This piece by Grace Boggs linked, widely, by bloggers I respect. I agree very much that viewing Obama’s candidacy in the context of the movements that made it possible is vital, and will show Obama lacking. Although I disagree with some of Grace Boggs’ interpretation of that struggle.* But the paragraph of her argument that was mostly widely quoted, is the one I disagree with most strongly. Maybe I’ve interpreted her in a way differently from what she intended:
But neither Obama’s ethnicity or Hillary’s gender is enough to earn my support. Neither is calling on the American people to confront our materialism and militarism or challenging and proposing alternatives to corporate globalization. At this critical period in human history that is what we should be requiring of ourselves and of any presidential candidate, whatever their race, gender or religion.
The American people are not a problem that could be solved by a president calling them to be more virtuous. Yes we must organise to fight and resist capitalism and imperialism, but the President is the enemy in that fight, not the standard bearer.
Capitalism and militarism are systems that are the job of the American president to maintain. Holding American presidential candidates up to ideals they would never meet is far better than pretending, or believing, than a multi-millionaire lawyer is an ally of the working class. But if you create an image of the ideal American Presidential candidate then you are propagating the idea that the right American president could make things better. We make our own history, it is not made for us by our leaders. Democratic party candidates for president are not our leaders in building another world.
Whether or not we win the writers strike, how strong the movement for housing in New Orleans becomes; whether the protests over what happened in Jena were a one off or a springboard; whether the strikes in Buenos Aries continue to grow; how so many other protests, strikes, and movements develop over the coming year. Those questions are critical to how far we get towards liberation over the next four years, which Democrat and Republican candidate wins the nomination for president is not.
Vote, don’t vote; support don’t support; endorse, don’t endorse. But don’t limit the world you dream about tothe crumbs promised by Clinton, Obama, or Edwards, and don’t expect anyone better to come along. The work we need to do isn’t done anywhere near the voting booth.
* In particular, the characterization of the sit-ins as ‘small groups’ – the freedom movement was a mass movement in cities and towns across the south, and it wasn’t small in the North either.
I understand the concept of capitalism. But I’m not sure what you mean by “militarism”; could you explain? I’m just not sure what you’re talking about.
The work we need to do isn’t done anywhere near the voting booth.
Are you saying, then, that people need to think about and act on what they can do for themselves and each other, rather than what the government can do for them?
maia, i see what you’re saying, but I think that grace would agree with you rather than disagree with you. I think she’s more addressing the concepts of a “radical revolution of values” as addressed by a charismatic leader (MLK) and “hope for change” as addressed by a charismatic leader (obama). If you look over at Kai’s site, he’s got a post about a response that a black blogger had to seeing obama on stage after his victory–the black community had so many of their leaders violently taken from them, many are looking at obama and praying that he can be the next leader–that he can bring back “hope” (in the radical revolution of values) sense back to the black community. Boggs is addressing that longing, i think, saying that the “hope” people are wanting is not the same thing as what they are getting, and if we start concentrating on making our own revolution of values, we’ll see that we’re being tricked.
Kameelah writes talks about it here as well
btw, in regards to “small groups”–yes, you’re right that the overall civil rights movement/power movements were huge mass movement making–at the same time, as boggs stated in her essay, those groups that participated in actual non-violence resistance (sit ins rather than say, community organizing or even marches to some extent) were much smaller and more highly trained–they had to be because of the risk they were taking.
She’s talking about a particular kind of non violent resistance in that paragraph–those who did sit ins and the such were taking a different form of action than those that did marches or community based organizing. I think what she’s saying is that those small groups of people (like rosa parks, like the sncc students), who did *small* things (but in the end, HUGE things), like sit where they weren’t supposed to, or go on freedom rides were the leaders and starters of the movement that eventually grew into the country wide mass movement that we know the civil rights movement to be.
That’s pretty much Ms. Boggs’ point.
The American people are not a problem that could be solved by a president calling them to be more virtuous.
This sentence is not quite clear to me, either. Are you saying that the American people are a problem that needs to be solved? If so, what kind of problem?
I agree with this; I think that, while it is important to elect candidates that represent progressive values, the responsibility for creating change rests in our communities. A critical mass of progressive voters can influence policy, even while existing in systems (capitalism, militarism) that have developed over the course of many decades and are very much entrenched.
