and spend OUR political capital on getting the terms of these "bailouts" right...
http://www.opednews.com/articles/3/Naomi-Klein-Interivew-with-by-Rob-Kall-081026-271.htmlAn excerpt:
Klein: Yeah. Well, I mean, this is why I say it’s not about how you vote for or who you trust. It’s about being a political adult and realizing that political change isn’t handed down from above; it’s demanded from below. And if we don’t, you know, what I’ve been saying to people is, look, you know, Obama’s a centrist. He’s never lied about this. This is who he is through and through. He will find the center of wherever that debate is. But, the good part about Obama is that if the center moves, he’ll move with it, and we’ve seen that during this economic crisis. Right? Where the center has moved, the base has gotten more and more radical, more and more angry at Wall Street, and Obama has reflected that anger back to people. Right? So, what I’ve been saying to people is, if you don’t like where Obama is, move the center. Move the center. Go out there and say some really radical things and fight for them and organize.
Move the center, because that’s how America got The New Deal. Not because FDR handed it down from above, but because people were organizing in trade unions, in neighborhood groups. They were preventing their neighbors from being evicted from their homes by moving their furniture back into their homes. That’s how things like rent control were won. That’s why Fannie Mae was created in the first place-to prevent foreclosures.
That’s how Social Security was won. It was in that interplay between a very, very mobilized, radicalized base and a politician who was willing to listen. And, but more importantly, FDR was able to sell The New Deal as a compromise. Because people were so radical that he was able to say to the elite, look, we’re on the verge of revolution, we’re on the verge of Socialism. We need to give them something.
And The New Deal, as we know, wasn’t just one policy; they had to deepen it and sweeten the pot, more and more because people were so radical. That’s the kind of spirit that we need to return to. So it isn’t about bashing Obama, or, you know, complaining about Obama, you know, or distrusting Obama. It’s about seeing that credible threat from both below.
But, you know, I think that there’s a feeling, there’s often a feeling, on the left in the United States where people are told that they’re a liability if they take too radical a position and there’s always this idea that you just sort of support the candidate until after the election, but then after the election the candidate’s going to be under a huge amount of attack from the right, so you have to support them against that.
So then there’s really never a moment of intellectual honesty. And I think this is, you know, I think this is a real test. I wish Move-On would use their incredible network to say, you know, “We don’t want Bob Rubin.” And really stand up for homeowners. And, you know, the networks are there, but there’s a real unwillingness to take these risks.
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