It's almost been two weeks, but

But I haven't taken an opportunity to post in a while, so I will still take this opportunity to assess what happened on November 2, when Democrats lost control of the U.S. House of Representatives, lost several U.S. Senate seats, and more governorships. Here I want to speak as a progressive, to other progressives, but those who aren't are welcome to read and comment.

Some in the progressive community blame President Obama and the feckless congressional leadership. Others blame rank and file progressives who rested on their laurels after Obama was elected two years ago. I say both are right. At first glance it might seem like I'm just vacillating, but I don't see it that way.

Many Democrats and/or progressives seemed to act as if their work was done on November 4, 2008 when Barack Obama was elected President and had substantial Democratic majorities in both houses to go with it.   Obama did say, many times over "Make me do it!" How many of us did, even once? I'm as guilty as anyone in not getting off of my ass to do the necessary dirty work of citizenship, spending too much time in my own home entertainment (internet or TV) silo. It's not just something you do in an even-numbered year, much less a year divisible by four. We need to start looking at citizenship as a full-time activity. Sure we have our families, jobs, hobbies, etc. and we certainly shouldn't sacrifice the first two, but, damnit! Sitting on our asses and letting others do the work is a luxury we lost a long time ago (if we ever had it). The problems facing us require much more focus and much more of a sense of urgency.

Whether or not these I'm alluding to are actually progressive is beside the point. Some of them became sycophantic.Many of these who call themselves that were too willing to accept whatever legislation came down the pike as advertised. All sorts of rationalizations were given for the weak sauce known as 'health care reform', 'financial regulatory reform', and, worse, for executive and legislative inaction on pressing issues such as immigration reform, environmental policy, the two wars, etc. Many of them made excuses for feckless Democratic leadership because, well, they weren't those crazy Republican Teabaggers.

Some of these same folks, or maybe others, stayed home this past November 2. Look up the 'enthusiasm gap'. In one sense I can empathize with those who did. Obama, in particular, didn't even try to do what he promised to do, and in some cases, did the exact opposite. Still, people need to constantly remind themselves that elections always have consequences. Many candidates with a 'D' after their names did not inspire much enthusiasm, but, like it or not, sometimes citizenship means sending to office a candidate we might consider mediocre or even below average to prevent someone we consider batshit crazy from getting in. Who knows if a Supreme Court vacancy will come before us in the next two years? Democratic Presidents may not necessarily nominate someone the caliber of Thurgood Marshall or Sonya Sotomayor, but they certainly will not nominate a Sam Alito, John Roberts, Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. And the nominees a Democratic President are much more likely to pass through when he has a Democratic Senate to work with. So, in at least that regard, sometimes voting the person does take a back seat to voting the party.

While rank and file Democrats and progressives could have done more, the leadership needs to be taken to task as well, if not more. Make no mistake, I like President Obama. Some of the stuff he brings to the table is a refreshing change from the previous 8 years. We actually have an intellectually curious person occupying the Oval Office. The two times his conferences with congressional leadership were televised, he talked circles around them. And he has accomplished some good things, such as preventing an outright economic disaster, and the Lily Ledbetter law. Also, the attacks on him by Republicans and/or conservatives were juvenile, racist, or some combination of both. As is typical, their attacks on people they don't like are based on nothing more than what they pull out of their own asses.

But in so many ways he has disappointed me. And, frankly, I'm sick of people making excuses for him. I'm sick of commenters on Daily Kos finger-wagging us to death about standing behind our President. I still support him and want him to succeed, but for Chrissakes, in being an apologist for his disappointments, you're putting words in our mouths. My disappointment with Obama and many in Congress isn't that they failed to return America to an economic land of milk and honey in two years. We fully realize that Bush and his ilk spent eight years taking a giant shit on the place, and many of the problems we face have their roots in the Reagan years, or even earlier. My disappointment isn't that he didn't accomplish everything he said he set out to do. No progressive I've seen or heard ever said or implied that, so please stop attributing that to us.

I'm sure that many who voted (and possibly campaigned) for Obama and are now frustrated can speak for themselves, but I have my reasons for my frustrations. Single-payer health care was off the table. Obama campaigned for a public option, but preemptively surrendered that before the debate ever began in earnest. That much is verifiable fact. Even worse, they would have us believe that they didn't push for it because they "didn't have the votes". The Administration just decided, without even trying to verify if it was true, that the public option was a non-starter in the battle for health insurance reform because it wouldn't pass the Senate. They didn't know this for sure. They just assumed and asserted it. Add to that his inaction or half-assed measures dealing with the BP fiasco, Wall Street/banker corruption, the Afghan War, the Iraq War, Guantanamo, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", gay marriage, green jobs, tax policy, etc. and it's clear who is running the show, and who has Obama's ear. It's also clear who has the ears of many congressional Democrats, and it certainly isn't We the People. Add to that their advertising their half-measures as historic victories and, oddly enough, not campaigning on them, and they wonder why they lost so badly?

To make matters worse, those of us who worked our asses off to elect Obama were slapped in the face several times, and basically told to remember our place. From Rahm Emanuel referring to progressives as "fucking retarded", to Obama telling his base to "stop whining", they showed their eagerness to get our votes but shove us aside once in office.

With all of this, they shouldn't be surprised that many people who voted in 2008 stayed home this last November 2. The most important thing moving forward is for each of us involved to rededicate ourselves to pushing the progressive agenda. Now, more than ever, we need all hands on deck. Plenty of blame has gone around, including in this blog post, but now we need to get off the couch, roll our sleeves up, and once again do the dirty, oftentimes unglamorous work of citizenship.

Another way of looking at individualism

What does the word mean? To many, it has come to mean "I've got mine, screw everyone else. If you don't have yours it's your own damn fault." People of all stripes decry it as part of what ails us, but can we all agree that when it comes to individualism, there's a good kind and a bad kind?

The bad kind is pretty much summed up in the last paragraph. But extrapolation is necessary. It shows itself in members of sports teams who only care about their own stats, their own numbers, and don't give a shit about wins and losses. It shows in people who assert they shouldn't have to pay any taxes for education because they don't have, or no longer have, any children who are in school.  It shows in people who assert that they work their asses off for their income, so they shouldn't have to pay any damn taxes, especially when some of them go to people who, apparently, don't work as hard as they do (and they know this how?). And in some cases it has shown itself in people who assert that a Wendy's store manager should be able to keep non-whites out of that establishment because it's his own property to do with as he pleases. The type of individualism I'm describing here is summed up in the philosophy of Ayn Rand.

With that in mind, maybe the best word to describe this isn't individualism, but self-centeredness. Does that mean that individualism, in all of it's forms, should be shunned? I say no.

We humans are a social species, but we are not cogs in a machine. Sometimes when you hear people who rail against 'radical individualism' you're hearing what you need to, but at other times you're hearing someone who has an agenda - and that often involves exploiting people. An absence of any and all regards to individualism, or individuality, creates a stifling environment where not unity, but strict uniformity, is enforced. Dissent, questioning authority, etc. is not putting yourself above the group. Often it's necessary to prevent the group from disintegrating.

Collectives are strongest when they treat their individuals well.