The Left's Challenge to Obama

Which Republican nominee would you rather live under as President? Think long and hard. Give up? So does everyone else. That's because its no one.

There will be no real challenge from the Right because Obama governs from the Center--a move every great president does. That way, the only detractors he has are those who are counter-productive and unwilling to negotiate. Sure, Obama's poll numbers have gone down. So has everyone's, in every part of the world.

There is of course potential for regime change from the Right, and if there were actually a violent uprising to oust the President, as there are in so many parts of the world these days, you can bet the Right would certainly have the capacity to do it. But the Civil War took away the will for Americans to kill Americans a century and a half ago and those who would be quick to label their neighbors "enemy combatants" are likely to be small and probably labeled as terrorists by all but their closest sympathizers.

Of course the Far-Right hates Obama. Anything Left of them is heresy, and the fact that his middle name is Hussein is just icing on the cake. The Right is one big free-for-all pissing contest: privatization, wars, dismantling safety nets...its one big race to see if anyone really can live without any publicly funded social service.

Yet ultimately, the effect of an empowered Right would allow corporations to have free and total control of world resources, deregulate business, inject evangelical "solutions" into federal government, consolidate wealth at the highest class, diminish government capacity to protect its citizens, maintain the hegemony of the military-industrial complex, remain allied with Israel no matter what, and push a Free Trade agenda with little-to-no environmental consideration...values that have become increasingly unpopular since the arrival of the Tea-Party. What made the Tea-Party so effective was that they swung local elections for the most hard-core Rightist available. That simply will not work in a General Election when they are the least popular group in America.

Let's be honest-- of course government spending needs to decrease. Of course policies should not infringe upon the freedom of individuals. Of course we acknowledge the failings of government, that humans are not infallible or 100% efficient. These are basic truths evident in all human institutions, whether private, public, or something in between. The Left has been saying these things for years. The problem is that Obama has only to appear Left of Far-Right and he will win. It is basic mathematics.

Unfortunately, in pandering to those Right of Center, Obama has all but alienated his own base. Add that to the fact that Republicans are stonewalling him and you have an ineffective leader, regardless of whether it is his "fault." This means that while the Right will be trying to vote him out, those on the Left will be voting for him only because they are worried about who would replace him. YET THAT IS WHAT THE LEFT NEEDS TO CONSIDER. What should replace Obama's 2008-2012 record?

To answer this question, the Left needs to figure out what it really wants, and decide whether they believe Obama can deliver those demands. Obama's weakness is that in catering to the middle, the fringe of both sides are made equally unhappy. Yet while the reactionary fringe Right wants to wholly repeal and cut government capacity, the radical Left is still attempting to implement social change through non-central, fragmented movements. Only when the Left comes together to challenge the so-called free-market capitalist state and demand a clean, sustainable, fair market that protects people against exploitation of any kind, and suspends its vote for anyone but those who support these tenets, Obama will be forced to move to the Left in order to maintain the demographic.

This requires a publicized conversation with thought-leaders on the Left and a debate that challenges Obama for the privilege to represent an equally relevant end of the spectrum. Until there are clear alternatives to Barack Obama from the Left, this election does not represent those Left of Center, who might as well vote for a Nader-like candidate who understands the irrelevance of voting for two different people funded by the same special-interests.

The right to live in America and pay taxes to protect peace, freedom and justice should be a privilege, not a burden. The nation was founded on the ideal of representational government and until the American people are fully represented, they will never be happy. It would be great if everyone could simply choose to opt-in to paying taxes, deciding what it will go to and be the common recipient of everything, but unfortunately, we are not yet empowered to do so.

In the meantime, we can alleviate suffering wherever we find it ourselves, on our own, without relying on the whims of a single other person in whose hands the American Dream is either nourished or goes to die. The nature of institutions is irrelevant, so long as the services provided are unilaterally sound in their commitment to the common good. For the United States government to function successfully, the political spectrum has to be transcended so that the Right and Left work together to ensure their mutual prosperity.

http://dailycaller.com/2011/09/07/kucinich-primary-challenge-would-make-obama-a-...