I think what Barack Obama represents is a new sense of connectedness to politics that many Americans are experiencing. It’s as if he offers a bit of a reprieve from the learned helplessness we’ve experienced under Bush. (I’m not convinced I’ll vote for him, mind you.) The actual changes he can make are uncertain.
I try at least vaguely to keep track of things… and now I’m confused (as usual)… you’re not a US citizen, are you? Not that this has shit to do with your commentary, but just like i do for everyone else it helps me to place your “ours” and “theirs” and so on.
Boy, I couldn’t agree with you more. People forget that politics is more about feeling sometimes (JFK) and less about how someone can operate the system (LBJ). It’s the beauty of Obama’s candidacy and the danger of it. We are all waiting to be inspired and each of last week’s Iowa Caucus winning candidates, Obama and Huckabee, are raising people’s pulse rates a bit. Of course, we need to put both men through the fire, so to speak. Not even Progressives should be let off the hook. We should also avoid sound-bite politics and try to understand what they are saying and who are behind them. Who is Obama’s Karl Rove? David Axelrod. I think that David Axelrod has a very checkered past in Chicago’s politics. Caveat Emptor, my friends. Caveat Emptor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Axelrod_(political_consultant)
Brownfemipower – Absolutely on your first comment. And maybe as someone who is so distanced from that need for hope I shouldn’t comment. But I do think the problem isn’t with Obama, but with looking for leadership from a presidential candidate (or for looking for leadership at all), and to imply otherwise makes it more likely that when people have their hopes dashed they’ll blame the imperfect leader, rather than the underlying structures which mean that he could never have lead.
The characterisation she makes is true of some sit-ins, particularly the first, which, from what I’ve read, was four men acting in exactly that way. But as they grew and spread and continued past February 1960, they became sustained by a movement, and intertwined with the organising work that was happening. Same way Rosa Parks’s action only took meaning because of the huge amount of organising that surrounded it. the radicalness and the organising get disappeared from the civil rights movement all the time, to make it safe, to make sure that people don’t follow in their footsteps.
P6 – I understand that’s what she’s implying in the following paragraph, but I think the piece upholds the idea that the perfect candidate could make a difference. I understand the device of holding leaders up to standards that you know they’ll never meet to expose them. But there are so many voices out there saying this candidate, or that candidate, or if only they were just a little better on this, and so few rejecting the idea that presidential candidates are the answer.
RonF – I don’t think the American people are a problem and I think the idea that it’s the American people en masse, which are a problem, rather than the power structures of American politics and society, is a really dangerous one, which is far too often promoted by progressives, even radicals.
Sailorman – I’m not a US citizen. But I am an internationalist – I don’t think our movements should be constrained by national borders.
Maia, I’d say that the problems with the power structures of the U.S. are rooted in one core problem: the American Federal government has managed to accumulate entirely too much power. Mind you, I well imagine that you and I would take different approaches to fix that. If you take a look at the U. S. Constitution, and especially the Federalist Papers, it’s clear that the U. S. Federal government was never supposed to have this kind of power. Hell, the founders of this country opposed the maintenance of a standing army!
Times have changed. The world we face now is not the world that existed when the U. S. was created. But a government that has the power to demand the resources to create a welfare state has the power to demand the resources to create other kinds of states as well. Right now we seem to be trying to create multiple kinds of states simultaneously – a country that invades and controls all aspects of it’s citizens lives at home and that can invade and control aspects of other countries’ citizens’ lives abroad. Given a country with the resources of the U. S., the power to do one is the power to do the other. Kind of a “be careful what you ask for” scenario.
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Federalist Papers. It’s a series of ~ 85 essays that were written at the time that the State of New York was considering whether or not to ratify the Constitution. Initially New York did not favor ratification, which would have been a disaster for those favoring union. Under British rule New York had had an oppressively strong executive, and New Yorkers read the Constitution as continuing that. They were written by James Madison (who had a dominant role in writing the Constitution and became the 4th U.S. President), Alexander Hamilton (a delegate to the Constitutional Convention and 1st Sec. of the Treasury) and John Jay (the first Supreme Court Chief Justice who asserted it’s right to review laws for their constitutionality). It’s generally considered an authority on what the people who wrote the Constitution meant when they wrote it. The essays were a major influence in convincing New York to ratify the Constitution.
