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Organizer in Chief
Posted on Nov 5, 2008
By Amy Goodman
You could almost hear the world’s collective sigh of relief. This year’s U.S. presidential election was a global event in every sense. Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white Kansan mother, who grew up in Indonesia and Hawaii, represents to so many a living bridge—between continents and cultures. Perhaps the job that qualified him most for the presidency was not senator or lawyer, but the one most vilified by his opponents: community organizer, on the South Side of Chicago. As Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin mocked: “This world of threats and dangers is not just a community, and it doesn’t just need an organizer.”
But perhaps that’s just what it needs. Obama achieved his decisive electoral victory through mass community organizing, on the ground and online, and an unheard-of amount of money. It was an indisputably historic victory: the first African-American elected to the highest office in the United States. Yet community organizing is inherently at crosscurrents with the massive infusion of campaign cash, despite the number of small donations that the Obama campaign received.
Sen. Obama rejected public campaign financing (sealing that policy’s fate) and was flooded with cash, much of it from corporate donors. Those powerful, moneyed interests will want a return on their investment.
A century and a half earlier, another renowned African-American orator, Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and leading abolitionist, spoke these words that have become an essential precept of community organizing: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. ... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
There are two key camps that feel invested in the Obama presidency: the millions who each gave a little, and the few who gave millions. The big-money interests have means to gain access. They know how to get meetings in the White House, and they know what lobbyists to hire. But the millions who donated, who volunteered, who were inspired to vote for the first time actually have more power, when organized.
Before heading over to Grant Park in Chicago, Sen. Obama sent a note (texted and e-mailed) to millions of supporters. It read, in part: “We just made history. And I don’t want you to forget how we did it. ... We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.” But it isn’t enough for people now to sit back and wait for instructions from on high. It was 40 years ago in that very same place, Grant Park, that thousands of anti-war protesters gathered during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, demanding an end to the Vietnam War. Many from that generation now celebrate the election of an African-American president as a victory for the civil rights movement that first inspired them to action decades ago. And they celebrate the man who, early on, opposed the Iraq war, the pivotal position that won him the nomination, that ultimately led to his presidential victory.
Another son of Chicago, who died just days before the election, was oral historian and legendary broadcaster Studs Terkel. I visited him last year in their shared city. “The American public itself has no memory of the past,” he told me. “We forgot what happened yesterday ... why are we there in Iraq? And they say, when you attack our policy, you’re attacking the boys. On the contrary ... we want them back home with their families, doing their work and not a war that we know is built upon an obscene lie. ... It’s this lack of history that’s been denied us.”
The Obama campaign benefited from the participation of millions. They and millions more see that the current direction of the country is not sustainable. From the global economic meltdown to war, we have to find a new way. This is a rare moment when party lines are breaking down. Yet if Obama buckles to the corporate lobbyists, how will his passionate supporters pressure him? They have built a historic campaign operation—but they don’t control it. People need strong, independent grass-roots organizations to effect genuine, long-term change. This is how movements are built. As Obama heads to the White House, his campaign organization needs to be returned to the people who built it, to continue the community organizing that made history.
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Now that Obama is head-of-state, we cannot allow the grassroots movements that got him elected to be co-opted by the state and disintegrate into wishy-washy Washington politics. Now more than ever, we need a virulent social movement that is independent of Washington and Obama to ensure that Obama delivers on the many promises of his campaign.
Already, one could argue we are seeing the first steps in the wrong direction. The appointment of Rahm Emmanuel, one of the most staunchly pro-Israel members of the House, as Secretary of State is a bit unnerving. By definition of his designated position, Emanuel now has a dominate role in who is given Obama's ear. Obama could paint himself into a corner by appealing to the most hard-line pro-Israel elements in Washington and around the country, and by distancing himself from all advisers, even very mainstream establishment figures like Zbigniew Brzezinski & Robert Malley (a member of Clinton cabinet like Emanuel), considered by the pro-Israel lobby to be too pro-Palestinian. The will undoubtedly limit his effectiveness in reaching a just conclusion to this conflict because it virtually makes it impossible for him to talk to a wider range of views; those excluded voices that could give him advice that could actually get us out of this mess in Israel-Palestine.
Obama is also expected to soon choose his Treasury Secretary, and the two names reportedly at the top of the list are Timothy Geithner, the president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, and Lawrence Summers, who held the post during the Clinton administration. Two more Wall St. and Washington hard-liners. Yes, their experience will be valuable, but they are experienced not in the practice of fundamentally different ideas about the economy and social justice, but in the politics and finances-as-usual that has steered us to where we are now.
Additionally, in one of his first orders of public business since the election, Obama has convened an economic advisory board to meet today in Chicago. The group includes billionaire investor Warren Buffett, former presidential cabinet officials, and executives from various corporations, including Xerox, Time Warner, Google and the Hyatt hotel company. And while there are labor activists also attending, it is hard to imagine that they will receive the same amount of attention as those corporations who contributed to Obama's campaign. Although, admittedly, Obama did receive a large amount of his contributions through "small contributions," his campaign did resort to the tried and true method of raising big money - the formation of “joint fundraising committees,” in which the presidential candidate partners with his party to form a fundraising organization which can change the cap on campaign contributions and allow big donors to give anonymously. McCain and the Republican National Committee’s is called McCain Victory 2008 and can receive donations as high as $70,000, which then get distributed to the presidential campaign, the national party and to key state parties. Obama and the Democratic National Committee created the Obama Victory Fund, to which donors could give $28,500. As The Washington Post just reported, the Democrats found that sum too limiting, so they created the Committee for Change, which allows donors to give up to $65,500. Again, this amounts to a lot of politics-as-usual.
But, enough raining on the post-election parade. I too am pretty ecstatic about Obama's victory and not only it's historical significance but also the opportunity it presents for some steps toward the just end of the moral arc described by Martin Luther King, Jr. But we must NOT let our elation over this election be a hindrance. The election is over. The time for campaign slogans and vague appeals to 'hope' and ‘change’ are over. We must keep a close eye on what transgresses from here on out, and be mindful of the fact that Obama on his own will not bring the change he so vehemently spoke of during his campaign. We as a movement must begin turning our country around now, or the opportunity may not come again. An organized citizenry, ready to put pressure on the new White House and Congress is the key. We can make single-payer healthcare, a living wage, and a less militaristic society and victory in other struggles a long-term reality. But, much like Obama's election, this will not happen from the top to the bottom. It will not happen in the federal buildings of Washington, DC. It will happen in communities and in a burgeoning social movement which cannot allow itself to become a tool of the state or of Washington pundits.
That is all! Oh, and go to november5.org!!
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