of art I'm not familiar with? hope not...because I'm thinking balls of yarn and all that stuff)
No chance? Edwards came in ahead of Hillary in the very first race in Iowa. That's a chance. If Edwards drew any negative conclusions, seems it would have been post NH and not before the primary began. (Unless you are right that Edwards thinks in absolutes and starts things he's sure he'll lose--but that seems unlikely coming from someone with his record of success.)
If Edwards thinks in absolutes and was sure from the get-go that he wouldn't win, what motivates Edwards to press on with a grueling campaign schedule? If you're assumptions are correct, maybe he set out to lead and shape a discussion he thinks American ought to have. Maybe that's winning in the long term to him? I would even buy that it could be ego, but not knitting.
January 21, 2008 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not sure about the knitting either, but the post I replied to used the term, so I figured at least one person uses it. Maybe (s)he can comment further.
I agree that Edwards must have shifted from running with a distant but real chance of becoming President pre-NH, to running to advocate for his pet issues post-NH (and especially post-NV). That's a legitimate reason to "run for President" -- Kucinich does it every time, and I'm glad we have him around -- and Edwards has done more than most to shape the conversation. I think it's tragic that the best way to get one's message out is to stay in the presidential race and act delusional, but that's just the way it is.
January 21, 2008 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Either I'm getting older than I think or standard idioms are vanishing without a trace...
stick to your knitting
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
January 21, 2008 6:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
rdf,
Thanks for the clarification. That's a new one on me!
January 21, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
you must have missed Edwards scathing attack on Hillary in the first NH debate. Not pretty.
January 21, 2008 1:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
And somewhere in the middle would be F W de Klerk, who led S Africa's racist National Party. After years of civil unrest and street violence, he took it on himself to lift the ban on the ANC and free Nelson Mandela. Together, they dismantled apartheid and eventually shared a Nobel.
Sure, he bowed to pressure, but he did so much earlier than he could have got away with.
January 21, 2008 8:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Although they both became lawyers, Clinton wrote a senior thesis about community organizing; Obama practiced it."
Examples of obama practicing “community organizing” please. We already know the poor little rich kid that went to Occidental then Harvard didn’t really have much to do with the corps the law firm he worked in the early 90s represented. Ya know the ones I mean? The low income housing builders. The ones that built slums then turned off the heat in the winter. Yeah those. We already know obama didn’t have much to do with those same low income housing builders when obama was a state senator. Even though 11 of them were in his district and constituents were begging for help. So please forgive my ignorance and point to all the “community organizing.”
January 21, 2008 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can you provide some links for your narrative?
January 21, 2008 10:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect this is what he is talking about
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/353829,CST-NWS-rez23.article
Jack
January 21, 2008 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Can you provide some links for your narrative?"
Yes. Along with the link whskyjack provided here is a post with a long list of links:
FACT CHECK: Obama, His Contributor Rezko, the Slum Landlord Business
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/22/11049/2664
Here is link to the Sun Jan 20, 2008 front page of the Chicago Tribune. obama's name surfaces as "political candidate" in rezko case. obama as recently os the jan 19 2008 donated $40,000 more of his contributions from rezko donors.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/1/20/161649/950
Can you provide links for your narrative? The obama was a "community organizing" narrative? I have looked but can not find any concrete evidence obama has a proven track as a community organizer. It's something he is using on his presidential resume so there should something somewhere pointing to factual trail of achievements.
January 22, 2008 11:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
I, too, thought a truce had been declared.
During the last debate, the Democratic candidates looked united; they looked like winners.
Personal attacks on either Obama or HRC are counter-productive("Hillary wants us to know what 'she' will do, what 'she' will deliver . . . Hillary wrote a senior thesis about community organizing; Obama practiced it.")
The last was a cheap shot. Obviously there is nothing wrong with writing a senior thesis about community organzing. And the work Clinton has done for poor children is just as useful as community organizing.
As for health care reform, anyone who has looked deeply into the subject understands that HRC should not be blamed for the failure in the early 1990s. Yes, mistakes were made, but behind the scenes, Bill, not Hillary was in charge, and they were up against corporate interests that have a huge financial stake in the status quo.
Those interests fought tooth and nail--and they will again. The president able to achieve real reform will be someone who can put the votes together in Congress. HRC has done a remarkable job of winning respect in the Senate and turning enemies into people who will listen to her. Perhaps Obama also has the ability to do what needs to be done in Congress--I don't know.
