Reading Paul Rosenberg is a bit like reading Hegel. Take for example this excerpt from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind.
Immediate certainty does not make the truth its own, for its truth is something universal, whereas certainty wants to deal with the This. Perception, on the other hand, takes what exists for it to be a universal. Universality being its principle in general, its moments immediately distinguished within it are also universal; I is a universal, and the object is a universal. That principle has arisen and come into being for us who are tracing the course of experience; and our process of apprehending what perception is, therefore, is no longer a contingent series of acts of apprehension, as is the case with the apprehension of sense-certainty; it is a logically necessitated process.
You and I have no idea what any of that means because we haven’t read what comes before it and Hegel is using ordinary language in novel ways. In order to decipher his meaning, we first have to learn his terminology. So, it’s no wonder that Jamelle Bouie needs help understanding how Rosenberg can credibly argue the following:
…Barack Obama’s manic embrace of discredited conservative ideas…has helped enormously in extending the hegemonic continuity of [the] Nixon-Reagan Era.
When Rosenberg talks about “conservative ideas,” “hegemonic continuity,” and “the Nixon-Reagan Era,” he’s not referring to what you and I would assume he’s referring to.
He tried vainly to explain himself yesterday, but his central motif (built on his idiosyncratic definition of ‘context’) withered on the vine and petered out…left largely unexplained. So bad, in fact, was his effort, that his very incoherence protects him for direct rebuttal. If we don’t know what he means, we can’t very well explain why he’s wrong. His refusal to abide by the norms of usage began right at the beginning with this Clintonian whopper.
First off, it should be clear that I didn’t actually argue “that Barack Obama has manically embraced ‘discredited conservative ideas’ and ‘helped enormously in extended the hegemonic continuity of [the] Nixon-Reagan Era'” I simply offered that as a characterization.
He goes on to explain that he thought of making an argument to justify his assertion and that he may still someday try to justify his assertion, but he’s not going to do that now. Instead:
…hopefully this post can provide good enough justification for my characterization, so that we can have a more enlightening discussion than has happened so far.
So what follows is not going to be an argument but a ‘justification.’ You see, making a flat assertion that Obama is manically pursuing discredited conservative ideas is not an argument because no effort was put into justifying it. But making an effort to support that assertion is not an argument either. It’s a justification.
The point here isn’t to critique the substance of what Rosenberg has asserted, justified, or argued, but to mock the way in which he does it. For Rosenberg has constructed what I might generously call a philosophical system. It’s as though he studied Kant and Hegel and Schopenhauer, and learned nothing from Nietzsche’s perspectivism:
There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are “immediate certainties”; for example, “I think,” or as the superstition of Schopenhauer put it, “I will”; as though knowledge here got hold of its object purely and nakedly as “the thing in itself” without any falsification on the part of either the subject or the object. But that “immediate certainty,” as well as “absolute knowledge” and the “thing in itself,” involve a contradictio adjecto. I shall repeat a hundred times; we really ought to free our selves from the seduction of words!
But you ignore that philosophical aside. We’re not in class. The point is that Rosenberg is debating himself. We can choose to learn his particular language and try to grasp his usage. But that’s hard enough with people like Hegel who had something important to say. Rosenberg doesn’t have anything important to say.
As best as I can tell, he wants a wholesale rejection of neoliberalism in all its aspects, and he thinks Obama’s failure to move forcefully in that direction is undermining our opportunity to have a true realignment in this country that puts a permanent end to the era that started with the Democratic crackup in Chicago in 1968. So, it doesn’t matter what progressive improvements Obama achieves. He doesn’t get credit for them because he’s making those improvements in a way that perpetuates the post-1968 era that Rosenberg hoped would end with his election. Now, I’m not saying that there is nothing in that to debate or discuss, if only Rosenberg could discuss anything coherently. But, anyway, I hope I have helped explain for Jamelle Bouie why Rosenberg expresses himself in this strange way and why he makes these odd arguments. He is waging, or attempting to wage anyway, an ideological battle that has absolutely zero interest to the vanguard of Obama’s revolution. Part of that ideological battle, I agree with. Part of it, I sympathize with.
But I have a simple rule of thumb. I look at what can plausibly be forced through the 111th Congress and I judge Obama’s performance by how short of that measure he falls. He has not yet been defeated on any bill he has initiated or endorsed. On the controversial measures, he’s received no more than a few votes above the minimum required. The stimulus passed with 60 votes, as did the health care bill. If Rosenberg were arguing that Obama could have done better, I’d agree with him. But he wants things an order of magnitude better.
