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I’m reading Obama’s "Dreams from My Father" with an eye on the present, to see if what he wrote years ago provides insights to Obama today.
In Chapter 2, he describes his years in Indonesia, and his second father, Lolo. On p. 45f, there is a paragraph with the heading, "Power". It describes the circumstances of Lolo’s return to Indonesia after Sukarno had been deposed. Obama is describing Lolo’s changing circumstances through the eyes of his mother.
Power had taken Lolo and yanked him back into line just when he thought he had escaped, making him feel its weight, letting him know that his life wasn’t his own. That’s how things were; you couldn’t change it, you could just live by the rules, so simple once you learned them. And so Lolo had made his peace with power, learned the wisdom of forgetting; just as his brother-in-law had done, making millions as a high official in the national oil company; just as another brother had tried to do, only he had miscalculated and was now reduced to stealing pieces of silverware whenever he came for a visit, selling them later for loose cigarettes.
We sometimes talk disparagingly about Obama’s supposed 11-dimensional chess. Obama earned a reputation during the campaign for his strategic vision, while first Clinton, and then McCain lurched from one tactical blunder to another. Obama proved to be a better strategist than his opponents.
But what about now? Have the powers that be yanked Obama back into line just when he thought that he had achieved control over his destiny? Surely, on some level, he his trying to avoid the miscalculations of his father’s second brother. But he must also feel yanked by numerous powers that be, letting him know that his life is no longer his own. We can name a few of these powerful interests:
* Financial giants such as AIG, Goldman-Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, that were "too big to fail."
* Former industrial giants in the ailing auto industry whose mismanaged failure could have brought disastrous economic consequences
* The military entanglements that Bush and Cheney left behind
* The health care insurance industry that is based on making profit from the health care needs of people with enough income to pay for it
* AIPAC and other Israeli lobbies that constrain his freedom to promote peace in the Middle East.
Obama is trying to engage all of these powers at once. Within the next year we will find out how much power Obama has, and how much these entrenched Powers have over Obama, and how he will deal with them– and they, with him.
Bob in HI
11 Comments
Bob, this is terrific and needs to be discussed. I recall the same passage from DFMF, because I thought it was so frank.
The forces that he’s up against are really, really showing their hand. What remains to be seen is whether they’ve overplayed it; at the moment, they still appear to have the ‘upper hand’, but the underlying statistics that enabled these groups to gain and concentrate so much power are diminishing by the month.
All the bullshit about how the GOP is going to give Obama a ‘Waterloo’ over health care assumes that underlying economic and social conditions are analogous to 1994. They. Are. Not.
We did not have two wars then.
We did not have the stain of Abu Gharib then.
We did not have our wealth stolen via AIG and Goldman Sachs.
We did not have an economy that is fundamentally, structurally shifting.
What remains to be seen is whether they still have enough desperate wrath in them to do in Obama before they implode.
In every single instance that you cite, fraud and concentrated wealth and power (and resources) are key to the outsized influence they’ve wielded. Whether it’s fraud, espionage, market manipulation, or other outrages, all of the powers he’s up against have lost the moral high ground and exposed their claims to authority and privilege to be fraudulent.
So it does seem as if we are at some kind of pivotal moment in time.
Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Another angle on this is how Obama decided to deal with the powers that be. Instead of surrounding himself with people with the same point of view, he has surrounded himself with people who have ties to the centers of power. For example, his main financial advisers are Timothy Geithner and Larry Summers, who have major ties with Goldman-Sachs and other financial giants. His Secretary of State is Hilary Clinton, his main opponent in the Democratic Primary. For Secretary of Defense, he kept on Bush’s man, Gates.
His attitude seemed to be to keep representatives of the major power systems close at hand, seemingly confident of his own ability to control them? Or to seduce them into thinking that he was their man? Or what?
Bob in HI
I, too, think this is a great discussion question. Here is one way I’ve been analyzing Obama lately: By what he’s passed through Congress, as a representation of what he’s done in conflict.
The stimulus: Too small, yes. But he made it small before he even put it through Congress. It didn’t actually change that much in Congress ($800 billion to $700 billion – significant, but not a redefinition).
Fair pay and SCHIP: Passed as written, basically.
The supplemental: Big fight for this one, threw in things like cash for clunkers and whatnot. But, after the Senate took a lot out that was added in, didn’t change that much, I believe.
I think the pattern I’m seeing here is that Obama generally passes out of Congress what he puts into Congress. Now, time to analyze the factors under that.
