By Amy Goodman
Back when Barack Obama was still just
a U.S. senator running for president, he told a group of donors in a
New Jersey suburb, “Make me do it.” He was borrowing from President
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who used the same phrase (according to Harry
Belafonte, who heard the story directly from Eleanor Roosevelt) when
responding to legendary union organizer A. Philip Randolph’s demand for
civil rights for African-Americans.
While President Obama has made concession
after concession to both the corporate-funded tea party and his Wall
Street donors, now that he is again in campaign mode, his progressive
critics are being warned not to attack him, as that might aid and abet
the Republican bid for the White House.
Enter the 99 percenters. The Occupy Wall
Street ranks continue to grow, inspiring more than 1,000 solidarity
protests around the country and the globe. After weeks, and one of the
largest mass arrests in U.S. history, Obama finally commented: “I think
people are frustrated, and the protesters are giving voice to a more
broad-based frustration about how our financial system works.” But
neither he nor his advisers—or the Republicans—know what to do with this
burgeoning mass movement.
Following the controversial Citizens United
v. Federal Election Commission decision by the U.S. Supreme Court,
which allows unlimited corporate donations to support election
advertising, the hunger for campaign cash is insatiable. The Obama
re-election campaign aims to raise $1 billion. According to the Center
for Responsive Politics, the financial industry was Obama’s
second-largest source of 2008 campaign contributions, surpassed only by
the lawyers/lobbyists industry sector.
The suggestion that a loss for Obama would
signal a return to the Bush era has some merit: The Associated Press
reported recently that “almost all of [Mitt] Romney’s 22 special
advisers held senior Bush administration positions in diplomacy, defense
or intelligence. Two former Republican senators are included as well as
Bush-era CIA chief Michael Hayden and former Homeland Security
Secretary Michael Chertoff.” But so is the Obama presidency an expansion
of the Bush era, unless there is a new “Push era.”
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It’s why, for example, Jose Vasquez,
executive director of Iraq Veterans Against the War, was down at Occupy
Wall Street on Monday night. He told me: “It’s no secret that a lot of
veterans are facing unemployment, homelessness and a lot of other issues
that are dealing with the economy. A lot of people get deployed
multiple times and are still struggling. … I’ve met a lot of veterans
who have come here. I just met a guy who is active duty, took leave just
to come to Occupy Wall Street.”
The historic election of Barack Obama was
achieved by millions of people across the political spectrum. For years
during the Bush administration, people felt they were hitting their
heads against a brick wall. With the election, the wall had become a
door, but it was only open a crack. The question was, would it be kicked
open or slammed shut? It is not up to one person. Obama had moved from
community organizer in chief to commander in chief. When forces used to
having the ear of the most powerful person on earth whisper their
demands in the Oval Office, the president must see a force more powerful
outside his window, whether he likes it or not, and say, “If I do that,
they will storm the Bastille.” If there’s no one out there, we are all
in big trouble.
Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
Amy Goodman is the host of
“Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on
more than 900 stations in North America. She is the author of “Breaking
the Sound Barrier,” recently released in paperback and now a New York
Times best-seller.
© 2011 Amy Goodman
Distributed by King Features Syndicate
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