Should Progressives Give Up on Obama? Chris Hedges vs. Rabbi Lerner (An Incredible Read)

[KoKo]

(I'm not even doing an EXCERPT of this WONDERFUL DIALOGUE between these Two Great Intellectual THINKERS!)

Just Read it... Article really gets to the CRUX and SOUL of what we are going through on the "LEFT" here In AMERICA...IMHO... in my Humble Opinion! Please read this...Serious DU'ers and I know you all are out there........

Should Progressives Give Up on Obama? Chris Hedges vs. Rabbi Lerner
By Chris Hedges and Michael Lerner, TruthDig and Tikkun
Posted on March 5, 2010, Printed on March 5, 2010


http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/145871

[ShortnFiery]

1. Thank-you for the site link.

:-) :hi:

[KoKo]

2. Thanks...it was such an incredible thing...I really didn't know

how to frame it for a post.

I admire both of these people so much... I didn't want to post it as an "Either/Or" if you can understand where I'm coming from. I just thought it was a COUNTERPOINT...that there really wasn't a way to post it on DU which is so confrontational these days.

I thought this was THOUGHTFUL PIECE...of where we are. Not something to post as an "EITHER/OR" if you can understand where I'm coming from.

:hug:

[Goldstein1984]

3. Good article. Good counterpoints. Thanks!

I'm afraid I understand both writers' points, but fall squarely into the camp pursuing a third party and more than willing to endure the wandering in the wilderness that Hedges says will be a part of that path.

The lesser of two evils is still an evil. Time to pursue an alternative, regardless of how painful it will be.

[BeFree]

4. hmmm

On the one hand it is 'abandon ship' leaving behind all our hard work, turn away from people we have worked with for years and strike out on a new and uncertain course leaving a wake of hurt and anger.

On the other, a stay with the ship mentality and work to get it moving in the right direction using diplomacy and kind words to get the skipper to turn the ship to the left.

_____________________-

I sit and read DU and see that people are tired of fighting and DU is becoming a well run chat room. Important issues are delegated to the bottom and trivial pursuits rise to the top, which is Hedges idea of the problem we lefties create.

I dunno, it don't look too good from here. Damned if we do and damned if we don't. Meanwhile, yesterday I was talking to someone who was smart as a whip and he was a pubbie because of the fact that Obama is just half white. The people in this country may act smart but they are as dumb as a rock.

We face a great battle. Who's up for it? I fear, not enough.

[stray cat]

5. In favor of what? (and remember every individual in the US has an equal vote)

[grasswire]

6. Why does the progressive alternative have to be Nader or Cynthia?

Aren't there any progressives with fewer negatives, that would be attractive to a broad number of voters? I was with Hedges until he mentioned those two as the choice.

[Doctor_J]

13. It doesn't, but that is what was available in 2008

Any suggestions?

[bbgrunt]

7. interesting, but my inclinations are with Hedges.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[depakid]

9. Lerner makes some excellent points:

Most of the criticism of Obama is not about what he compromised for, but why he did it without first struggling hard for the progressive positions he articulated during his previous career as a US Senator and to crowds he met with during the campaign-that is, without trying to educate the country to the ideas he said he believed in, before making compromises on those ideas.

Lest you think that this is somehow a rarified critique coming from a few intellectuals, please note the report in the New York Times Wednesday, March 3, 2010, in which leaders of the labor movement expressed strong critique of Obama's policies and indicated that it is unlikely that Labor will be able to mobilize their local unions to work for many Democrats in the 2010 elections.

The story goes on to quote one typical steelworker who worked for Obama in 2008 who says "People aren't feeling so good about the president...people really believe that he bailed out Wall Street and forgot about Main Street.

I think it's going to be a real challenge for organized labor to try to reenergize its base" in 2010 and beyond. A firefighter in Michigan is quoted as saying: "He's not what he purported to be, which was 'I'm going to change things, Im going to fight for you, the average guy in the street.'

He's not fighting hard enough for what he believes. The ones that voted for Obama, they're not as enthusiastic."

So, please understand that when we critique Obama, we predicted all this a year ago, and now we are seeing what happened when Obama followed the path he did-but we are not the ones who have created the mass defection from Obama and his weak-kneed Democratic Congress.

[yurbud]

10. Lerner nailed it: Obama didn't fight for us and he didn't tell the truth about why he made choices

Leaving troops in Iraq & Afghanistan, bailing out Wall Street, capitulating to the health insurance companies, in each case if he had said, ''These assholes will kill me if I try to steal their milkshake, and they have said so through their surrogates in Washington, so I'm going to see what I can get done on your behalf without ending up on the next Zapruder film,'' that would be more acceptable than telling the same lies as Bush with proper grammar and platitudes instead of fear-mongering.

...it is Obama, not his progressive critics, that have caused the great disappointment that flowed from his prioritizing the needs of corporations and banks and investment companies over the needs of middle income people and the poor. No one expected a magic wand-but they did expect him to fight for a progressive vision and to speak openly about what he was encountering when he was engaged in such a fight.

So when Obama failed to do that, failed to do the one thing that was in his power to do, namely, to tell the truth, to say honestly and openly to us what was happening and why he was taking the moves that he took, and to relate what he was doing to what he had said he would do, and when abandoning what he had said, to explain why and to acknowledge the pain and disappointment that any such abandonment would reasonably cause among those who had supported him precisely because they believed he would stick with his promises and would explain what he was doing and why.

[pundaint]

11. The opportunity cost of accepting the current Democratic half-assed reforms is the sacrifice

of meaningful change before revolution becomes necessary. We need to get it right, and really bend the curve NOW! The power of the People is under unprecedented assault, and our elected leaders are rolling with it.

[Doctor_J]

12. These opinions pretty much nail down why we have a 1-term president

Heartbreaking. I am hoping to expatriate before president Palin is sworn in. There aren't enough of us to make a serious revolution viable, and sitting around complaining is making me tired.

[inna]

14. I highly recommend reading readers' comments, I found them much more

interesting and eye-opening than the articles themselves.

Truly fascinating read, I'm amazed by how many people on Alternet and Common Dreams "get it":

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/04-3

http://www.alternet.org/story/145871/

(be sure to click on "Read Comments" for comments to show :)

[snagglepuss]

15. K& R nt

[democracy1st]

16. kick

[IndianaGreen]

17. K&R

Great read!