By Norman Solomon

A lot of what we say and do becomes habit-forming. Groundhog Day 2013 could serve as a reminder that some political habits should be kicked. Here are a few:

** “Defense budget”

No, it’s not a defense budget. It’s a military budget.
But countless people and organizations keep saying they want to cut “the defense budget” or reduce “defense spending.”

Anyone who wants to challenge the warfare state should dispense with this misnomer. We don’t object to “defense” — what we do oppose, vehemently, is military spending that has nothing to do with real defense and everything to do with killing people, enforcing geopolitical control and making vast profits for military contractors. And no, they’re not “defense contractors.”

President Eisenhower’s farewell address didn’t warn against a “defense-industrial complex.”

The fact that there’s something officially called the Department of Defense — formerly the Department of War, until 1947 — doesn’t make its huge budget a “defense budget,” any more than renaming the Bureau of Prisons “the Bureau of Love” would mean we should talk about wanting to cut the “love budget.”

** “Pro-life”

Last week, midway through a heated debate on the PBS “NewsHour,” the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said that some politicians get elected while hiding their extreme anti-abortion positions — but would be rejected at the ballot box “if they ran on their pro-life values.”

“Pro-life” values? Not a label that abortion-rights advocates should use for opponents of a woman’s right to choose an abortion. One of the main reasons those opponents keep calling themselves “pro-life” is they want to imply that supporters of abortion rights are anti-life. Why help?

** “Globalization”

In many realms, globalization can be positive, even essential. For instance, wonderful results flow from globalizing solidarity among workers around the world. Likewise, the planetary spread of awareness and cooperation among people taking action to protect the environment, stop human-rights abuses and end war.

Corporate globalization is another matter. Its destructive effects are lashing every continent with voracious commercialization along with exploitive races to the bottom for cheap labor, extraction of raw materials, privatization, flattening of protective tariffs, overriding of national laws that protect workers and replacement of democratic possibilities with the rule of big money.

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By Norman Solomon

Dear Progressives,

With President Obama’s
second term underway and huge decisions looming on Capitol Hill, consider this
statement from Howard Zinn: “When a social movement adopts the compromises of
legislators, it has forgotten its role, which is to push and challenge the politicians,
not to fall in meekly behind them.”

With so much at stake,
we can’t afford to forget our role. For starters, it must include public
clarity.

Let’s face it: despite
often nice-sounding rhetoric from the president, this administration has continued
with a wide range of policies antithetical to progressive values.

Corporate power, climate
change and perpetual war are running amok while civil liberties and economic
fairness take a beating. President Obama has even put Social Security and Medicare
on the table for cuts.

Last fall, the vast
majority of progressives voted for Obama to prevent the presidency from going
to a Republican Party replete with racism, misogyny, anti-gay bigotry and
xenophobia. Defeating the right wing was cause for celebration. And now is the
time to fight for genuine progressive policies.

But let’s be real about
our current situation. Obama has led the Democratic Party — including, at the
end of the legislative day, almost every Democrat on Capitol Hill — deeper into
an abyss of corporate-driven austerity, huge military outlays, normalization of
civil-liberties abuses and absence of significant action on climate change.
Leverage from the Oval Office is acting as a brake on many — in Congress and
in progressive constituency groups — who would prefer to be moving legislation
in a progressive direction.

Hopefully we’ve learned
by now that progressive oratory is no substitute for progressive policies. The
soaring rhetoric in Obama’s inaugural address this week offered inspiring words
about a compassionate society where everyone is respected and we look out for
each other. Unfortunately and routinely, the president’s lofty words have
allowed him to slide by many progressives despite policies that often amount to
a modern version of “social liberalism, fiscal conservatism.”

The New York
Times headline over its front-page coverage, “Obama Offers a Liberal
Vision in Inaugural Address,” served up the current presidential recipe: a
spoonful of rhetorical sugar to help the worsening austerity go down. But no
amount of verbal sweetness can make up for assorted policies aligned with Wall
Street and the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us.

“At their inaugurals,”
independent journalist I.F. Stone noted long ago, our presidents “make us the
dupes of our hopes.”

Unlike four years ago,
Obama has a presidential record — and its contrasts with Monday’s oratorical
performance are stark. A president seeking minimally fair economic policies,
for instance, would not compound the disaster of four years of Timothy Geithner
as Secretary of the Treasury by replacing him with Jack Lew — arguably even
more of a corporate
flack.

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By Norman Solomon

A simple twist of fate has set President Obama’s second Inaugural Address for January 21, the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.

Obama made no mention of King during the Inauguration four years ago — but since then, in word and deed, the president has done much to distinguish himself from the man who said “I have a dream.”

After his speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in August 1963, King went on to take great risks as a passionate advocate for peace.

After his Inaugural speech in January 2009, Obama has pursued policies that epitomize King’s grim warning in 1967: “When scientific power outruns moral power, we end up with guided missiles and misguided men.”

But Obama has not ignored King’s anti-war legacy. On the contrary, the president has gone out of his way to distort and belittle it.

In his eleventh month as president — while escalating the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, a process that tripled the American troop levels there — Obama traveled to Oslo to accept the Nobel Peace Prize. In his speech, he cast aspersions on the peace advocacy of another Nobel Peace laureate: Martin Luther King Jr.

The president struck a respectful tone as he whetted the rhetorical knife before twisting. “I know there's nothing weak — nothing passive — nothing naive — in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King,” he said, just before swiftly implying that those two advocates of nonviolent direct action were, in fact, passive and naive. “I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” Obama added.