Imagine a day when you could influence the public on important civic questions of the day by publishing 80 essays in a newspaper.
Hi, Maia.
Point taken, although I don’t read Boggs as necessarily talking about Presidential candidates as much as what constitutes progressive leadership. Obama is positioning himself (or at least is perceived to be) as the next logical step from Martin Luther King–Joshua to King’s Moses. What she’s doing is pointing out the incompatibility of a democratic socialist, anti-imperialist, community oriented vision like that of Martin Luther King with U.S. Presidential politics, that black leadership has ignored MLK’s advice in favor of a quest for power. So, when she talks about “earn[ing] her support,” I don’t read her as saying what a Presidential candidate should do to earn her support, but what a progressive leader should do to earn her support. If that makes any sense.
Ok, I take part of that back. Re-reading it I see that she does specifically say what a Presidential candidate should do to earn her support. My bad.
I still get the sense that she’s talking more about leadership in general than Presidential politics, but I’ll have to re-read the entire piece to remind myself why I get this sense.
What she’s doing is pointing out the incompatibility of a democratic socialist, anti-imperialist, community oriented vision like that of Martin Luther King with U.S. Presidential politics, that black leadership has ignored MLK’s advice in favor of a quest for power.
Interestingly enough, that’s what happened on the other side of the aisle as well, and is one of the major reasons why the GOP has lost ground in the last couple of elections. It’s easy to say “Iraq war”, but it lost much of their support conservative base because once they got in they simply just ran the current governmental structure to their own benefit instead of pursuing changing it to fit the conservative principles they ran on.
Funny, Amp, but I never thought you as part of the “tort reform” / Chamber of Commerce crowd.
Mythago, I’m sorry but I don’t understand your comment. Could you contextualize it for me, please?
It’s one thing to say that Edwards is no longer working class, or that now he’s a millionare he’s out of touch with the concerns of the working class. It’s also fair (although, I’d say, very wrong) to suggest that lawyers are automatically tools of the capitalist/imperalist system and therefore can never have anything to do with the needs of the working class.
But you remember how Edwards got those millions, ya?
Practicing court room pseudo-science, obscene demagoguery, and channeling the spirits of dead children for an emotional jury?
Mythago, now I understand what you meant. I think you missed that this post was written by Maia, not by me. (And you’re right to think I’m not a fan of the “tort reform” crowd.)
Larry, any lawyer with a long and successful career is going to have a few cases where they were on the dubious side. That’s the nature of our justice system. From what I’ve heard, a significant portion of Edwards’ legal career was spent pursuing class action claims against corporations, which is a perfectly legitimate activity.
In any case, a comment like yours would have been much improved by links to legitimate news sources backing up your claims.
Not so much, Larry. But do tell us about how juries are always correct when they find in favor of corporations and their insurance companies, but “emotional” and wrong when they find in favor of humans.
And yes, I missed that this post was written by Maia :)
That said, I really hate the term “friend of the working class” and all of its patronizing overtures. But Maia seems to be making the same implications the Republican party does – that where you stand ought to depend on how much money you make, and Edwards is a class traitor for refusing to ally himself politically with the rich.
Sorry, I thought that case was pretty common knowledge from the last election. Here is a quick reference:
http://www.nationalreview.com/kob/kob200402050836.asp
Edwards was just a successful ambulance chaser. When you say is he sued corporations and insurance companies, as though that alone makes it some worthy goal, it minimizes the real world impact of what really happens.
Corporations are just coalitions of people. They are made up of people that depend on their jobs, or people that invest savings or retirement into. When some slimeball lawyer sues “a corporation” using junk science to sway case an ignorant, emotional jury, real people loose retirement money, or jobs. Or real doctors are driven out of business, or it raises costs to consumers by increasing insurance rates, etc.
I am not saying that people shouldn’t be able to sue companies, but that it is abused way too much by unscrupulous lawyers like John Edwards that use emotional appeals to make themselves rich. Not every tragedy can be blamed on someone.