But, with all due respect, I don't see how "mobilizing the people" will bring about change. Who exactly would you mobilize? The sick and the dying?
One of the problems with healthcare reform is that only people who are very sick and spend time in hospitals know just how bad our system is. 80% of Americans are happy with the insurance they have and think they would get excellent care if they got sick. They trust their own doctors. They think their local hospital is just fine. Because they haven't spent time there.
The people who know what is going on in our healthcare system and who might help lead reform are the doctors. Some of them are against change, but many--especailly primary care docs, family docs and other generalists are already organizing themselves online, on blogs and at conferences. With this group the neighborhood orgnanizing strategies that worked so well with the farm workers will not be terribly useful.
These doctors don't need inspiration. They need to convince the American public that more care is not better care, that the newest cutting edge technology is not necessarily better, and that $1 out of $3 of our health care dollars are wasted on unproven procedures, unncessary tests, and over-priced cutting-edge drugs and devices that are no better than the less expensive drugs and devices that they have replaced.
While the uninsured and underinsured are undertreated, the well-insured (and those on Medicare) are overtreated, and this is not only wasteful, it's hazardous waste. Overtreatrment is dangerous to your health.
Moreover, the only way that we can afford to provide health care for those who are now uninsured or underinsured is by wringing out the waste.
It's not clear whether Obama's campaign understands this. His health care advisor, DAvid Cutler, has frequently aruged that we are getting good value for our health care dollars. But the medical reserach shows just the opposite. See Shannon Brownlee's book "Overtreated" or my book(, "Money-Driven Medicine.")
Of course one person's unnecessary operation is someone else's income stream--which is why this will be such a tough fight.
January 21, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Patience after you hit the "post" button. Those servers can be boggy.
January 21, 2008 8:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
"they were up against corporate interests that have a huge financial stake in the status quo."
I see very little indication that Hillary has any interest in fighting the status quo. She's spent the last 16 years getting firmly settled in the status quo. I expect her to try to put an insurance band aid on the problem without addressing the roots of the problem that you describe. It's like welfare reform. The problem is and was poverty. Did we get rid of poverty or just welfare recipients and aren't they now at the bottom of the working poor, no longer eligible for Medicaid but uninsured.
January 21, 2008 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bluebell-
If you actually read Hillary's three-part plan she is planning to do things that the corporatre interests definitely won't like:
--negotiating discounts with drug-makers
--regulating insurers so that they must compete with
a public sector program (roughly Medicare-for-all)
on a level playing field
-- subjecting drugs, devices and procedures to head to head
comparisons at a "Compattive Effectiveness Institute"
those doing the reserach have no financial stake in the
outcome.
Manufactuers and some surgeons have long resisted such head-to-head comparisons because they know that some of the most complex and expensive products and procedures are less effective.
John Edwards also has called for these reforms.
Obama's health care plan is vaguer though follows the same rough outlines.
But Obama talks more about compromising with the vested
interests. . . .
Incidentially, Hillary disagreed with Bill about welfare reform.
January 21, 2008 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
But Obama talks more about compromising with the vested interests.
Where?
January 21, 2008 9:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
In all of the places where he has talked about sitting down at a "big table" with "the insurance companies" etc--saying that they won't own all of the chairs at the table but they will have seats.
Edwards replies that you can't anywhere with these people sitting down at a table and trying to negotiate with them.
Obama says "You can if you put the event on c-span"
Does Obama have any idea how few people watch C-span? Does he have any idea how complicated the needed changes in the insurance industry (not to mention other healthcare industries) are? ] No one could follow them on c-span.
Edwards, who has been battling these corporate interests as a litigator his entire life knows what I know from covering Wall Street for more than a dozen years: when there are large amount of money involved, theses corporations will fight dirty; they will not listen to reason; they do not care whether healthcare improves in America; they do not care if people die (so they put products on the market that they know will kill people--eventualy they are sued, and the corporations count the settlements as "part of the cost of doing business.'
They are ruthless; and because money equals power in this country, they have Enormous Power.
The only way to win is know them, to know how they fight, and then fight just the way they do--This will not be a gentlemanly negotiation.
