By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 20th, 2013 
These Jo Freeman photos of the Rally and March Against Keystone XL Pipeline in Washington D.C. on Sunday demonstrate “what is to be done” by the left in Obama’s second term.
It is far from clear what Obama’s decision on the pipeline will be. A decision to go ahead would unarguably produce jobs, though for how long is in dispute. It would also likely lessen U.S. dependence on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela. It would certainly strengthen our relations with our major ally and neighbor, Canada. So the preemptive protest against Obama possible decision to support Keystone is well timed.
The attractive faces in the crowd with their creative signs, some witty, some mass produced, make clear that we face a profound problem, potentially critical of a possible decision, but amplifying the most surprising but also sensible points Obama made in his State of the Union Address:
“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen were all just a freak coincidence. Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science — and act before it’s too late.”
The President strengthened the significance and attention paid to this protest possible against himself. He certainly knew this would happen. But the interaction between decision and protest increases the likelihood that the U.S. will take its head out of the sand. We will debate the relative merits of Keystone, whether “carbon free, nuclear free” is possible or even desirable. But Obama will push forward at the very least with executive decisions, using an emerging consensus that “Climate . . .
Read more: Climate Change and the Art of Protest
By Susan C. Pearce, February 18th, 2013 
On June 15, 2012, President Barack Obama stunned even the most optimistic of a generation of young immigrants with his words, “it makes no sense to expel talented young people who, for all intents and purposes, are Americans.” Just about this time, a near audible cacophony of “Si, Se Puede!”s echoed from east to west coast.
Much reaction to this announcement of a two-year reprieve of deportation proceedings for children of undocumented parents has–perhaps cynically–centered on the political strategizing behind the president’s decision. But the back story is about the DREAMers. The name derives from the proposed legislation, the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which has been introduced in Congress for more than a decade, but never passed. How were these young activists able to move a campaign over a single issue (the right for those who were brought into the country without official papers as children to regularize their status) to become the linchpin of a larger debate, that of immigration reform, in a presidential election year?
When I ran across these activists while conducting research with immigrant women over the past several years, they were not yet on the radar of national media or politics, but were already taking dramatic actions on behalf of their cause: marching, picketing, petitioning, video-documenting their stories. If the late sociologist Charles Tilly were still with us, he would most certainly recognize strategies that he had documented across effective social movements. For example, such movements use credible displays of worthiness, unity, numbers, and commitment. How much more worthy than the image of an activist in a graduation mortar board? Than petition signatures from hundreds of respected professors? Than endorsement by leaders of conservative religious denominations? Than echoes of our own American rhetoric: “dreaming”? And how much more commitment than hunger strikes and coming-out parties, at the risk of deportation? Across the past two years, these activists gradually became bolder, staging acts of civic disobedience and public events nationwide.
Immediately after the president’s announcement, their dream went global. As I was sitting in the . . .
Read more: Teaching Us To Be Americans Again: The DREAMers On Their Long March To Immigration Reform
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 13th, 2013 
I anticipated the State of the Union Address, more or less, correctly, though I underestimated Obama’s forthrightness. He entered softly, calling for bi-partisanship, but he followed up with a pretty big stick, strongly arguing for his agenda, including, most spectacularly, the matter of class and class conflict, daring the Republicans to dissent, ending the speech on a high emotional note on gun violence and the need to have a vote on legislation addressing the problem. Before the speech, I wondered how President Obama would balance assertion of his program with reaching out to Republicans. This was an assertive speech.
The script was elegantly crafted, as usual, and beautifully performed, as well. He embodied his authority, with focused political purpose aimed at the middle class. This got me thinking. As a sociologist, I find public middle class talk confusing, though over the years I have worked to understand the politics. I think last night it became clear, both the politics and the sociology.
Obama is seeking to sustain his new governing coalition, with the Democratic majority in the Senate, and the bi-partisan coalition in the House, although he is working to form the coalition more aggressively than I had expected. He is addressing the House through “the people,” with their middle class identities, aspirations and fears.