I am not saying that people shouldn’t be able to sue companies
Of course you are. Otherwise you wouldn’t be using silly, inflammatory language, completely unsupported and emotional generalizations, and linking to a conservative Op-Ed piece as “news”.
I am not saying that people shouldn’t be able to sue companies, but that it is abused way too much by unscrupulous lawyers like John Edwards that use emotional appeals to make themselves rich. Not every tragedy can be blamed on someone.
I am thankful every day for lawyers like John Edwards. Without them, so many more easily preventable injuries and deaths would occur daily. Profit before safety, etc. Unscrupulous lawyers are countered by judges and juries. That’s the beauty of our system.
Edwards was just a successful ambulance chaser.
And you’re an unsuccessful sleazebag. More slurs, ma, pleeeeeease!
Corporations are just coalitions of people.
You may want to do a little bit of research there. Corporations are a bit more than “coalitions of people.” Sometimes they’re a bit less. Were you aware that you can create a corporation of which you are the only shareholder? And the only employee?
Or real doctors are driven out of business, or it raises costs to consumers by increasing insurance rates, etc.
Do we really have to point out, yet again, the toxic bullshit content of that sentence? Real doctors found to have committed gross negligence and/or malpractice should be run out of business. Malpractice suits are, at best, a minor factor in increasing insurance rates. But we’ve been through all this right here on this very blog.
Without thorougly derailing this threat into a discussion of Chamber of Commerce propaganda, it really does point to a lot of the Right’s hatred of Edwards – if he were a millionare because he handled Sarbanes-Oxley compliance at a white-shoe law firm, the Right would love him and peddle him as a Friend of the Working Class, at least to their actual working-class voters. At worst they’d think he was slumming.
Good grief. I guess you only believe it if it appears in a liberal rag? Another quick google search … :
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E3DD1F38F932A05752C0A9629C8B63
An no, I actually meant what I wrote. I think you shoud be able to sue corporations (and people).
Larry, I can tell the difference between news and an op-ed piece, liberal or otherwise. Can you? Or is it more fun this way?
Jake:
Jake, I get your point. And on the merits, I entirely agree with your arguments, think you’re winning this debate, and I’m glad you posted.
But as a moderator, I feel obliged to remind you that you shouldn’t be calling the other posters here “sleazebag.”
OK, this is fair criticism. I guess I took your previous post the wrong way.
Jake Squid:
Yes, every time I have to tape down that stupid bar on my lawn mower, or see the plethora of ridiculous safety stickers and labels on everything that I buy, or a myriad of other things that defy common sense I am also thankful for them. Without that label telling me not to eat the sand paper, or that sticker telling me not to put my hand in the compound saw there’s no telling what I would have done. Then I wonder how many lawyers racked up how many hours getting that done. Not to mention the designers, production staff, etc.
That’s the theory.
I have to wonder what the conversion rate is, personally.
I mean, roughly how many children have to be disemboweled by swimming pool pumps in order to justify the mild annoyance you feel at seeing a warning sticker?
I’m going to assume that it’s not a 1:1 ratio, of course. It would be demeaning to your emotional pain to claim that it only takes one disemboweled child to equal your discomfort, so maybe 5? Would 5 disemboweled children be roughly right?
—Myca
Or how many people stuck their hands underneath the running lawnmower in order to justify that stupid bar that most people end up taping down?
If I could prove that we could save many thousands of childrens lives every year if we reduced the speed limit to 10 mph. Would you be for it?
You bring up a good case, though. Another was the firestone tire problems a few years ago. But look there is a difference in a product that through normal use by someone (that’s not an idiot) that has a reasonable likelihood to injure someone and the ridiculous measures companies go through now. Enduser stupidity is not a manufacturing defect.
When I posted my original Edwards comment I wasn’t trying to hijack the thread so I will make this my last comment in it.
Your idea that the burden placed on you by passively ignoring a warning sticker is anywhere near the burden of lowering the speed limit to 10 MPH indicates the fundamental egocentrism of your worldview in a way I would be hard-pressed to match.
—Myca
But as a moderator, I feel obliged to remind you that you shouldn’t be calling the other posters here “sleazebag.”
