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Revolutions Aren't Easy

By wt

I think Mother Jones, a usually far-left but very insightful magazine, is starting to pick up Obama-backlash fever.

They seem to think Obama's messianic talk is not just a little arrogant, but also very troubling:

This is our moment to do what? To march? To organize? No. To vote for Obama. As if simply by voting for one man, we make a mark upon this country as indelibly as those who fought the Nazis or sat at lunch counters.

But the easiness of Obama's movement isn't what bothers me most. I am profoundly troubled that any candidate would chart the course of American history as follows (and I'm rearranging Obama's history here to make it more chronological):

American Revolutionaries -> Manifest Destiny -> Slaves/Abolitionists -> Suffragettes -> the Labor Movement -> the Greatest Generation -> the Civil Rights Movement -> Himself.

I guess I can't blame the far-left for feeling this way. Obama is certainly liberal/progressive in terms of politics, but he's no revolutionary. He's a Democrat.

And to compare his movement with the movements to abolish slavery, gain the right to organize, and acquire the vote for women, sort of gives a false sense of security to his movement.

Obama certainly doesn't discourage doing MORE for the country than voting for him. But that's obviously the main thing his supporters are supposed to do. He's running a campaign, so to do otherwise would be crazy.

But watch for this more and more -- the left attacking Obama for creating too much Obamania, and not enough revolutionaries.

Full post as published by Expressio Unius on February 17, 2008 (boomark / email).