January 21, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
You said it there Maggie! I just don't believe Hillary is going to fight them. I think we've got too many like Edwards, Obama, Hillary who want to start at the top fighting them and too few willing to do the kind of organizing and leg work at lower levels to build a real change movement. With all the talk about LBJ, we've forgotten how long he spent in the Senate as Majority Leader doing the down and dirty work. As it is, if President Hillary doesn't get what she wants in her first 10 months, she'll turn risk averse, drop the issue and start campaigning for 2012.
January 21, 2008 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you Maggie. I do appreciate that you always reply.
I confess I'm mostly just anti-Hillary and her DLC pals. I prefer Edwards to Obama. I doubt Hillary's commitment. She herself has supposedly said that she ran too hard for Commander in Chief instead of focusing on domestic issues. I don't see the centrists willing to fight the entrenched corporate interests and I don't see them willing to make the hard guns v butter choices that will provide the money to focus on problems here at home. I figure we'll just get some half-baked sell-out. I don't think Obama has the clout to get it done either but anything we can do to make Hillary understand that she's not getting into that Oval Office if she doesn't commit to a progressive agenda is fine by me.
January 21, 2008 9:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
I confess I'm mostly just anti-Hillary and her DLC pals.
As am I, Bluebell.
There is a lot I don't know about American politics. But I actually have paid very close attention to foreign affairs during the past several years. And I know who Hillary Clinton is. I paid attention when she voted for the war authorization. I paid attention to her public statements and demeanor before and after the invasion. I paid attention to her speech at the Wilson school where she took Bush to task for not being tougher on Iran. I paid attention to her participation in the lunatic raving in front of the UN during the Israel-Lebanon war. I paid attention to her vote for Lieberman-Kyl. I know that the stories Clinton has been telling lately that seek to portray her as some sort of hapless victim of Bush's lies, and a closet opponent of the war down deep somewhere in her private,most secret, hidden heart, are complete fabrications. These are fables spun for the mass of morons who barely pay any attention to anything important, and apparently make most of their decisions based on whether they feel a magical emotional "connection" with their celebrity candidate fave when she squeezes out a few tears.
Clinton has been an enthusiastic supporter of all but the managerial aspects of Bush's Middle East policy. Anyone who has paid any attention during the past several years knows all this, and knows what kind of fraud the Clintons are attempting to perpetuate. And anyone who has paid attention to the Clintons in action for the past sixteen years knows that this is just the latest scam in a long record of deceit, corruption and inauthenticity. And I suspect they also know that once the Clintons have had her way with the Democratic electorate, and finished tacking left to mount this fraud and grab the nomination, Hillary Clinton will be right back with the hawks, trying to outflank McCain or Romney or Huckabee or Giuliani from the right, and trying harder each day to prove how "tough" she is.
For some years now, I have been reading and commenting on blogs, where for a long time it seemed that that an intense, furious opposition to Bush's war and broader Middle East policy was a unifying theme. The aftermath of the 2006 election seems to have demoralized many, and taken a lot of wind out of those oppositional sails. And now many are apparently positioning themselves for the sad, final surrender. If we do not hold Clinton accountable for her actions, a politician who has been a veritable poster girl for the irresponsible liberal hawks who helped Bush do his murderous thing, then all of that talk, all of that opposition, all of that long effort at persuasion was for nothing. Years of empty raving ... for what? So that we can nominate the candidate from our side who has most enabled, and even largely supported, the Bush approach to the Middle East? What a stupendous waste of effort! What were the past six years about? Meaningless idiot ravings I guess.
I have massive doubts about both Obama and Edwards when it comes to foreign policy as well, just as I would for any candidate in the American system, one who has made the necessary compromises with the imperial establishment required for political viability. But I feel that they are both substantially more honest individuals, and at least workable - that with some intense effort at public advocacy they can be occasionally persuaded to do the right thing abroad, or at least not very, very wrong things. But the thought of handing my son's future and security over to that lying, triangulating, pandering, fanatically ambitious, bought-and-sold cipher of a woman makes my blood run cold. She really must be stopped.
My remaining loyalty and affection for the Democratic party, a party I have voted for with total and unwavering consistency for 30 years, is hanging by a thread. And my faith in democracy is at its lowest point ever. I'm really coming to hate our elections, when years of intelligent, critical thought and probing debate are flattened under the big, dumb, lumbering electoral steamroller laying down it's lowest common denominator pavement to the background radio noise of media morons. Just one more reason, perhaps, not to attempt to foist this way of life on other countries. Who could wish this grotesque system on even their enemies?