I actually meant it as a counter-example to “ambulance chaser” as opposed to literally meaning that LarryFromExile is a sleazebag, thus the sentence, “More slurs, ma, pleeeeease,” that followe. I’m sorry I wrote it so poorly.
Or how many people stuck their hands underneath the running lawnmower in order to justify that stupid bar that most people end up taping down?
Or, sometimes, people are tired or distracted and don’t realize what they’re doing. Sometimes people are completely ignorant or stupid. Either way, is amputation really something that’s acceptable when it is easily prevented by a deadman switch?
Also, I’ve never seen that bar taped down – nor have I ever considered doing so. I don’t believe you could win a lawsuit if you cut off your hand after taping down the kill-bar on a lawnmower. You’ve actively circumvented the safety precaution.
The fact is, that enough people (not all of them idiots) suffered severe injury from lawnmowers w/o killswitches that the corporations decided that the cost of adding one was less than their liability should they continue to produce them without. “And that’s just wrong!” you say.
I suppose that you’re also upset that things like safety glass, seatbelts & headrests are the results of personal injury lawsuits. Caveat emptor, for everything, everybody!
I would have thought that kill switches were just a basic design feature of reasonably safe equipment. Larry, do you a citation for the claim that lawn mower companies design lawn mowers with kill bars because of liability law suits?
As Jake says, I won’t be entirely surprised if you do have such a cite, as for profit companies will often place profit over safety, and I’m sure it is cheaper not to build in a kill bar, but people do also design their products not to maim their customers simply because engineers are sometimes decent human beings, and managers are not always so profit driven as to actively demand that safety features be stripped out of their products.
Since 1982, manufacturers have made operator-presence safety stops that stop the blades within 3 seconds after controls are released.
I guess they made a law. I wonder why manufacturers didn’t do it on their own?
I wonder why manufacturers didn’t do it on their own?
Possibly – I do not know for certain – because people don’t like that feature. If I was mowing the lawn in a toddler campground, I’d want the killswitch. Working alone on my own property, it’s a pain in the ass.
Or would be, if I hadn’t got a lawn guy. It’s his problem now.
I don’t have a lawn guy. My mower has a killswitch. And I long for the day that the annoyance of having a killswitch on my mower actually registers on my radar, as that will mean that my life is damn near perfect.
Sigh. This digression is my fault.
I suppose you might if you could show the lawnmower company was passing around internal memos along the lines of “Hey, people keep taping down the kill-bar on our product because it’s a pain in the ass to use it with the kill bar operational, think we should do something about that?” Otherwise, unlikely.
What’s especially funny about the “millionaire lawyer” whining is that Edwards made his millions on commission; he didn’t get any money unless he won. This approach discourages frivolous lawsuits (when you, the lawyer, are fronting the costs, you have every incentive to make sure you will get them back someday). Funnily, this is yet another one of those instances where certain conservatives turn anti-market.
Or how many people stuck their hands underneath the running lawnmower in order to justify that stupid bar that most people end up taping down?
Based on my discussions with my sister-in-law, who started out as a nurse and is now CEO of a hospital, quite a few.
I’m sorry; you’ve got to be pretty stupid to stick your hand under a running lawn mower. I’ve got a kill switch on my lawn mower, and I tie a piece of string around it so that I can walk away from my lawn mower to pick up a piece of rock or dog shit or tree branch without having to restart my mower. I’ve got 3/4 of an acre of yard with about 30 trees on it and a dog who has a healthy appetite.
I figure what we have now is a reasonable compromise; lawn mowers that have kill switches for stupid people that can be easily defeated for those of us who know better.
Now, safety features on dangerous equipment is a good thing. More than once I’ve been thankful for the anti-kickback feature on my chainsaw. But when I see a “careful – edge is sharp” sticker on a knife, I have to wonder who got rich suing a knife maker to get them to put something on a knife that should be blindingly obvious to everyone, and why.
So were the kinds of cases that Edwards won and got rich on along the lines of what I would consider real negligence on the part of a corporation (“We know that tobacco smoke causes lung cancer, let’s keep it quiet so we can keep selling cigarettes”), or was it from cases where people put large cups of boiling hot coffee between their legs and then sue when they drive like that and get burned?
http://news.findlaw.com/newsmakers/john.edwards.html
Wow – that was a digression.
