Winning the Future for Whom?

Wednesday 26 January 2011

by: Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Winning the Future for Whom?
President Barack Obama greets an eager crowd following his State of the Union address - themed "Winning the Future" - on Tuesday night. (Photo: Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.

-Langston Hughes, "Democracy," 1949

Last Saturday, as an inadvertent prelude to the State of the Union address, I visited my sister in Gary, Indiana, widely known as one of the worst places in the country to live. (The rumors don't lie - in fact, Gary was featured in the History Channel's "Life After People" series as a glimpse of what Chicago would look like after the extinction of the human race.)

My sister lives off of Grant Street, in a trailer park next to a junk car lot, along a set of railroad tracks that are rarely graced with the rumble of a train. Perched on the side of the tracks is a small wooden marker circled by balloons and plastic flowers, a memorial for a child from the trailer park who died at the spot.

Grant Street, home of the bar where the Jackson Five played its first gig, is now lined with boarded-up storefronts and decaying homes. The car lot is one of the few businesses whose lights are still on, and it's frequented by jobless Garyites (my sister included) looking to pick up scrap metal for a few dollars per day.

We crowd into my sister's trailer. A neighbor drifts in to store food in her refrigerator - his electricity has been shut off - and she tells us of park residents who don't have water, others who don't have heat. (It's currently 6 degrees outside, and dropping.)

Public transportation in Gary barely deserves the label. A bus is scheduled to circle through every hour on Grant Street, but we never see one, and my sister says it sometimes never arrives. In a place where public services are needed more desperately than almost anywhere else in the country, many people are cut off from jobs not only because of the ghastly state of the economy, but because they're rendered functionally immobile.

Many of Gary's residents are, in essence, politically invisible: A host of Gary-area voters were purged from the rolls in recent elections, for reasons that remain unclear. Beyond that, thousands of potential voters are incarcerated, or simply eschew the political system because their energy is funneled into fulfilling basic needs. When the heat is off and the tap runs dry, waiting hours for a bus downtown to procure a state ID often ranks low on the to-do list.

The recession didn't do this to Gary; it's been on the downswing ever since the steel industry started waning (not long after the city was memorialized as the not-to-be-beat hometown of "The Music Man"'s Harold Hill). The recession just hammered in the nail of hopelessness, as it did for many, many cities - and for millions of vulnerable people - across this country.

But the White House isn't seeing Gary, or any of those other places where basic necessities are truly scarce, where jobs are so few and fleeting that many have simply stopped looking, where hope for a hand from the government is dying or dead. And in his State of the Union address, Obama made that vast oversight - or, perhaps, that triangulation-driven choice of calculated neglect - abundantly clear.

In the rousing SOTU, Obama spoke of "winning the future" through innovation: supercomputers that squeeze extra mileage out of nuclear plants, applications that allow firefighters to download designs onto their handhelds, the wonders of near-universal high-speed wireless Internet access. But in a country where one in three Americans don't earn enough to cover their minimum expenses, the president didn't utter a substantive word about the poor.

"In America," Obama told us, "innovation doesn’t just change our lives. It’s how we make a living."

If only every American had that option.

It's debatable whether America is the "greatest nation on Earth" (as the president assured us it was in nearly every bullet point of his speech), but one thing is for certain: this country is chockfull of poor people, and most of them are not yearning for a "face-to-face video chat" with their doctor. They're lucky if they can see one at all, let alone the same doctor twice in a row. Most of them are not small business owners who dream of "selling their products all over the world." Many just want a job that's more reliable than collecting scrap metal by the side of an abandoned main street.

Independent journalism is important. Click here to get Truthout stories sent to your email.

In his State of the Union, Obama did allude to the existence of some unmentioned "others." "We may have different backgrounds," he said, "but we believe in the same dream that says this is a country where anything’s possible. No matter who you are. No matter where you come from."

However, the president seems to have forgotten a large and growing contingent of Americans: those who no longer share that dream of boundless possibility, because their government is not providing them with any proof that it might come true.