That’s the fundamental reason why Obama hit dribblers in the press conference: because neo-liberalism is all about the dribblers. Don’t swing for the fences, it says. Don’t go for single-payer–or even for a robust public option that would lead to single-payer over time–even though it’s what’s needed to dramatically cut the over-priced costs of healthcare “system”. Don’t go for a $1.3 trillion stimulus, even though that’s what the macro-economics tells you is needed to really jolt the economy out of the recession, preserve necessary state and local services and put people back to work sooner, rather than much, much later. Don’t go for a dramatic shift to clean energy, energy efficiency and massive investments in green jobs, even though that’s what the science says is absolutely necessary to avoid a coming climate catastrophe.
Unstated is the possibility that Obama could not get Congress to authorize a $1.3 trillion stimulus package, or a single-payer health care system, or a public option, or a suitable climate bill. Unstated is the fact that Paul Rosenberg couldn’t do it either. Setting aside the public option which at least had a puncher’s chance if the president really fought for it, the other items on Rosenberg’s list don’t pass the laugh-test in Washington, DC. Obama actually has directed tremendous resources towards clean energy, but evidently Rosenberg has something much, much larger in mind. Need I remind you that that the Stimulus Bill passed with 60 votes. As for a single-payer system, no one who watched the 16 month battle to pass health care reform can possibly be under any delusions that single-payer can pass through Congress in this country, or even that the Democrats could hold together enough to credibly make that their opening position. Rosenberg isn’t interested in the Art of the Possible, or in making what gains are available.
In his mind, Obama can’t be a progressive because he operates in a neo-liberal context (with ‘neo-liberal’ meaning something different to Rosenberg than what it means to the rest of us). But, from the point of view of the organizing left, Obama is going about things exactly as a progressive would. That’s because on-the-ground community organizers aren’t waging an ideological battle, but a battle for resources and opportunities. It’s not all or nothing. It’s get what you can and come back and ask for more. The best progressive isn’t the one who excels at the ‘seduction of words’ or who builds the most elaborate philosophical systems for understanding political change, but the one who gets a clinic opened or gets the police to focus on their neighborhood crime problem or who gives the working poor access to health care subsidies.
Down on the street, the rest is just wankery.
[The subject of this post is Paul Rosenberg, and should not be interpreted to reflect on the other authors at OpenLeft]
Boo, you need to close your italics.
As Bowers reminded us, Yglesias wrote on the mainstream liberal policy agenda:
So there is anger right there. There is frustration with the Republicans, but the real problem is, Obama has not even seriously attempted these things. Trying and failing is one thing, but it seems he never even tried. Every single issue since the inauguration has required fighting the administration. I knew change would be hard, but I didn’t think I’ve be voting for an opponent of change.
Frankly I do think if the package on economics had been more liberal it would still have passes. The crisis was that great. At the time I believed your criticism of creative destruction but I don’t anymore. We would have been better off if we’d let it crumble and then rebuilt something better on it. Now? Now the nearest shock will destroy us again (PIGS collapse, commericial prop. bubble, etc.) but we won’t have the resources to do anything about it. That’s not to say that the bill as passed wouldn’t mitigate the pain, but there’s been no attempt, none, to change the law to prevent the kind of action that caused the crisis in the first place.
But you act like the ideological framing/thought war isn’t important. That’s manifestly untrue. If you think about things a certain way, certain solutions will or will not occur to you. We need to push thought to the left, but Obama is always, ALWAYS pushing it to the right even if it he wants to end up with liberal policy goals. After he’s gone the solutions that occur and seem right to people will be EXTREME right-wing solutions because that’s how we’ll have been trained to think.
As for organizing left:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2010/1001.homans.html
That article by Charles Holman is telling.
Essentially Obama is creating a disaster. When he’s gone the progressives will have to start from scratch and the Dem party will be dead, and rightist thought will be the norm in our society. This will make it even harder to push things left than in 2004.
The stimulus could have been better, but not orders of magnitude better. I have to step out, so I can’t give this a full response right now. I may come back to it later in the day.
Part of this is dubious as ‘mainstream liberal.’ Particularly the first two items. But let’s take a look.
A $1.2 trillion stimulus. – some economists recommended this number. It wasn’t possible. Many of those same economists have been very wrong about the state of the economy and the effectiveness of the stimulus.