Moments later, he was straining to justify American warfare: past, present, future. “To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason,” Obama said. “I raise this point, I begin with this point because in many countries there is a deep ambivalence about military action today, no matter what the cause. And at times, this is joined by a reflexive suspicion of America, the world’s sole military superpower.”

Then came the jingo pitch: “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”

Crowing about the moral virtues of making war while accepting a peace prize might seem a bit odd, but Obama’s rhetoric was in sync with a key dictum from Orwell: “Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”

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By Norman Solomon

The failure of the Congressional Progressive
Caucus to stand up to President Obama on many vital matters of principle is one
of the most important – and least mentioned – political dynamics of this era.

As the largest caucus of Democrats on Capitol
Hill, the Progressive Caucus has heavyweight size but flyweight punch.

During the last four years, its decisive
footwork has been so submissive to the White House that you can almost hear the
laughter from the West Wing when the Progressive Caucus vows to stand firm.

A sad pattern of folding in the final round
has continued. When historic votes come to the House floor, party functionaries
are able to whip the Progressive Caucus into compliance. The endgame ends with
the vast majority of the caucus members doing what Obama wants.

That’s what happened on the first day of this
year, when the “bipartisan” fiscal deal came down. Widely denounced by
progressive analysts, the bill passed on the House floor by a margin of 44
votes – with the Progressive Caucus providing the margin. Out of 75 caucus members,
only seven voted against it.

Over the years, we’ve seen that President
Obama is willing – even satisfied – to be rolled by Republican leaders on
Capitol Hill. But that’s just part of the problem. We should also come to terms
with the reality that the Progressive Caucus is routinely rolled by the
president.

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By Norman Solomon

As 2013 gets underway, progressives need to be here now. We’re in a new era of national politics — with different circumstances that call for a major shift in approach.

Last year, the vast majority of progressives supported the Obama campaign to keep a Republican out of the White House. We helped deliver that vital blow to right-wing forces.

But now, President Obama is no longer the alternative to prevent a GOP takeover of the presidency. He goes into his last term as the leader exerting immense leverage that continues to move the Democratic Party — and the frame of political debate — in a rightward and corporate direction.

That’s a predictable result when Democratic leadership makes cutting Social Security doable, puts a bull’s-eye on Medicare, protects the military from major cuts, takes a dive on climate change, reinforces perpetual war in sync with “kill lists” for routine drone attacks across continents, throws habeas corpus and other civil liberties under the bus and promotes far-reaching austerity measures.

With the threat of a President Romney gone and the continuing scarcity of a progressive moral core in the Oval Office, millions of progressives who understood the tactical wisdom of supporting Obama’s re-election should now recognize that the time has come to renounce his leadership.

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This article originally appeared in the November 26, 2012 edition of The Nation magazine.

by NORMAN SOLOMON

Millions of Americans are eager, even desperate, for a political movement that truly challenges the power of Wall Street and the Pentagon. But accommodation has been habit-forming for many left-leaning organizations, which are increasingly taking their cues from the party establishment: deferring to top Democrats in Washington, staying away from robust progressive populism, and making excuses for the Democratic embrace of corporate power and perpetual war.

It’s true that many left-of-center groups are becoming more sophisticated in their use of digital platforms for messaging, fundraising and other work. But it’s also true that President Obama’s transactional approach has had demoralizing effects on his base. Even the best resources—mobilized by unions, environmental groups, feminist organizations and the like—can do only so much when many voters and former volunteers are inclined to stay home. A month before the 2010 election, Obama strategist David Axelrod noted that “almost the entire Republican margin is based on the enthusiasm gap.” A similar gap made retaking the House a long shot this year.

For people fed up with bait-and-switch pitches from Democrats who talk progressive to get elected but then govern otherwise, the Occupy movement has been a compelling and energizing counterforce. Its often-implicit message: protesting is hip and astute, while electioneering is uncool and clueless. Yet protesters’ demands, routinely focused on government action and inaction, underscore how much state power really matters.

To escape this self-defeating trap, progressives must build a grassroots power base that can do more than illuminate the nonstop horror shows of the status quo. To posit a choice between developing strong social movements and strong electoral capacity is akin to choosing between arms and legs. If we want to move the country in a progressive direction, the politics of denunciation must work in sync with the politics of organizing—which must include solid electoral work.

Movements that take to the streets can proceed in creative tension with election campaigns, each one augmenting the other. But even if protests flourish, progressive groups expand and left media outlets thrive, the power to impose government accountability is apt to remain elusive. That power is contingent on organizing, reaching the public and building muscle to exercise leverage over what government officials do—and who they are. Even electing better candidates won’t accomplish much unless the base is organized and functional enough to keep them accountable.

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Running for Congress took a lot of energy! From the start of 2011 till the summer of 2012, that was my main focus. (If you'd like to read about that campaign, please click here.)

Now, in the fall of 2012, I'm immersed in various projects that are dear to my heart. Here are links to two of them:

*  Institute for Public Accuracy

*  RootsAction

In these difficult times, we need each other's insights, compassion and hard work. Given the way the world is, I'm very glad to be part of that process.

By Norman Solomon

Several decades ago, three expert nuclear
engineers told a congressional panel why
they decided to quit: "We could no longer
justify devoting our life energies to the
continued development and expansion of
nuclear fission power — a system we believe
to be so dangerous that it now threatens the
very existence of life on this planet."

The Joint Committee on Atomic Energy heard
that testimony in 1977, when the
conventional wisdom was still hailing "the
peaceful atom" as a flawless marvel. During
the same year, solid information convinced
me to move from concern to action against
nuclear power.

To read the entire article, click here.

To read a note from Norman Solomon, click here.