Katrina vanden Heuvel: "The Change I Believe In"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-11-14/katrina-vanden-heuvel-change-i-believe
Sigrid Estrada
When President Barack Obama was elected in 2008, progressives cheered what they saw as a chance for real change in the country. One of those was Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of the Nation. Still she cautioned, we progressives need to be as clear-eyed, tough and pragmatic about Obama as he is about us. Three years later vanden Heuvel takes stock of the president’s accomplishments and winces at the disappointment she and other supporters feel over compromises he’s made with republicans on critical social and economic issues. In a new collection of her columns, she addresses the challenges limiting political debate and why she's fighting for progress in the age of Obama.
Guests
Katrina vanden Heuvel
editor and publisher of The Nation, writes a weekly column for The Washington Post.
Program Highlights
As a proud progressive, Katrina vanden Heuvel cheered the election of President Barack Obama. In the years since, she has expressed a less enthusiastic response to Obama's accomplishments in office, and to the state of American politics today. Vanden Heuvel talks about what she sees as Obama's biggest challenges now and what she thinks the Democrats need to do ahead of the 2012 elections.
High Hopes in 2008
Vanden Heuvel had a message for Obama when he was elected, and it included things she wanted to see him do during his term. To her, one of the most important tasks Obama had before him was to put demands on the banks, which she says he has failed to do. Obama also made a mistake in what vanden Heuvel calls "demobilizing" many of the people who helped get him elected. "In the system we live in, you need countervailing power," she said. "You need wind at your back, and the wind at your back to take on establishment power and corporate money in your system would be people."
Disappointments on Health Care, Financial Reform
Vanden Heuvel knows that compromise is an essential part of politics, but she saw Obama as retreating from his ideals during the long debate over health care reform. She said he had run on audacity, but what he demonstrated was conciliation. In her view, Obama allowed lobbyists to gut both the health care and financial reform bills, rendering them ineffective.
Obama's Accomplishments
Obama's supporters are irritated when left-leaning writers and commentators like vanden Heuvel come out with such strong criticisms of the president. But vanden Heuvel doesn't want people to look at her writing and her book as a denigration of the president. "It's trying to take a measure of not just the presidency, but the interconnection of movement, of leadership, of conditions in this country," she said. Passing two major pieces of legislation, appointing two strong women to the Supreme Court, and repealing the global gag rule are all accomplishments she acknowledges.
What Would an Obama 2012 Win Mean?
A listener asked vanden Heuvel if she would be optimistic if president Obama is re-elected in 2012. In her book, vanden Heuvel wrote that she thinks we need to be as pragmatic and clear-eyed about Obama as he is about us. Right now, she said it's important for movements to keep working with the president, and pushing him when needed - criticizing, engaging, and supporting when called for.
You can read the full transcript here.
Author Extra: Katrina vanden Heuvel Answers Audience Questions
Q: Why do the democrats never come out and support the president when the Republicans mislead the electorate? I think there would be a benefit to more widely supporting the stimulus or "failed stimulus" as they like to call it, as well as the health care bill and some of the tax reform the president has been talking about. There never really seems ot be much fact checking on the part or the liberals. - From Patrick via email
A: But many Democratss do come out and support the President when GOP misinforms, misleads the public. But it also demands a White House and a President willing to frame and fight hard to support and promote their policies – for example, the stimulus, which this White House didn’t do enough to “sell.”
Q: The left is missing the bullhorn that Fox News provides for the right.The Nation is a passionate, smart, critical voice that needs to be heard. What does Katrina plan to do to make the Nation more visible, more relevant and more part of the daily conversation ... currently it is dismissed as a liberal almost fanciful weekly. - From John via email
A: The independent/progressive media infrastructure is stronger now than it was 20 years ago. But it does need to get stronger. MSNBC has become a platform for some strong progressive voices; the Nation now has 1.5 million viewers on its website, thenation.com and has its reporters out on all platforms, radio and TV and more….We are also working with media across the country to make our voice more relevant and connected to real lived experiences of workers and others fighting the Right in places like Ohio and Wisconsin.
