The Wild Reed’s “Breaking with Convention” series continues with an emphasis this evening on history – or, more precisely, the importance of being honest about the historical record when making sense of the present and understanding what’s needed – and what’s to be avoided – in building a future of environmental sustainability and human flourishment.
History is generally not a strong point of politicians. Most are constantly rewriting the history of their actions (or inactions) as they seek to reinvent themselves for an ever changing electorate. Kamala Harris, for instance, insists on referring to herself as a “progressive prosecutor” back in the day. She was far from that.
Many Americans are drawn to the oratory skills and inspiring rhetoric of political figures, so much so that when the actions of these same political figures contradict their lofty words, a strange kind of collective amnesia often sets in. Ben Burgis provides an example of this contradiction when in a recent piece for Jacobin about the Democratic National Convention (DNC) taking place this week in Chicago, he writes about Barack Obama and a speech he gave 20 years ago at the 2004 DNC.
[Obama spoke of] the importance of protecting civil liberties – which would become deeply ironic given the record of his own presidency, during which he embraced warrantless mass surveillance and even ordered a drone strike on an American citizen.
Obama is the topic of Burgis’s piece as the former president delivered a speech just last night at this year’s DNC. It was a speech in which he distorted recent history. For as Burgis writes:
In a particularly absurd moment, Obama extended his critique of Trump’s selfishness to lambast him for killing a draconian border security bill. The bill would have shredded the rights of asylum seekers. Trump killed it because he said it didn’t go far enough. Per Obama: “He killed a bipartisan immigration deal written in part by one of the most conservative Republicans in Congress that would’ve helped secure our southern border, because he thought trying to actually solve the problem would hurt his campaign.”
Here Obama’s technocratic liberalism was on full display. The bill reflected the GOP’s anti-immigrant prejudices, and most Democrats shamefully went along with it. Today, rather than criticize the bill, Obama criticizes Trump for failing to temper his own ideology in order to “actually solve the problem.” Left unexamined is the premise that anyone should want this solution.
That’s Obamaism in a nutshell: don’t let core beliefs of any kind distract you from dutifully implementing the compromise of the day.
Keeping it real
I find Sawant inspiring not only for these achievements (and her work today in unionizing workers through Workers Strike Back) but also for the way she knows and shares the history of the ongoing struggle for workers' rights and social justice in the United States. She keeps it real, in other words. And I find that refreshing and hopeful.
Sawant recently shared her historical knowledge in an insightful interview conducted by Status Coup News. Following is part of what she said.
Kamala Harris is in the “honeymoon period” of her campaign because the Democratic Party elites – the same people who put the kibosh on Bernie Sanders’s campaign in 2016, when he had such a popular campaign before James Clyburn and others ensured he was wiped out in South Carolina and then elsewhere later. That same elite has made sure that Kamala Harris is the candidate [for the nomination]. . . . There’s been no semblance of any kind of democratic or even semi-democratic process. In fact this whole year has been the most undemocratic Democratic primary that we have seen.
There are many aspects that we can draw out that show Kamala Harris is just going to be the continuation of what we’ve seen from the Democratic Party. Up until now, Biden has been the Democratic Party’s representative of the billionaire class and in that sense he has continued the agenda of the Democratic Party, an agenda determined by Wall Street and the war machine.
[This agenda and the Democratic Party’s allegiance to it] is not something new. There’s a whole line you can draw all the way from Bill Clinton [to today]. We had Clinton go after welfare, go after poor people, go after Black people. And then we had Obama who continued the same “shut-the-door-on Medicare for All” effort, who became the Deporter-in-Chief, and who ran his campaign promising there would be no troop surge in Afghanistan – and then one of the first things he did when he took office was a troop surge in Afghanistan.
And all the betrayals by Obama ended up opening the door to the Tea Party movement. Remember, [the Obama years was when] the Tea Party rose to prominence because there was a vacuum left where you had millions of people correctly angry at the Democratic Party [and where to this day there is] no real Left alternative that can provide an avenue away from both [the neoliberal] Harris and [the fascist] Trump.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats are war-mongering parties. So [in the case of the Democrats] there is no way [the party elites] are going to move heaven and earth to promote just one candidate and prevent any kind of democratic process if they did not have 100% confidence that Kamala Harris is going to carry on their agenda. They’re not going to go out on a limb for somebody who might be iffy on any of their main priorities. So, Kamala has been completely, 100% vetted to be the ruling class nominee.
– Kshama Sawant
Excerpted from “Kshama Sawant Blasts Progressives
and Labor for Supporting Kamala Harris
Status Coup News
August 1, 2024
Excerpted from “Kshama Sawant Blasts Progressives
and Labor for Supporting Kamala Harris
Status Coup News
August 1, 2024
Peter Savodnik:
Quote of the Day – 8/22/24
Related Off-site Links:
Obama’s DNC Speech Was the Same Old Technocratic Liberalism – Ben Burgis (Jacobin, August 21, 2024).
Obamas Take DNC Stage, Tell Democrats Fall in Line – Breaking Points (August 21, 2024).
How Barack Obama Paved the Way for Donald Trump – Gary Younge (The Guardian, January 16, 2017).
Krystal Ball Reacts to DNC: Class War, Hillary Cringe, and Gaza Lies – Breaking Points (August 21, 2024).
Bernie’s Flawed Vehicle – Nick French (Jacobin, August 21, 2024).
Democracy Despises a Coronation – Hamiliton Nolan (In These Times, August 15, 2024).
Kshama Sawant: A Familiar Thorn Threatening to Pop WA Democrats’ Bubble – Danny Westneat (Seattle Times, August 14, 2024).
How One Socialist Changed Seattle – Sonali Kolhatkar (Yes!, December 14, 2023).
On DNC Sidelines, Progressives Push Democrats to Fight for the Working Class – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, August 21, 2024).
The DNC Fiddles While the World Burns – Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies (Common Dreams, August 21, 2024).
UPDATES: Kshama Sawant Slams AOC and Democrats for Erasing Palestinian Slaughter From DNC Convention – Status Coup News (August 25, 2024).
Kshama Sawant Bashes Kamala’s Embrace of Dick Cheney Endorsement – Status Coup News (September 14, 2024).
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Progressives and Obama (Part 7)
• David A. Love: Quote of the Day – November 27, 2019
• Voices on the Issues That Really Matter
• Active Hope
• Marianne Williamson on ABC News Live – 8/20/24
• Progressive Perspectives on an American Coronation
• On This Momentous Day in U.S. Politics, a Visit to the Prayer Tree
• Progressive Perspectives on the Crisis in U.S. Electoral Politics
• Something to Think About – August 15, 2024
• Just Imagine
• Centrist/Corporatist Democrats Have Just Launched “Left Punching” Season
• Marianne Williamson: “We Must Challenge the Entire System”
• A Deeper Perspective on What’s Really Attacking American Democracy
• Memes of the Times
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