Larry Beinhart’s Body Politic

Changing the Dialog

by Larry Beinhart and photographs by Ion Zupcu, September 25, 2009

The fault, dear friends, is not in our Obama, but in ourselves.

An imaginary Obama, leading an imaginary Democratic Party, in an imaginary world, by now—hell, with the first 100 days—would have:

1. Gotten us out of the Iraq and Afghanistan;
2. Ended the recession;
3. Passed single-payer national healthcare;
4. Balanced the budget by taxing the rich;
5. Reformed the financial system;
6. Fixed the intelligence services;
7. Legalized marijuana and gay marriage;
8. Put us on a diet and exercise program to end obesity.

He has not accomplished those things because the political will to do so does not exist. Not in Congress, not in the media, and not among the people.

People do not go to the facts and reason things out for themselves. They accept what they hear around them. Their thinking follows standard, conventional frames of reference.

This is even more true of congressional representatives, senators, and reporters. The process for success in those fields selects for conventional ideas, the demands of their professions leave little room for thinking, and, for the most part, they are employees of major corporations.

Thinking is the job of other people. Academics, intellectuals, writers, and artists, members of various movements. It is also up to them, however difficult it is, to make their thoughts known and make their ideas influential.

They have failed. The problem is so severe that the left’s only public intellectual who can speak up for facts and reason, and actually have an effect, is Michael Moore.