Change from the bottom up

[dcsmart]

THE BUSH days are finally over--dramatically put to an end by the first African American president of a country built on slavery.

With Barack Obama's inauguration as president on January 20, there will be another wave of the kind of celebration that could be found in cities across the country on Election Night--not only marking the end of a hated regime, but of the history made by its successor.

Millions of people are counting on getting a hearing from the new White House. And that has the new White House...a little worried. Members of the new administration have admitted to the press that they fear hopes in Obama may be running too high--that the millions who celebrated his victory may expect too much, too soon.

In a recent interview, Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said, "You don't need to have demonstrations in front of the White House to convince this president that there is a disparate impact in the African American community around issues such as health care and education. He's got that."

Jarrett's message appears to contradict the message that Obama carried throughout his campaign--that organizing from the bottom up was the key to progress. "We're the change we've been waiting for," Obama often said.

But according to Jarrett's logic, the incoming Obama administration itself will be the agent of change--and because of that, activists don't need to protest.

Yet a look at U.S. history shows the opposite. Fundamental social change has always come as a result of struggle from below.
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FULL ARTICLE
http://socialistworker.org/2009/01/19/change-from-the-bottom-up

[terisan]

1. We need constant demonstrations-the inaugural Balls are the first great disgrace of this

administration's symbol of no change. the relase of more money to banks without any accountability is the second. the Wall Street gang members in positions of power is the third. The hobnobbing with BIG RELIGION oppression is the fourth, the retaining of evil powers of the Bush administration is the fifth............

No Accountability and government for the rich continues.

[Radical Activist]

2. A bizarre leap in illogic there.

But according to Jarrett's logic, the incoming Obama administration itself will be the agent of change--and because of that, activists don't need to protest.

Ummm...no. Maybe it means what she actually said, which is that those particular issues are something Obama already understands. It means we can protest and organize about OTHER things instead of getting the President to agree with us on a few basic principles. It's ludicrous to suggest that Obama suddenly abandoned his core principles about empowering a grass roots movement when his campaign is currently working to do just that. Do the authors realize they undermine their own credibility when they intentionally mangle the meaning of a clear statement?

The Socialist Worker can't conceive of a democratic President being a change agent for a mass people's movement. Their cynicism about Democrats is blinding them to what's happening right under their noses.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/thefuture

While they caution us to not get too excited about Obama, he's busy building the kind of bottom-up movement they talk about but have never succeeded at creating. The real question is whether socialists and others on the left will participate in that movement to use it for positive change or will they keep telling us why we should be skeptical from the sidelines?

We haven't seen something like what Obama is doing since Huey Long's "Share the Wealth" clubs that had chapters around the country. If people want to move Obama left and help grow the progressive movement then getting to the next neighborhood Change meeting is a great way to do it.