The forcible breakup of large banks.- This could have been done through nationalization, but events have shown that Geithner’s Plan was much less expensive, less risky, and worked quite well in the short-term. Lincoln’s language is still alive on the derivatives desks, although I’m not sure it is the right policy. In any case, I don’t agree that it was liberal orthodoxy to breakup the big banks. I guess that depends on what you mean. We got the weak Volcker Rule. We have new capital requirements. He have Hedgefund registration. We have the inter-agency oversight commission. So, maybe not a progressive victory, but a major move in a progressive direction.
Universal health care with a public option linked to Medicare rates.- proved impossible. I think it was perhaps possible to get a weaker public option, but not one tied to Medicare rates.
An economy-wide cap on carbon emissions, with the permits auctioned. – Not possible
Repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. – coming soon.
A path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.- not possible at the moment.
An exit strategy from Afghanistan. – there’s a strategy. Whether it’s a realistic one is another matter.
An end to special exemption of military spending from fiscal discipline. – we know the score on this one.
An independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency. – we got one housed in the Federal Reserve.
The Employee Free Choice Act.- see Bill Halter.
to be his extreme lack of passion and leadership. Maureen Down in the NYT:
This president who promised an open presidency has avoided the press even more than George W. Bush did and Robert Gibbs, who started out looking terrific, has become as evasive as Ari Fleischer at his worst.
Thanks for reminding me what a total waste of air Dowd is. Once in a blue moon she’ll write something almost interesting and distract one from her real lack of talent. I mean, it’s really important to take our cues on Obama from Republicans who “described him as whiny, thin-skinned and in over his head”. Sure settles the case. And it’s equally important where he spends his holiday and to make up quotes about what he was thinking. And “top aides who believe in his divinity”? This is the best “journalism” you can find to advance your jihad?
It’s kinda too bad: I agree with you that Obama’s technocrat cool is doing him some damage, at least for now. But using Fox News-level crap like this to attack him precludes any real discussion. And yeah, let’s be sure and bring Clinton back to gush — he might have missed something else he could have done to damage the country.
Has Gibbs become evasive and non-responsive?
You bet your ass they have.
Actually I’ve sometimes wondered if Obama talks too often.
…to be his extreme lack of passion and leadership.
Obama’s problem is being president of a country, and leader of a party, that can’t tell the difference anymore.
So he can’t lay out the case for way liberalism(and not neo-liberalism) is better?
Lincoln’s failure to go to the nation loudly, and in public, in support of abolition, until the spring of ’64 — or later — means that the Emancipation Proclamation in January of ’63 didn’t matter?
“As best as I can tell, he wants a wholesale rejection of neoliberalism in all its aspects, and he thinks Obama’s failure to move forcefully in that direction is undermining our opportunity to have a true realignment in this country that puts a permanent end to the era that started with the Democratic crackup in Chicago in 1968.”
Now that you have accomplished this heroic feat of translation, Boo, why don’t we forget about Rosenberg? What about the thesis? I take your point, Obama’s been walkin the walk, not so interested in talkin the talk, because that would be ideology. Yes, he has accomplished a lot. But at this point, I’m beginning to get very frustrated at the President’s failure to communicate with the public. With me, for Christ’s sake, as a member of the public. Ironic because he is a great communicator. Why does the argument have to be about ideology? Since Reagan, the ideologues of the right have taken us so far into La La Land, that it is entirely unnecessary, not to mention unproductive, to counter them with leftwing ideology; but non-ideological common sense, in the face of our obvious problems, would always be the most devastating retort to the clowns of the Right.
Neoliberalism, as such, never had a lot of popular support to begin with. I too would love to see “a wholesale rejection of neoliberalism in all its aspects,” because neoliberalism has practically destroyed this country, and it wouldn’t be very hard to show that, an to lead us out of the slough, without resorting to ideological or theoretical arguments.
First, someone needs to define neo-liberalism so we can agree on what we’re discussing. The way Rosenberg uses it, it basically means everything that has happened in this country since Nixon got elected. It’s basically an era as much as it is an ideology in his usage. So, Clinton and Obama are neo-liberals as much by virtue of when they were in power as by virtue of how they used that power.
I mean, there are different elements to neo-liberalism, some of which are quite well supported by most people and some of which are quite unpopular. It’s not a catch-all phrase that imparts coherent meaning.