Kevin – I think she is making important points about the history of black leadership. In fact in itself that leadership is seen as coming from presidential candidates rather than (or as well as) preachers.
Incidentally I just listened to a fascinating talk Katrina to Obama – Black Leadership in the Post Civil Rights Era (Mp3 link). by Gary Younge.
BTW, poorly chosen word; concealing evidence of tobacco causing lung cancer is hardly “negligence”.
RonF,
Maia:
Take it to an open thread.
But when I see a “careful – edge is sharp” sticker on a knife
Have you ever, in fact, seen a “careful, edge is sharp” sticker on a knife?
Pingback: Alas, a blog » Blog Archive » Electoral Politics Friday 11 January
Wait a minute here? A thread about the relationship between black leadership and presidential politics has turned into a discussion of John Edwards, lawyers, and lawnmowers?
*Sigh*
I guess I’m not surprised.
And that isn’t meant as a diss to Maia, Amp, or any of the other posters at Alas. It’s just…DAMN! Erase the issue at hand much, people?
Anyway, to Maia: I agree with you; however, like BFP and P6, I think that you and Boggs are basically saying the same thing. Nonetheless, I agree that there is some ambiguity in Boggs’ statement that you (and so many of us) quote that can lead one to interpret her as arguing that there *can be* an ideal Presidential candidate. Reading the piece, though, I suspect that she (like you) is aware that the Presidential candidate she envisions can not exist in our political landscape. She’s wishfully thinking. “In a better world, this is what a viable U.S. Presidential candidate would look like,” is what I hear her saying.
Thanks a lot for this post, Maia. It got me thinking a lot more in new directions, none of which have anything to do with lawnmowers.
Best.
Kevin – I agree absolutely. I should have stepped in sooner and lot let the lawyer digression (which I don’t even understand – it’s one of those American things) smother what this post was about.
I do feel in a meta way this thread has demonstrated what I was suggesting in the headline – which is that presidential elections are a dangerous distraction.
A thread about the relationship between black leadership and presidential politics
Am I on the wrong thread? I thought Maia was talking about the election in general, and in particular about how it’s not realistic to turn to any US presidential candidate–Obama, Clinton or Edwards–as a herald of progressive and anti-capitalist politics.
I apologize for the digression. It came about as we delved into one of the Democratic candidates. Edwards has made a lot of money as a lawyer suing corporations. The question comes up as to what kind of suits he was involved in and whether they had much merit, or whether he brought frivolous suits or pursued them in a fashion that was more about making money than doing justice, and what that says about his character. The digression came when we started talking about the kinds of suits we’ve seen and what we think of them, instead of talking about Edwards. Sorry.
So – will any of the Democratic (or Republican, for that matter) candidates bring about the kinds of changes that most of the people posting here would hope to see? I can speak about one candidate with some knowledge, and that’s Sen. Obama. Consider that he was a State Senator in Illinois for (I believe) 8 years, and he has been a Federal Senator for a little over 2 years. What changes has he tried to make there? The answer is, damn few. In the Illinois State Senate he pretty much kept his head down and played ball with the Combine (a.k.a. the establishment). He has repeatedly endorsed machine candidates (i.e., the regular Democratic party candidates) and has refused to endorse what you would all call “progressive” candidates. He bought his house in a sweet deal from a machine power broker. Don’t look for change from him, folks. He looks like change, but he hasn’t actually done any.
Mythago
Nope, its my fault. I apologize to the OP. Maybe a mod could cut the digression comments out and paste them in a new thread about lawyers, or the legal system, or whatever?
Ah, that should have been “land for his house”, not “his house”. Sorry.
Hey I’d like to ask that the thread doesn’t get re-derailed talking about the derailment. Any further discussion on this thread should be on the original discussion of black leadership and the limits of presidential campaigns.
Really not trying to talk about the derailment, Maia, but I didn’t see your original post as being about “black leadership”; it seemed that you were talking about how the US President can’t possibly be an agent of progressive change, regardless of whether the President is or isn’t a white guy. And so (as least as I read the post) pointing to Obama’s race, Clinton’s gender or Edwards’s class is a distraction from the issue of what they will do as President.