Q: Progressives are too reluctant to publicly embrace the fact that Obama and most other Democrats depend on Wall Street financing as much as the Republicans do and that their policy decisions reflect that dependence. If we get policies that favor the top 1% from both major parties, wouldn't it make sense to start supporting alternatives like the Green Party as one way to work toward more humane policies? - From Josh via email
A: I believe our first goal must be to get corporate money out of our political system and create a small donor network so a new generation of gutsy reformers can have a stronger voice in our politics. Then, as I lay out in THE CHANGE I BELIEVE IN, we must fight for political reforms — I have a passel of ‘em in the book — that would give third parties a real chance, not just Ross Perot third parties, which are top down and run by corporate money, but real alternative voices. But we would also be wise to support and grow the small “d” democratic wing of the Democratic party and find through public financing and new media an end to corporate money in our system...
Read an Excerpt
Excerpted with permission from the introduction of "The Change I Believe In: Fighting For Progress in the Age of Obama" by Katrina vanden Heuvel. Available from Nation Books, a member of The Perseus Books Group. Copyright 2011:
Comments
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I must admit that this "big government collectivist" tested the limits of my ability to remain open minded by listening to her narcissist, vapid, banal opinions. I'm happy to say that now that I have listened to her failed collectivist opinions, I can handle any collectivist opinion. However, I'm sure there are others out their that are more extreme collectivists than she is.
Now, I have to heave since this segment is over.
After the shameless and blatant partisan behavior of the Bush/Cheney Corporate Crony Cabal toward the then- mostly Democrat-voting U.S. citizens of Southeast Louisiana and New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina, similar behavior by Mr. Obama toward the now Republican-dominated region has been surprising, disappointing, and hurtful.
Incredibly enough, BP has been allowed to operate the damages fund, and has blatantly and repeatedly lied to the press about their progress, and has denied anywhere near fair payments to most all the "little people" who suffered the most financial damage because of their spill. Thousands of my fellow citizens who rely on the bounty of the Gulf remain un-compensated, barely hanging on.
BP has been allowed to call all the shots, despite their fatally criminal negligence and willful deceit.
BP has also been one of Mr. Obama's largest campaign contributors.
Mr. Obama has also since punished all Gulf Oil drillers and the entire industry, for reasons which probably only he knows. If you aren't a shrimper out of work because this year's shrimp catch is down 80%, then you are an oil worker out of work because the permitting process has been like molasses for over a year.
Not doing right by residents of the Gulf is a missed opportunity to turn dissatisfied Republican voters back into Democrats.
Yet another disappointment in President Obama.
There is a slide towards anti-democratic, you could call it fascist tendencies in this country. Our civil rights have been watered down by post-9/11 legislation. Government is not able to address CRITICAL issues from the economy (competitiveness, jobs, banks and finance, gov't deficit) to energy to environment to education to immigration policy. Then there are wars and the way that we are increasingly viewed by other countries in the world.
That Katrina wants to cheer up liberals by saying 'Obama' is speaking out now (that he wants to get reelected - duh) -- is just too pathetic for words.
He is a mouth-piece of the establishment that is raping the economy, future and rights of this country's under the guise 'free-enterprise' and 'job-creators' and deficit fighting. He has told us who he REALLY is by his actions.
Liberal, which I used to want to claim as a title, is really just another word for naive.
Obama is a disaster shy of voting for a nut-case Republican or a Republican making false claims. This country must either wake up and get active now -- or we have a more violent and far poorer future staring us in the face. Civil society is a thinning veneer.
And Katrina, the guest today, doesn't get it. She's lost in her magical thinking, her words, and the general belief that we have 'time' on our side.
We are really in the last few years of taking action to avoid disaster for ourselves and our children. Ecologically and otherwise.