January 21, 2008 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
As always, you say it much better than I can Dan.
January 21, 2008 12:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, after reading Dan K's post, and knowing that there are many others who share his frustration, I feel confident about making the prediction that if whoever is elected president DOESN'T pursue a progressive agenda, we will see the largest four-year increase in Green Party membership in the history of the planet.
January 21, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ms. Mahar is precisely the type of voter who would need to be convinced of Obama's ability to deliver something better than what Hillary says she can deliver. Obama seems to be talking about a radical change in the method of government--but to win, he will need to talk about the programs that his radical changes will deliver.
January 21, 2008 10:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make many great points.
This is one that doesn't make sense to me though:
"The president able to achieve real reform will be someone who can put the votes together in Congress,"
Right, and in order to put the votes of the congressional representatives together for substantive change, the president must mobilize the voters to pressure these reps to vote for real and substantive reform.
"But, with all due respect, I don't see how "mobilizing the people" will bring about change. Who exactly would you mobilize? The sick and the dying?"
If you don't mobilize the people to hold their reps in Congress accountable, the reps in Congress don't have to worry that they will be voted out if they are not responsive to what the people and the President want.
And everyone has a stake in a reasonable and functional health care system for themselves and their families--not just the sick and dying. Everybody gets sick from time to time and the health care system sometimes doesn't even work for the most basic ailments.
The public is already mobilized on this issue and just waiting for the right leader to put together a good plan they can back.
January 21, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Logico--
You are right that pressure from voters will be needed to stiffen the spines of legislators, almost all of whom are beholden to health care industry lobbyists.
But I'm just not convinced that grass-roots organizing will create that pressure. Right now 80% of Americans like the insurance they have and don't want to see it change. They also say they are unwilling to pay higher taxes for health care reform.
I believe the balance will tip--and the public will begin to put real pressure on Congress--only when many more middle-class and upper-middle-class people don't have health insurance --or feel in real danger of losing their insurance.
You could organize farmworkers or African-Americans because there was (and is) solidarity there--they were willing and able to think collectively. Middle-class and upper-middle-class Americans, on the other hand, don't think collectively. They think in terms of themselves and their families, and if they and their famlies are not directly affected by the problem at hand they are just not that concerrned.
This is why the war in IRaq continues. If Congress had instituted a draft two years ago, the war woudl have come screeching to a halt.But most middle-class and upper-middle-class Ameiricans are not sending their children, borthers, sisters or spouses to Iraq, and so, while they don't like the war, they're not sufficently upset to vote against legislators who continued to fund the war.
January 22, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, but Americans have been told that the Iraq War is free but health care costs money. If the politicians are too cowardly to even attempt to tell Americans how much this war past, present and future is going to cost, how do you expect them to have the courage to go to bat for health care?
January 26, 2008 12:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good points Prof!
I'm amazed to hear Obama has an advisor on health care who thinks we're getting good value for it in America. That's preposterous! Anyone who has had the lovely experience of finding out how much their insurance does not cover knows this is malarky.
I think everyone would agree that the "waste" is the biggest juiciest target in the health care morass, but it all depends on what you think waste is doesn't it? Frankly, if I were King for a day, the first thing I would do is put the health insurance companies out of business and make one national health plan like all the other civilized nations of the earth have. Second, I would forbid any further advertising by drug companies to the general public for prescription drugs. Can the dollars for those ads be characterized as anything other than waste by sane people? Oy!
I know this is a very complicated subject, but seems to me those two things alone would go a long way toward improving the health care situation in the US.
January 28, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
repeats above
January 21, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
repeats above
January 21, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Great post with very interesting points.
"America doesn’t just need “change”—it needs the kind of change that mobilizes those who want and need it, rather than relying on those who resist and fear it."
This raises the question of whether a candidate will merely mobilize the people long enough to get voted into office?
Or, once elected, will the candidate keep their promises and continue to mobilize the people for real changes that fairly benefit those with the faith to vote the candidate into office?
January 21, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
WELCOME DR. GANZ
Camp Obama SF, August 2007 here
It is amazing to me to see our stories model in every corner of the campaign now. I am astonished at how the organizaton has blossomed.