Good point. I did not read Rosenberg and I don’t intend to. What I meant was certainly all of Bush II’s economic policy and a fair portion of Clinton’s, beginning with NAFTA. It’s discredited. I’d like Mr Obama to start listening to people like James Galbraith.
I have been extremely sympathetic to Obama’s gradualism and caution. Yes, a depression was averted — for the time being. The problem is, we are still in the midst of multiple crises, and even worse, still vulnerable to predictable disasters, and the forces that precipitated those crises and whose policies could cause those disasters are being treated as if nothing had happened. For the last year and a half I have been assuming that there was more to Obama than this, but where is it?
I can’t get into a discussion of economic policy that is as broad as what your asserting here. I mean, by no means is liberalized trade discredited. Balanced budgets except in times of economic downturn are not discredited. Repealing Glass-Steagall is discredited. Lax oversight is discredited. Elements of the financialization of capital are discredited. The record on privatizing government functions is mixed. In telecommunications, it’s been pretty good. In the Pentagon? Not good.
So, I can’t discuss the pros and cons of economic policy by arguing for or against ‘neoliberalism.’ I think that’s too simplistic. Even on something as straightforward as NAFTA, the jobs were going to leave eventually unless we erected some pretty absurd barriers to doing business in this country. You want to make a condition of opening a factory in this country that the investors can’t move it if they find a better place to make profits? We’d basically lose massive amounts of jobs that way, too. That would be no more effective in stopping globalization than the Top Kill operation was in stopping the flow of oil. There are ways to create and protect jobs for the middle class in this country, but killing NAFTA wasn’t going to be one of them. There were problems with the way NAFTA was implemented, but it gets too much attention. The real issue was putting the resources into new technologies, and adult education, and making it as painless as possible for working class folks as we transitioned away from a manufacturing country. Clinton tried to do that, but he lost Congress right after NAFTA was signed.
This. Fantastic post, BooMan. I’m still trying to understand why the Left obsesses with NAFTA. Was it as good as its supporters say? No. Was it as bad as its opponents say? Hell no.
In my opinion its been neither good or bad, just neutral. Overall it’s probably been a net positive for the US, but a negative for Mexico.
Definitely negative for Mexico. Which in my view is not positive for US.
Sorry Boo, but I think defining “the best progressive” takes on a wankerish quality of its own. The left has done a pretty good job on the organizing end as you say, getting what they can and pushing (however gradually) the envelope. The other side of the left, the ideological battlers, have been far less successful, but that doesn’t mean they’re any less essential in moving the country leftward.
That’s why FDR, for all his faults, looms so large, I think. He got stuff done, but he also mastered “the seduction of words” to assemble all those things into a narrative that gave them meaning beyond policy wonkery. I grew up near-worshiping Saul Alinsky, but he had little capacity to inflame the people’s imaginations and communal aspirations, to paint a vision of a much better future. It took the likes of FDR and ML King for that. It takes both. To claim superiority for one role over another is to kneecap the team going for the prize.
I have zero interest in parsing what “neo-liberal”, etc. means. My problem with Rosenberg is not his aspirations, but knowing what the hell he’s on about. As to Obama, I’m inclined to agree that he’s done all a pragmatic technocrat can hope for in the present condition. I’m still basking in the joy of having high intelligence and grownup thought in the WH. Still, I can’t totally dismiss wondering what a little more boldness, a little more passion, a little more all-in poker playing might bring.
In a way, you can look at it from a sports perspective.
The American people are the athlete. Congress is the owner. Obama is the agent.
We tell Obama that we want a $1.3 trillion dollar stimulus package and he tells us that the owners will laugh him out of the room. There’s no way in hell they’ll give us single-payer.
So, we ask our agent to get us the best deal he can, and he goes out and does it.
In Rosenberg’s world, we get to sit out the season with no contract at all.
And then he blames the agent who knew better than to follow our advice.
Surely you’d agree that Obama is supposed to be more than the agent. And that it’s not impossible that a better agent would have gotten a better deal. Anyway, the analogy has too many holes to argue in detail — mainly that you left out the fans, who put up the money in the first place. When you put them in the picture I don’t know where Congress would fit.
well, yeah, he is the president, not a frigging sports agent. But his job is to do the best job he can for the American people. He articulates a vision, we endorse most of it by electing him. He tries to get his vision to come true.