Does he pass things out of Congress largely unchanged because he puts in a pre-compromised proposal? Or does he pass something out largely unchanged because he knows how to do just that? I don’t know, but health care very well may be the test. What he’s asked for is much less pre-compromised than previous bills. If he gets out something with decent subsidies to make health care affordable and a public option, I’d be willing to say he knows how to pass a bill. Otherwise, he really just knows what he can get.
I hope you’re right, and that he will get his Health Care bill through.
Bob in HI
Hi Bob,
Loved your piece. It is food for thought and I can easily see what you mean about the historical decisions and fates of his elders.
Unfortunately, I think the answer to your power question in regards to healthcare can be found in my diary/post from ealier today. Take a look at “Obama Announced Healthcare Agreement and Everyone Missed It”, http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/6711 . Not only has Obama not been using the actual words “public option” since July 22, neither has Whitehouse spokesperson Robert Gibbs and it’s becoming noticeable.
I personally could never view any administration with rose colored glasses. I do find it sinister that from the get-go single-payer was “off the table”, regardless of what the population wants and regardless of what was said on the campaign trail. No one can get to the top of anything (much less politics) and have completely altruistic motives. It’s not in the personality profile of people that strive to ultimate power.
I’m not saying Obama’s a bad guy. In fact, I wish he would act more like a bad guy, but for the right causes. What I’m saying is that anyone that strives for, and achieves, the power of the presidency will not sacrifice the possibility of another term on the altar of a cause. The trillion (with a T) dollar insurance industry has an awesome amount of power.
Once again, thank you for your thought provoking piece.
Tracie
Balancing the experiences of Power affecting his Indonesian father and uncles, on p. 49 Obama wrote about the issues other than school transcripts and medical services that he and his mother confronted.
He identifies 4 values in the next paragraph:
* Honesty
* Fairness
* Straight talk
* Independent judgment
He attributed these values to the “virtues of [his mother’s] midwestern past” offered “in distilled form.” Obama’s problem was that these values had to compete with a “relentless skepticism”…”In a land where fatalism remained a necessary tool for enduring hardship.” His mother tried to reinforce her the values she was teaching with books on the civil rights movement and the recordings of speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King. The end of the chapter focuses on Obama’s racial awareness, but the values foundation that he articulates here was, I am sure, in play as he developed as a community organizer and in other facets of his life.
Bob in HI
Bob,
This is an excellent post and excellent dialogue. A while back, I wrote that I often saw Obama as a man who developed keen insight wrt power and the flow of power.
When many of us see the river flowing downstream, I have noticed Obama sees the undercurrent and where the watersheds and tributaries lie, feeding the flow of the river and changing the course of the river.
I cling to that last value, independent judgment, with a hope that it’s foundation is our Constitution and its’ preservation. May it be his foundation.
Nobody sane would expect to change everything day one. But I’m not President Obama needs to show the Shadow Powers that there is energy demanding change. So I get the easy job of demanding change now We are the Bad Cops that Obama threatens the Shadow Powers with.
Recommended. Thank you, Bob and all commenters here. Excellent viewpoints.
Bob, you have convinced me to get the book; should have done so before now.
I know of two brothers who had white a mother and black father. The marriage failed and the mother later married a white man. The boys fell into neither group, were not accepted by either group. One went into the desert as a teenager and ended his life.
Obama was born in 1961 when mixed marriages were just beginning to shock the rules of society. In growing up Obama must have felt that fury and had to devise strategies to deal with each group; present to each group a favorable persona. It appears to me that is what he is still doing.
I fall back on your point, Bob, that the best way to view Obama is to consider the group he brought into his executive administration. That tells me enough. [ I voted for him; what choice did we really have?]
Bob, I thank you for the very thoughtful post, however, I think you’re putting TOO much thought into the ’strategic chess playing” of the Obama Administration. I think progressives need to stand up and call it what it is. Part of the Question is Does Obama have power. The Answer is yes, but his inexperience in the position and his lack of knowledge of just HOW much power he actually yields answers the second part of the question: Or does Power have him? Because of his lack of experience AND the lack of the actualization of how much power he actually YIELDS allows POWER TO HAVE HIM. Progressives need to denounce this president, cut their losses and move on to someone with a little more understanding and, well, POWER. Bush had more power than Obama, because he thought he was above the law and invincible. He didn’t even follow the constitution for christsakes because he thought he could do anything he damn well pleased. This president doesn’t believe in his OWN POWER.
Update:
This post of mine actually ties back to my previous diary, “Too Big to Fail?“. In that diary, I wrote about how Obama’s antitrust office was meeting resistance. Of course– the antitrust office would be seeking action against some of those same powers that seek to control Obama! How that drama plays out may tell us something about how Obama confronts the powers that be.
Bob in HI