THANKS AGAIN
January 21, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
As a LAWYER, Marshall, must say that lawyers who do not draw strength from their clients aren't employing their skills very well and generally lose
January 21, 2008 9:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Dr. Ganz gets to the heart of our national business this year...We have a moral deficit in this country and only WE can pay it down
January 21, 2008 10:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, please. The country doesn't have a moral deficit. We currently have a bad and stupid government. People are morally, spiritually and intellectually fine. We just need to get government working in a rational fashion.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
January 22, 2008 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
J. McCutchen
Open your eyes...We've slaughtered 1/2 million Iraqis for nothing
That's just starters...Want more..Hit Reply
January 25, 2008 12:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Struck me that in challenging jexster, you are sounding and acting just like Barack Obama, destor23 :-)
Tone, Truth, and the Democratic Party, by Barack Obama, Fri Sep 30, 2005
January 25, 2008 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Professor Ganz reads the tea leaves, uses a divining rod, studies a chicken's entrails and explains to you what Hillary Clinton "really meant" by her remarks on King and LBJ and what those remarks portend for the future. Here's another explanation for what Hillary Clinton "really meant" by her remarks - she meant what she said! Yes, I know that is a novel explanation, but we might want to consider it. So what did she say? It took an MLK to dream the dream and a president, LBJ, to legislate it. That is a perfectly true statement unless you want to misunderstand it and construe insults and slights from it, in which case, you have another agenda other than seeking meaning from an off the cuff comment made by a candidate during a campaign.
And here's something that seems to have eluded Professor Ganz - Hillary Clinton is perfectly correct. In the end, it doesn't matter how many people you "mobilize" or "empower" or "recruit" to your cause, without the law, that's all you have - people who want change. There is no doubt that mobilizing and recruiting people is a very good thing and helps bring about change, but without the legislation you cannot enforce that change. Maybe that's the lesson Hillary Clinton learned in 35 years of working for change, it's certainly a lesson I have learned after 35 years of working in the women's movement and then local politics.
So yes, as Clinton went on to say, MLK worked very hard to bring about that change - he marched, he was beaten, he was gassed, he was jailed, but until he had the legislation to enforce his rights, others would continue to thwart that change for a myriad of reasons.
Hillary Clinton has also said that she learned valuable lessons in the health care reform she worked so hard to enact. She stated very plainly that she learned that without the support of the people, without openness and mobilization, health care reform would not be possible.
Perhaps the lesson we should have learned from this incident, is that candidates say all sorts of things, contrary to popular belief they don't script every single moment, they don't intend esoteric messages, they get tired, they get nervous, they lose their train of thought, and they can't always explain everything in a 30 second sound bite or a 1 minute debate answer.
Voters don't need interpreters, they don't need Freudian analysis or explainers of all things esoteric or manipulators or gossips or opinion makers, or self elected pundits telling us what to think or what the candidate "really thinks" or is "really saying" or "really means". Voters need to hear what the candidates are saying, and with all the background noise generated by the manipulators, spinners and diviners, we can't.
January 21, 2008 10:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you don't have the cause, you don't get the law. I can still remember the day King gave his "I have a dream" speech and I was 11 years old out on the Iowa prairie and had probably not seen more than a half dozen African Americans in my entire life at that point. Politicians do the easy thing. They don't do the right thing unless "moved" to do so.
As to what Hillary has learned in 35 years, I don't know, but I can't think of one thing she's changed. Unfortunately, we are lacking a movement now and until Americans stop watching reality TV long enough to be moved to make themselves heard, nothing much is going to happen in Washington aside from the caring and feeding of special interests and their lobbies.
January 21, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
What was she supposed to have changed? What do you want changed? Along with your opinion about what needs to be changed, there are 100 million Americans who want something changed also. For every American who wanted change in civil rights there were just as many who didn't want it or wanted something else. There was just as much, if not more, pressure on LBJ to not introduce or hold up legislation for civil rights - if you think it was easy for LBJ to do this, you're mistaken. It completely changed the political landscape for democrats and republicans to this day. So this idea that politicians "do the easy thing" is just wrong - some do the easy thing and others don't.
