Beyond Party and Tribe
Excerpt, editing by Carolyn Bennett
I couldn’t agree more. The ideas of the other speaker in
this Democracy Now segment are not worth mentioning because the speaker is a
tribalist, not an independent or rational thinker.
RESIST
The present executive administration in Washington, Glen
Ford says, has “created a model for austerity comprised of …
Deficit
reduction
Introduction
of preventive detention
A law for preventive detention
A law for preventive detention
Expansion
of the theaters of war in drone wars
Unremitting
assault on international law
Possibly “the biggest impact of this presidency” — not all
the light and airy stuff rising from the party convention, but actual deeds, “what
will go down as his biggest contribution to history — is a kind of
…
merger of the banks and the State, with $16 trillion being infused into these
banks, into Wall Street under his watch; and the line between Wall Street and
the federal government virtually disappearing.
Partisan, tribal failure to resist domestic, foreign wars
Apparently, under a Democratic president, under the first
black president, Party members and tribalists “cannot muster the energy to resist
[domestic and foreign wars]. It is their behavior that facilitates these
austerity assaults and these wars—this warmongering ─ because they do not
resist it.” They accept it as inevitable, “a fait accompli.”
But “it is not true that the Democrats could not on their
own stop the assaults, for example on Social Security [and other domestic programs]….”
People’s obligation to resist
“I do not accept,” Ford says, “that Obama has to make these so-called
compromises. I do not think they are compromises but are part of
his overall plan to have a grand accord with the Republicans.” A Democratic Party
president in office “has [to have] put his bully pulpit and his immense prestige within
the party itself towards these compromises.”
And if the people offer no “effective critique, make no
effective demands” against the administration, “the president will go on
his right-wing-drifting merry way.”
Sources and notes
“‘Effective Evil’ or Progressives’ Best Hope? Glen Ford vs.
Michael Eric Dyson on Obama’s Presidency,” Friday, September 7, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/7/effective_evil_or_progressives_best_hope#transcript
Glen Ford, executive editor of Black Agenda Report, BlackAgendaReport.com
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