My Message from the 1960s

The organizers of a rally to protest Karl Rove’s appearance at the University of Massachusetts tonight opened the microphone to anyone who wanted to talk. I hadn’t planned to speak, but I felt I had something to share with this crowd of 150 or so, most of them in their 20s.

My remarks went something like this:

Back when I was a teenager protesting the Vietnam War, we had a president named Richard Nixon. We thought he was pretty conservative—but his record is to the left of Barack Obama.

Obama blows with the wind. He feels the breeze of the Tea Party—but he doesn’t feel us. We have to ‘have his back’ when he does the right thing—and make a lot of noise when he doesn’t.

Richard Nixon brought us the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency, detente with the Soviet Union, a newly opened door with China…

Barack Obama took nearly three years to get us out of Iraq, failed to close Guantanamo (and hasn’t tried very hard), escalated drone strikes, backed away from his early rhetoric on climate change, and refused to provide the deep change he was elected to bring.

Even on his signature issue, health reform—one area where he was actually willing to act presidential–he wouldn’t even talk about the real reforms, like single-payer. Yes, I know he has done many good things, and I now he’s been battered by a hostile Congress. But he could have done much more, if he’d enlisted the support of progressives around the country.

And not only has he failed to undo most of the policies of the Rogue State Government of George W. Bush, he has let the treasonous, anti-moral crooks and liars of the George W. Bush administration, including Karl Rove, walk free.

Obama is weak and susceptible to public opinion. Yet, only the opinions of the right-wing fringe seem to sway him—because the left does not understand how to pressure politicians. We elected him twice, and we can get him to listen to us. But for that, we need different strategies and much much better framing.