In my last post, I observed and then suggested:
“Obama’s recent legislative victories included Republican votes on the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling. I believe he will talk about the economy in such a way that he strengthens his capacity to draw upon this new governing coalition. He will do it in the name of the middle class and those aspiring to be in the middle class. This is the formulation of Obama for ordinary folk, the popular classes, the great bulk of the demos, the people. In this speech and in others, they are the subjects of change, echoing Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address: government of the middle . . .
Read more: Class Matters: The Not So Hidden Theme of the State of the Union
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 11th, 2013 
There will be more prose, less poetry, though President Obama will certainly highlight the themes of his Inaugural Address and his earlier poetic speeches. He will be specific about policy: on immigration, gun violence, climate change, military expenditures and reforms, and the need for a balanced approach to immediate and long-term economic challenges. He will hang tough on the sequestration, calling the Republicans’ bluff, and he will warn of the dangers the U.S. faces abroad, while he defends his foreign policy, including his major accomplishment of ending two disastrous wars (though he won’t call them that). The speech is going to be about jobs and the middle class. This is all expected by the chattering class, and I think Obama will meet expectations. But I also think that there will be more interesting things going on. The President will move forcefully ahead on his major project, moving the center left on issues foreign and domestic. And there are significant signs he is succeeding, see this report from a deep red state.
Look for an opening to Republican moderates. I suspect Obama will not only stake out his positions, but also point to the way that those holding other positions may work with him on contentious issues. This will be most apparent in immigration reform. He will also likely address Republicans concerns about long-term cuts in government spending.
He will highlight the need for a leaner, but as mean, military budget, as he denounces the dangers of the thoughtless cuts in military spending via the sequester. Real cuts in military spending will please his base, including me, but also some more libertarian Republicans, Rand Paul, though not John McCain.
Less pleasing for progressives would be what Obama very well may say about so-called “entitlements.” I am not sure he will do this now, but if not now, when?
He could make clear his priority – control medical and Medicare expenses, reminding us that this is a task . . .
Read more: Moving the Center Left on Issues Foreign and Domestic: Anticipating the State of Union Address
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, February 1st, 2013 
Obama’s deeds don’t always match his words. Thus, he is a hypocrite and worse: a corporate stooge, the commander and chief of the prison industrial complex, and a war criminal. This is the sort of judgment one hears from the left. It seems this was the ground of Cornel West’s recent expression of self-righteous anger. And this, I believe, is all the result of a lack of understanding about the relationship between politics as a vocation and the art of protest.
In my last post, I expressed my indignation, my criticism of West and this sort of criticism (not for the first time, and certainly not the last). It is with the same concern that I have regretted the lost opportunities of Occupy Wall Street, which had real prospects to expand its influence, but fled instead, for the most part, into utopian fantasies and irrelevance. In Weber’s terms OWS activists chose completely the ethics of ultimate ends and fled responsibility, the articulation of the dreams over consequential actions. For me personally, the saddest manifestation of this was in the events of Occupy New School and its aftermath. Students and colleagues posturing to express themselves, to reveal their sober judgment of the realistic or their credentials as true radicals had little or nothing to do with the important ideas and actions of OWS, centered on the concerns of the 99% and the call for equality and a decent life for the 99%.
But my hope springs eternal. Perhaps with Obama’s new inauguration the protesters will get it.
A friend on my Facebook page summed up the problem. “It’s really difficult to be on the left of the current White House in the US nowadays.” Apparently hard, I think, because both easy full-throated opposition and full-throated support don’t make sense. Binary opposition is off the table. Struggles for public visibility of political concerns and consequential action are the order of the day. It’s difficult but far from impossible. Politicians will do their jobs, well or poorly, but so will social protesters. . . .
Read more: Guns and the Art of Protest: Thinking about What is to be Done on the Left
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 23rd, 2013 
I wonder if Cornell West ever has second thoughts.