Now, we could do a simple exercise. Imagine if we just moved one constraint from the president. If there was no filibuster, we’d have the health care plan he campaign on, we’d have the Employee Free Choice Act, we’d have had a stronger stimulus package, we’d have passed a strong climate bill by now. Immigration reform could at least be debated and probably could pass. The financial reforms would be much stronger. He’d have all his appointments and a more competent administration. Guantanamo probably would be closed. I mean, I could go on, but he’s doing a good job in most areas considering the constraints. And with the hand he was dealt, he didn’t have the option of fighting and losing just to make an ideological point.
So you’re predicting that if the Dems keep a reasonable Senate majority and nuke or disable the filibuster at the start of the next session we’re going to see all the accomplishments you enumerated? That would be the only evidence that he’s either done as well as anyone could given the constraints, or that the constraint is gone and not that much has changed.
Do you think he’s hoping the majority/dead-filibuster scenario happens, or would he rather keep the constraints going? That’s the heart of the intra-lefty dispute. I hope we get to see some resolution.
Well, there may be a few areas where Obama is actually grateful that the Republicans are allowing him to say ‘no’ to the base. I think, though, that it is a differential equation to figure that out.
For example, he may not want to do something because he believes that, while it might be good policy, it will really hurt his majorities in Congress. But if he doesn’t have to worry so much about his majorities in Congress, he may support that policy.
There are a lot of moving parts.
On the whole, I think Obama would like to do precisely what he promised to do. In fact, he’d probably like to do quite a bit more than he promised in a progressive direction because his promises already reflected anticipated constraints. He didn’t want to overpromise, or suggest policies that would get him laughed out of the primaries.
I do not know if the Democrats will move on the filibuster. Even if they do, though, I think they’ll create a system that is so time consuming that it will only be used once or twice per Congress. It would allow the Senate to vote on a pressing issue like the oil spill or health reform if they’re willing to spend months debating it. That’s basically what Harkin has proposed. So, it would allow Obama to take up the big items, but not to move forward on a whole array of things that are getting blocked now. They’d use it for immigration reform perhaps, but not for ENDA . For Climate Change, but not for the EFCA. You get the drift.
Self-proclaimed “true progressives” will never like Obama. Ever. No matter what he does.
Just get used to it – they are basically republicans as far as practicality is concerned. They want Obama and Democrats generally to lose, and will never do anything but complain.
Sucks, but that’s just the way it is.
Not fair! Plenty of us old socialists are totally in love with Obama, still. That’s why we visit the Booman, looking for good news from a source that won’t lie to us. We’re just afraid that Obama doesn’t really love us back, is all. He never writes, he never calls… Anybody’d think he really doesn’t care about habeas corpus, and what’s this ridiculous thing about charter schools? A-and why can’t obviously innocent people be let out of Guantánamo and Bagram, and why does the CIA keep bombing wedding parties in Afghanistan, and why would you want to lower the deficit in the middle of the second worst financial crisis in US history, and so on and so on. The accomplishments, given the horror of congress as currently constituted, are incredible! I admit it! But can’t he just give us a hint as to what he has in mind with the other stuff?
I mean CIA in Pakistan, of course, it’s the military that bombs ’em in Afghanistan. Same difference from the ground, though, if you’re getting your head blown off.
I would agree with you that Rosenberg bloviates but why choose him as an opponent when he is not really the most articulate or stimulating of critics? Arguing with him is like arguing with a weak straw man.
Much better and far more insightful overall criticism of Obama may be found in the writings of Paul Street at Z-Net, for instance. Try his highly critical “Obama, as predicted” http://www.zcommunications.org/obama-as-predicted-by-paul-street
Or try the writings of historian Stanley Kutler on Obama. Kutler was, of course, the historian who blew the whistle on Nixon and did seminal work on the Watergate tapes and the Vietnam War. Here’s a link to one of his insightful articles on Obama. http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_16aea2b7-133a-5920-8e0b-4afd7c51bc54.html
Or this: http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/33554
There is a substantial progressive/left beef with the Obama presidency and there are far better and more articulate writers out there than Rosenberg.
That Paul Street piece really is insufferable agitprop. It’s great fun to snipe from the Old Left, and it’s actually rather easy to indict the last fifty years of American history. But, for me, this is more serious. We’re going to be led by someone. Who will it be? Grandiose indictments of our country are fine and often true, but they don’t keep the real reactionaries out of power.
I’m getting a headache.