Naomi Klein on Obama
The full + original version of Naomi Klein’s speech is here.
Stimulator writes:
Naomi Klein’s speech at the National Conference for Media reform was not included on the conference website. subMedia contacted Free Press, the organizer or the conference, to ask why Klein’s speech could not be found online, and the person explained that Free Press is a non-profit organization and that I should reefer to the disclaimer on their website which reads:
“Despite our best efforts, we feel that some of our speakers encroached on electoral space during their remarks at the National Conference for Media Reform. It is not in our interest to disseminate these recordings. We are reviewing all of our video content and will add that which we determine to be free of electoral statements to this page.”
I don’t quite understand how these things work, but whatever. Two sources have told me the reason Free Press did not include the speech was Klein’s criticism of Barack Obama. It would be pretty fuckin lame if it were true.
She is so completely spot on. “Power yields nothing without a demand,” or so says Frederick Douglass. By blindly supporting Obama (and giving him money) without placing demands upon him, we have signalled that he has our unconditional support, no matter how his policies shift. As Klein points out, DEMOCRATS RECEIVE MORE MONEY FROM THE WEAPONS INDUSTRY THAN REPUBLICANS! And Obama, despite his claims, is receiving large contributions from corporations who are hardly progressive in their outlooks. What this means is this: Obama knows he has the support of the left locked up, so he is free to shift further and further right and renege on his original promises.
This is further empowered by the willingness of supporters to excuse and apologize for all of these policy changes and political sliding. And we are beginning to see the same logic of the past two elections: “A vote for [insert 3rd party candidate] is a vote for McCain.” This continues to lock up unchallenging, undemanding support for Obama without forcing him to stay true to his progressive promises. It also enslaves voters into the continuing 2-party system, and prevents them from lending support and legitimacy to a candidate who truly represents their interests, instead submitting to the interests of elites. Want to vote for someone who supports Palestinian right to return, or an end to the embargo of Cuba, or the immediate end to the war? Tough shit, you might as well be voting for McCain, who is guaranteed to be worse.
Supporting (or threatening to support) a 3rd candidate makes Obama work for your vote–he has to slide left to capture those critical votes, instead of feeling entitled to the left’s support. This demonstrates the poverty of the “lesser evil” mentality: it in fact creates a greater evil out of that “lesser evil,” and it explains why the Democratic Party has slowly shifted right with each election, and consequently lost each, despite the massive discontent with the Republicans. Instead of whining about Nader “stealing” (which implies a sense of entitlement and deserving) votes, they should have made a real effort to appeal to those voters, instead of appeasing the corporate donors who supported each party.
I will also agree with Klein that this doesn’t mean we should boycott elections or vote for Nader or McKinney. What should be clear, however, is that much work needs to be done to steer Obama in the direction we need him to go, by building a mass, militant movement to hold him accountable to us.
Naomi Klein: Obama’s Chicago Boys
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080630/klein (Ironically, there was an Obama ad underneath this article)
Barack Obama waited just three days after Hillary Clinton pulled out of the race to declare, on CNBC, “Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market.”
Now is the time to worry about Obama’s Chicago Boys and their commitment to fending off serious attempts at regulation. It was in the two and a half months between winning the 1992 election and being sworn into office that Bill Clinton did a U-turn on the economy. He had campaigned promising to revise NAFTA, adding labor and environmental provisions and to invest in social programs. But two weeks before his inauguration, he met with then-Goldman Sachs chief Robert Rubin, who convinced him of the urgency of embracing austerity and more liberalization. Rubin told PBS, “President Clinton actually made the decision before he stepped into the Oval Office, during the transition, on what was a dramatic change in economic policy.”
Hot on the heels of her amazing book, “The Shock Doctrine,” Klein extends her critique of Friedmanism and unrestrained capitalism to Obama’s campaign. For sure, Obama is not the messianic progressive his supporters hold him up to be; and instead of ushering in an era of change, it is much more likely that he will instead bring in more of the same under the cover of darkness. As Klein points out, he is unwilling to confront the capitalist doctrine which is what truly needs to be changed, nor is he willing to break the status quo on Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Palestine, and Cuba; gay rights; health care; unions; or poverty. At that point, really: What is it that he’s changing? Sure, he is making some cosmetic changes, but it’s the political equivalent of putting lipstick on a pig–at the end of the day, it’s still a pig, and a bourgeois, capitalist one at that.
I often wonder, after seeing first-hand elections in Mexico and seeing reports and photos and videos from around the world, why there isn’t the spectacle of elections seen elsewhere: the color-based loyalties, the street celebrations, the bitterness of defeat, and the contestation between elections… there is none of that here. Neither Gore nor Kerry held a months-long occupation of Washington’s streets and institutions following purported fraud, nor did they form a “legitimate” shadow government; in fact, they did nothing. I saw some people cry following Kerry’s loss, but there were no riots or protests or outbreaks of pointed violence as is typical elsewhere. No one takes to the streets, driving around the city just to honk and cheer and wave their party’s flag or colors. And in fact, there remains virtually no animosity between parties after elections, except for the elements of the parties that tailor to discontent to save some support for the next election. And why is this?
If I might venture a guess, it is because each party is peripheral to the average person’s life, and aside from personal pride not too different from support for football teams, there really is little at stake. The differences between the candidates are magnified, so that only these differences form the political spectrum of right and left, while ignoring the differences between these candidates and the people they claim to represent. In this light, the differences between candidates are microscopic. And as such, there is really nothing to celebrate or mourn on the morning after.
From Behind the Orange Curtain 