At a “Poverty in America” forum held at George Washington University on January 17th, West forcefully criticized Barack Obama for taking his oath of office at his second inauguration on Martin King Jr.’s bible. See below for a clip of West’s remarks.
West was sure and authoritative, as a self appointed spokesman for the oppressed, in the name of the oppressed, and their great leader, Martin Luther King Jr.:
“You don’t play with Martin Luther King, Jr. and you don’t play with his people. By his people, I mean people of good conscience, fundamentally good people committed to peace and truth and justice, especially the Black tradition that produced it.
All of the blood, sweat and tears that went into producing a Martin Luther King, Jr. generated a brother of such high decency and dignity that you don’t use his prophetic fire for a moment of presidential pageantry without understanding the challenge he represents to all of those in power regardless of what color they are.
The righteous indignation of a Martin Luther King, Jr. becomes a moment of political calculation. And that makes my blood boil. Why? Because Martin Luther King, Jr. died…he died…for the three crimes against humanity that he was wrestling with. Jim Crow, traumatizing, terrorizing, stigmatizing Black people. Lynching, not just ‘segregation’ as the press likes to talk about.
Second: Carpet bombing in Vietnam killing innocent people, especially innocent children, those are war crimes that Martin Luther King , Jr. was willing to die for. And thirdly, was poverty of all colors, he said it is a crime against humanity for the richest nation in the world to have so many of it’s precious children of all colors living in poverty and especially on the chocolate side of the nation, and . . .
Read more: Against Cornell West / For Barack Hussein Obama: MLK’s Bible, the Inauguration and the Left
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 21st, 2013 
Notes anticipating the Inaugural Address:
By electing its first African American, bi-racial president, America redefined itself. Barack Obama’s singular achievement has been, and will be for the ages, his election, and his confirming re-election. The significance of this cannot be overestimated. It colors all aspects of Obama’s presidency, as it tends to be publicly ignored. Today, at Obama’s second inauguration, he will highlight his and our achievement, as he will take his oath of office on the bibles of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr.
Of course, Obama is not just a pretty dark face. He has a moderate left of center political program. He is a principled centrist. He is trying to transform the American center, moving it to the left, informing commonsense, changing the story we tell ourselves about ourselves, re-inventing American political culture. This will clearly be on view in today’s speech.
Obama has changed how America is viewed in the larger world, as he has slowly but surely shifted American foreign policy, ending two wars, developing a more multilateral approach, reforming the American military in a way that is more directed to the challenges of the 21st century. I should add: I am disappointed with some of this, particularly concerning drone warfare (more on this in a later piece). The President has finally established the principle of universal healthcare as a matter of American law, putting an end to a very unfortunate example of American exceptionalism. Another dark side of American life, the centrality of guns and gun violence in our daily lives, is now being forthrightly addressed by the President. His second term promises to address climate change in a way that has been foreclosed by the Republican opposition to this point. And he will almost certainly lead the country in . . .
Read more: Barack Obama: Equality, Diversity and the American Transformation
By Lukasz Pawlowski, January 10th, 2013 
The American president has signed the bill drafted by Democratic and Republican leaders, which allows the United States to avoid “fiscal cliff.” The solution adopted by the Congress does not, however, solve the problem, but only touches some of its elements and postpones dealing with the others for a few weeks. So who won in this dramatic battle, fought late into the first night of the New Year? Choosing the winner depends on one’s point of view, but no matter the viewpoint we take, one thing seems to be certain – the national interest has lost.