I don't know how all politicians are motivated - I would imagine that they are motivated in the same way we are - ambition, self interest, a desire to help others, a need for approval and credit when they do something good. And I don't see anything wrong with that, like us, they're human beings who make mistakes, sometimes exercise bad judgement, lose their tempers and make really, really stupid remarks. For some reason we expect a level of perfection from them that we don't expect from ourselves. We want them to look like movie stars, think like intellectuals and perform like business executives with their eyes on the bottom line that some pundit sets arbitrarily without any allowance for anything other than his idea of perfection.
We want "change" and we want a "movement" which is fine, but what kind of change, what kind of movement and how will that fit into this system? Because in the end, this is the system we have and this is the system we have to work within to effect change or bring about movements that are more meaningful than their mere existence.
Hillary Clinton has worked hard to bring about effective changes in how women and children are treated in this world. Just because some people are not aware of it, it doesn't mean it hasn't happened. I've posted a list of these accomplishments more than a few times on this board - what surprises me is that I would have to for readers who call themselves well informed, who have formed opinions and made judgements about someone whom apparently they know nothing about and yet they consider themselves to have made informed decisions.
January 21, 2008 11:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
It wasn't easy for LBJ but it was possible for LBJ because people out in Iowa and elsewhere finally saw a tangible movement and made an emotional connection to the movement. Without the movement, there would have been no change just as there had been no change for nearly 100 years. You do need the times, the movement and the political leaders to come together at the same time or nothing much happens. The abolitionists, the suffragettes, the labor movement, the civil rights movement -- all worked for major social change long before the political leaders were willing to take up the issue.
Movement conservatives were working for social change long before Ronald Reagan took up the cause too.
I don't dismiss LBJ. I don't believe Hillary is an LBJ or a MLK. I believe she was a Goldwater girl. She'll go whichever way the wind is blowing. She's totally establishment. She's not a change agent. I'd like to see major changes in foreign policy and major changes in domestic policy. Hillary is just a DLC triangulator and she'll help a few people here or there on a few little issues. That's more than I'll ever do so I shouldn't dismiss that but any Senator can do that and many have done more. Hillary had the opportunity to lead on Iraq and instead she voted for the war and she voted for Kyl-Lieberman and I believe she'll fill her administration with the usual subjects.
Unfortunately, I can't say Obama won't do the same. Guess, I'm just waiting for Gidot here. Americans have been lucky in the past to have leaders step up at critical times but I'm not seeing them today.
January 21, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bev, can you tell us what she has changed? Hillary claims to have 35 years of bringing about change, change of what? She has not been a legislator other than the past 6 years and by her own admission, change is only possible through legislation. What legislative changes of social import or national impact has Hillary brought about?
January 22, 2008 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Beethoven symphonies need an orchestra to be heard, but we do not place even brilliant conductors like Leonard Bernstein in Beethoven's circle.
MLK worked three presidents to reach his goal. If Kennedy lived he would have likely signed legislation. Even Nixon would likely have done so at that time, were he already president.
We have a holiday for King, not LBJ. And there is a reason for that---King was special in a way LBJ was not.
January 21, 2008 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who said he wasn't? You know, Tom, this is a good illustration of a point I'd like to make. This comparison of one politician or public figure to another and measuring them against some arbitrary standard of "specialness". Without both these persons, the civil rights bill may well have not passed for another decade. I don't know what Kennedy would have done, nor do I know what Nixon would have done. We can speculate, but it doesn't matter because it isn't relevant.
What happened is that two politicians with faults, problems, mistakes in judgements, talents and hopes and dreams, however motivated accomplished something great. Is one more "special" than the other? That's a matter of personal opinion - I tend to accept them both for what they were - complex human beings who did something good.
January 21, 2008 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
The equivalence of LBJ and King is implied, although never stated overtly.
At the time there was no comparison at all. LBJ was just another party guy, a strategic VP choice, and a good sausage-maker. King was another world. King acted, LBJ reacted.
I was living in DC all through Eisenhower, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, and Carter. Any president in 1964 faced the choice of legislation or insurrection. (The first March on Washington scared the piss out of the establishment.) LBJ did his job. At the time he signed the 64 act he was not expecting to recuse himself from another presidential run, nor did he intend to cause irreparable damage to the Democratic party. He assumed all the new black voters would easily replace the white South.
Vietnam was his downfall, not Civil Rights.
January 21, 2008 12:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one implied anything Tom. People may have inferred that, but then no one can help what people infer from what they say.
No politician, especially Hillary Clinton should utter one comment, phrase, word or remark that has not been