Of Hope and Disappointment
February 18, 2009
“I feel like his campaign swindled the people of the USA into believing his administration would be something it surely will not be. “
On my 72nd birthday I stood in UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza where, many years before, I was passionately involved in the Free Speech Movement, and watched Barack Obama become the 44th President of the United States.
I had said earlier, “If that man becomes president I will weep tears of joy — but I won’t have any great expectations that that alone will change things.” Both were true. However, I don’t entirely hold with the sentiment expressed above that someone recently wrote in to us here at the Metta Center. Here’s why.
No less a person than the President himself has reminded us that (aside from breaking the racial barrier) his election is not so much the desired change as a chance to work for it. This is no small thing, that we now can work for it (to put it in perspective, just remember President Bush’s advise to us after 9/11: ‘go shopping, take the kids to Disneyland’). Even more significant, if somewhat less public, he himself also said that we the people have to make it possible for him to live up to the full interpretation of his own promises. At a small fundraising event in New Jersey about a year ago, he himself told the story of how A. Philip Randolph, the civil rights activist and union organizer asked FDR to grant the largely African-American railroad porters the right to organize, whereupon the new president said ‘I’m convinced that it’s a good thing: now go out and make me do it.’ (The Railway Labor Act came into law in 1934).
So let’s take the President at his word. We private citizens of progressive communities like Berkeley (or West Marin, where I now live) have a greater role to play in the direction of our country than we have had for many dismal years — probably greater in proportion to our numbers than many other locations across the land. How shall we play it?
First, by appreciating what the President has already done. For eight years we have been living through a national version of those Stanley Milgram experiments on ‘obedience to authority,’ where a national authority figure reassured unsuspecting people from all walks of life that it’s OK to torture. President Obama pulled us back from that disgraceful abyss with a stroke of his pen. And he framed it brilliantly: “we’re going to defeat terrorism on our terms.”
Second, by not condemning him for what are undeniably many and harsh disappointments — the silence on Gaza, the refusal to stop drone bombings in Afghanistan (in which 22 innocent people have recently died), his encouraging speech at a Caterpillar plant in IL over the objections of human rights groups and others (Caterpillar supplies the machines that illegally level Palestinian homes, in one case crushing to death an American peace activist), and of course the ringing words of his inaugural address that America is “ready to lead” again. If you’re like me, you don’t want anyone to be world leader any more; if there’s any leading to be done, it should be toward acceptance that the world a multipolar system; even, dare we say it, toward a real international community. Am I disappointed? Yes, but I’m also trying to be realistic. Public figures, elected by majorities, are not expected to be prophets of a vision that only a tiny minority can understand, much less desire. In this sense, to be political is to ‘swindle’ at least some of the people much of the time. Instead of calling him a cheat for not giving us everything we want, and doing it right away — which will only deprive him of badly needed support and further terrify his (and our) considerable opposition — let’s appreciate what he’s up against, give him the benefit of the doubt (which is a good idea to give everyone, while we’re at it), and get to work.
Which is my third point. I understand that in my own town, Tomales, 80% voted for Obama. I’m ecstatic — but I’m also thinking about the 20% who didn’t; who, let’s face it, are probably 80% of many less blessed locations between here and the Atlantic. We have to reach out to them; and we can. Some years ago I was having a rather tense discussion about terrorism and how we had provoked it ourselves with my politically conservative brother-in-law. At one point he blurted out, “Well, I don’t think we’re so terrible!” I put in, “Stan, this has nothing to do with being good or bad; it’s about how we are going to live safely in a world with lots of different people.” His anger deflated immediately, and I’m not even entirely sure he didn’t vote for you-know-whom in November. So go to coffee shops, or bars, to the next cubicle (if you’re lucky enough to still have a job), and talk to people who disagree with you, always being aware that they have the same moral feelings that we do, if they apply them differently. Take a workshop in compassionate listening or nonviolent communication, if it doesn’t come naturally to you, and enjoy the conversation. Explain your own values with confidence, but at the same time reassure them that there is a place for them in the new world. Above all, don’t make them feel guilty (they do already), and don’t gloat. That’s the surest way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
It’s not the President’s job to convince Joe the Plumber that the new world will be good for him. It’s our job. Let’s remember what awaits us if we fail.