You eloquently stated your views on Obama. I couldn't agree more. He was riding such a wave of energy. (Sigh)
actup wrote:
"He is a mouth-piece of the establishment that is raping the economy, future and rights of this country's under the guise 'free-enterprise' and 'job-creators' and deficit fighting".
Because there is nothing FREE in "free-enterprise" and "job-creators" are nothing more than a hoax. Capitalist are not going to invest in this country so long as they can enslave the rest of the world under the yoke of low wage capitalism. Why would they want to hire workers here, when they sweat the life out of workers, at pennies on the dollar, somewhere in Eastern Europe or Southeast Asia. As long as there was a third of the world that could not be exploited by capitalism, capitalists had to behave. Now all bets are off
Like the United States after the Civil War, all we did was exchange outright slavery for wage slavery....capitalism won that time too. Until the Great Depression and the labor movement attempted to level the playing field.
The only way this is going to end is badly and violently.
actup and Teece Bowman: Your last statements above sum up the reason people join Occupy. I visited Occupy Charlotte Sunday and there were many participants there who are employed and self-supporting. They are quietly preparing to effectively protest the 2012 Democratic Party Convention. One internal goal is to establish legal groundrules for protest under federal and state law and regulation. Charlotte may have been chosen as a convention venue because it is backward and repressive.
One young Occupying student in Charlotte rhetorically asked me what makes delegates to the big party conventions any more legitimate than delegates to Occupy. I'm still trying to formulate a good answer to that one. (No political parties are mentioned in our old Constitution.)
They're discussing and thinking which is vital to legitimate reform. The donations and moral support show how the public considers Occupiers their representatives. The scaredest people in Charlotte are Mayor Anthony Foxx (a business sponsored Democrat) and Jim Rogers of Duke Energy (an Oligarch). Gathering in peace to redress grievances actually works.
The magic is that when the People start acting out government on their own it begins to work better than the official variety. (Occupiers do not use Capitalism to exclude new ideas.)
Grady,
I hear you, but I am far too distrustful of capitalism. It has had its way for too long and now that Objectivism has been added to it, it has reached virulant proportions. It is an all or nothing proposition with me. I've heard others on here discussing philosophical ideas analogous to cancers which need to be extracted for the host to survive. Capitalism is such a disease.
It creates nothing....and it destroys everything.
I see nothing useful inside the framework called capitalism, only continued misery and hopelessness for humanity.
But like an addiction, the addict may have to plunge to the absolute depths in order to be cured and that will not be a pretty sight. I wish it were different.
This was a painful interview to listen to.
This lady is advocating anti-capitalistic and un-American viewpoints, particularly socialist ones in mentioning taxing the rich. The only thing I heard from her that makes sense is that she acknowledges the disconnect between our foreign policy and national security (she acknowledges "blowback").
In the future, can the interviewer try and evoke more critically-thought out answers? Hers were ambiguous and intellectually dishonest in their vagueness.
We need to get the rich off our backs and out of our government. Period.
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Consideringly, collecting the unpaid half of corporate miscollected taxes that are hidden away in the Cayman Islands and like places will bring in a few trillion to take care of the corporate right's (and its Republican's) deficit concerns, cut the foreign aid (military) and engage in domestic aid (education, infrastructure, science, environment, health care, social security, jobs). No more of these ridiculous tax cuts for the top 10-20%. And no more juvenile spending on giddy oil-safaris and other military fancies.
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Corporatism is not capitalism (as socialism is not soviet communism). When the top 20% own 90% of the total accrued wealth (as it currently does in the U.S.), and CEO's make in one day what it takes a worker two years to earn, democracy is dead.
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Obama? He's neither Theodore nor Franklin Roosevelt; he's not a John or Robert Kennedy; he's a conscilliator, a centrist, a Reagan era supply side president, like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton before him. We didn't elect a progressive people's figure like Martin Luther King when we elected this Afro-American. He has to be pushed. People have to fight.