Regardless of who we consider to be the main wrongdoer, it is difficult to identify a clear winner. Obama’s spin doctors are striving to present the agreement as a triumph of the administration, since it succeeded in making many Republicans vote in favor of tax increase for the first time in 20 years. For the richest Americans, with annual revenues of more than $ 400,000, the tax rate will rise from 35 percent to 39.6 percent, i.e. to the rates existing under Bill Clinton before George Bush’s cuts. The problem is that President Obama wanted to set up a new tax threshold at $ 250,000 of annual income. That’s a significant difference. The White House hoped the tax increase would bring $ 1.5 trillion over the next decade, but according to the current arrangements the federal government will receive a modest 600 billion. Given the scale of the U.S. debt, it’s not much, and what’s more, this money will only contribute to the U.S. budget, if all the citizens who should pay more actually do. But will they?
The main problem with taxing the rich is that while these are the people who have the most money to share, they also have the most money to find ways to avoid sharing. When a few months ago Mitt Romney (remember him?) revealed his 2011 tax return, it turned out he paid tax rate of 14 percent instead of 35 percent or, to put it in dollars, 1.9 million instead of 4.8 million. If every American . . .
Read more: The Fiscal Cliff: American Follies Seen from Abroad
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, January 1st, 2013 
Accused of being an optimist once again last year, I was sure that Barack Obama would be re-elected and that this potentially had great importance. As the election contest unfolded, it seemed to me that Romney and the other Republican candidates made little sense and that a broad part of the American electorate understood this. A major societal transformation was ongoing and Obama gave it political voice: on the role of government, American identity, immigration, social justice and a broad array of human rights issues. Thus, I think the re-election has broad and deep significance, and I conclude the year, therefore, thinking that we are seeing the end of the Reagan Revolution and the continuation of Obama’s.
But, of course, I realize that my reading is a specific one, and partisan at that. My friends on the left are not as sure as I am that Obama really presents an alternative. From their point of view, he just puts a pretty face on the domination of global capitalism and American hegemonic military power. I have to admit that I view such criticism with amusement. It takes two forms. The criticism is either so far a field, so marginal, that it is irrelevant, leftist sectarianism, which is cut off from the population at large, confined to small enclaves in lower Manhattan (where I work and have most of my intellectual discussions) and the upper west side, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Austin, Texas, Berkley, California, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Brooklyn and the like. Or there is the happy possibility that the critiques of Obama and the Democrats engage popular concerns and push responsible political leaders to be true to their professed ideals. I have seen signs of both of these tendencies, significantly in the Occupy movement. I hope the leftist critics of Obama pressure him to do the right thing. Marriage equality is an important case study.
I think the criticism of Obama from the right is much more threatening. If conservative critics of Obama don’t take seriously the significance of the election results, they are not only doomed . . .
Read more: Happy New Year: Hope Against Hopelessness for the New Year 2013
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 17th, 2012 
As with many others, I have been consumed by the tragedy in Newtown Connecticut. I wrote a post on Saturday, something I try not to do. Signed a couple of petitions (see here and here). Watched the memorial service last night. Was moved and inspired by Obama’s speech.
It is at moments like this that I am relieved and proud that Barack Obama is president. He gave a powerful speech. He got to the heart of the matter. I am confident a real response to this tragedy will happen.
Moving from alarm, to depression to hope, I discussed with friends on Facebook the events as they have been unfolding. I think the discussions were informative and re-produce slightly edited versions here. The discussion crossed intellectual gated communities, an interesting exchange on my left was initiated by my Israeli friend, Orly Lubin, joined by American based friends Peter Manning, and Esther Kreider-Verhalle. In the second, from the more libertarian side of things, there was a civil exchange with my friend Tom Cushman, which I will post tomorrow. I hope we can continue these discussions at Deliberately Considered.
The discussion on the left was between those, including me, who saw a major change in Obama’s approach to leadership and gun policy, and those who see a pattern of compromise and ineffectiveness in domestic and foreign policy.
Orly: You Americans are the masters of understatements – Hannan and me were furious – between Jesus and god bless America, couldn’t hear the word “gun” nor the word “control” – but what do I know, don’t speak american, I guess.
Jeff: Yes, I think you don’t. Though I also don’t like certain religious aspects of American.
![]() After Newtown: A Dialogue on the Left
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