I know 2012 feels distant, but trust me: Now is the time for liberals to start talking about what we want from President Obama’s potential second term. He’s going to sail to the Democratic nomination with no real challengers (Dennis Kucinich, while adorable, is not happening), and we want Obama to know he has to respect the progressives who back him. Tonight, Nation blogger Eric Alterman will read from his book-of-disappointment, Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama, and a lively dialogue about the president will ensue. (Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 624-6600, 7:30 pm, $5)

10 replies on “Eric Alterman”

  2. We won’t really know what Obama’s true colors are until he gets elected again and has nothing left to lose except for his historical legacy.

    At that point, he’s either going to show some progressive colors or he isn’t. But that’s really going to be his choice, not ours.. What progressives do in the meantime probably isn’t going to affect that, unless we want to withhold support and allow a Republican to get elected (personally I don’t have a stomach for that).

    It’s not a happy place to be, but it’s where things are. The only thing that moves the needle to the left or to the right in American politics is when one side wins consistently over a period of more than a decade.

    Since 1968, the Republicans have held the presidency for 28 years. The Democrats for 15 and only once for more than one 4 year term. It’s no coincidence that the biggest ideological movement since the 1930s happened in the period from 1980-1992, when the Republicans held the presidency for 12 straight years.

    Conversely, in the period from 1932-1968, the Democrats held the presidency for 28 years and the Republicans for just 8 years.

    That’s why 2000 was a tragedy. It was our best opportunity to keep momentum and slowly move the needle to the left. But instead of putting winning first, at least some progressives got impatient, supported Nader, and helped make things close enough that the Republicans were able to steal it. To me, this was a huge miscalculation of just how close things were.

    In the run up to 2000 we were talking about increasing social spending for the first time in two decades at least. This went out the window in the first 3 months of Dubya’s administration after he got his tax cuts through (tax cuts we are still saddled with 11 years later).

    So moving forward I hope progressive will heed the wisdom of Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis: “Just Win Baby…” In American politics, that’s a slow process and often not very satisfying, but it’s how you move the ideological needle.

  4. I’m a liberal and here are the things I’d like from Obama’s second term, in no particular order.

    – Stop raiding medical marijuana dispensaries.
    – Stop threatening state employees who license medical marijuana dispensaries.
    – Stop prosecuting government whistle blowers.
    – Stop violently killing innocent civilians in Afghanistan.
    – Stop the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning.
    – Stop denying terror suspects trials and arguing for indefinite detentions.
    – Stop trying to assassinate U.S. citizens without a trial.
    – Stop fighting for warrantless wiretaps.
    – Stop invading countries without consulting Congress.
    – Stop supporting extraordinary renditions.
    – Stop invoking “state secrets” to deny justice to victims of the Bush administration.
    – Stop protecting Bush administration officials from investigation here and abroad.
    – Stop working so closely with financial and insurance industry leaders to further enrich them.

    That’s just off the top of my head. There are also many things he could start to do, but I think it would be awfully nice if he just stopped destroying lives, first. Of course, the fact that he is actively destroying so many lives won’t stop some folks from voting for him. Maybe it’s better, somehow, to have your life destroyed by a Democrat than a Republican.

  5. We won’t really know what Obama’s true colors are until he gets elected again and has nothing left to lose except for his historical legacy.

    You don’t think that in doing all the things listed above, Obama has already shown his true colors?

  7. Perhaps you should keep up with the news.

    I’m well aware that he’s been moved to Fort Leavenworth. Perhaps you can explain precisely how that’s going to prevent the government from further abusing Manning, a man Obama has disgustingly declared to be guilty?

  8. @ 4,

    Yes, all of those. Bammerz can’t even bring himself to stop doing those things, let alone fulfill his so-called campaign promises. The man clearly has no principles or a conscience, and I’m sick of people saying he’s playing 80-dimensional chess when the reality is that he simply couldn’t give a shit about liberal values–American values–or about the people that voted for him.

    I have no idea what his endgame is–other than cashing in big-time when he leaves office.

  10. @8 Hey, we got one thing he promised–he expanded the war in AfPak.

    I watched Eric Alterman’s full BookTV talk. It sounds like one more for Obama Apologia 2.0–even for things entirely within his purview. He ends the talk in a condescending, idiotic way not even hearing the man who asked him the question–dismissing it in either a distorted or dishonest way. That’s why I’ll be missing Town Hall. I’ll wait for the paperback secondhand.

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