In fact, when President Obama spoke most forcefully of uniting our shared desires - of "coming together" - he was referring to a freeze on domestic spending, including funding for some of the very social programs that could begin pulling places like Gary out of the hole. ("I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs," he said, and my heart sank.)

The president spoke of our "democracy" as "contentious and frustrating and messy," but ultimately, the element that sets us apart from – and above - the rest of the world.

So, in the context of the State of the Union, and of Washingtonspeak on the whole, what does "democracy" mean? This brand of "democracy" certainly does not include the voices of the poor - the people who are disenfranchised due to their lack of access to basic necessities, the people who, more than anyone, need their government to care. This spectacle of contention and frustration and mess is ultimately a battle between a narrow sliver of very similar perspectives.

Obama's call to action on deficit reduction, which encapsulates the message of much of the rest of his speech, provides a glimpse of the White House's grand democratic vision:

Now is the time for both sides and both houses of Congress - Democrats and Republicans - to forge a principled compromise that gets the job done."

Does "working together," then, connote simply uniting the voices and interests of "moderate" Republicans and "centrist" Democrats, in Congress and in corporate America?

In his 1949 poem, "Democracy," Langston Hughes points to a truth that reverberates eerily these 62 years later: "Democracy will not come/Today, this year/Nor ever/Through compromise and fear."

Is it possible that our president, who spoke so ardently of national transformation just two years ago, could be equating democracy with its opposite - the kind of "principled compromise" between the few that tosses the needs of the many to the wind?

This is the logic of the December tax deal, which granted the wishes of the wealthy while according the not-so-wealthy barely a vague acknowledgment of their interests. It's the logic of Congress's refusal to even begin debate on the Employee Free Choice Act and a slew of sorely needed labor reforms. It's a logic that rings hollow and discordant in places like Gary, Indiana, and it sure isn't the logic of democracy.

We must not let ourselves fall prey to this degraded conception of democracy: a decisionmaking process that brings together the weakest, narrowest, least courageous impulses of humanity, and operates on the grounds that participants abandon their highest ideals - along with the urgent needs of vast swaths of society.

A real democracy represents Gary, Indiana as boldly as it represents Washington, DC.

"The idea of America endures," the president concluded Tuesday night, against the backdrop of a near-teary John Boehner. "Our destiny remains our choice."

The question is, for whom does the exalted idea endure? And who is the "our" whose "choice" is deciding America's destiny?

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Comments

This forum is moderated by software. Please allow up to 15 minutes for your comments to go live and avoid posting the same comment multiple times.

The idea of America endures

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 14:32 — Anonymous (not verified)

The idea of America endures not because of, but rather in spite of these people.

Honey--these americans are

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 14:55 — Anonarcmous (not verified)

Honey--these americans are as good as haitiains, mexicans, or south/north-escababilians--they no longer matter in the global/corporate economy. They will soon turn to dust.There is no production means for them to justify their existence.I don't think the new GEcorp/man has plans for factories in the US?PresBObama has been convinced by the corporatists that their way is the only way.

Not much of an essay. Easy

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 15:19 — Anonymous (not verified)

Not much of an essay. Easy enough to locate and to highlight what is wrong etc, but what do you suggest be done about it to fix things?

The focus of the President's

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 15:48 — oudiva (not verified)

The focus of the President's speech was entirely too narrow; the only thing that seems to matter is business. Universities are only there to provide trained people for business. People only exist to be used by business as employees, or manipulated by business for profit. The poor, of course, having no money, have no influence and therefore nothing to contribute. Or so the "elite" seems to think.

The President talked a great deal about promoting innovation through science and engineering (all for the sake of business, of course). He said nothing of the arts. Innovation requires creativity and critical-thinking skills. Creativity is what the arts are about. Achievement in the arts requires critical thinking. It requires discipline. The arts are every bit as important to education, and to national progress, as computer skills, math, or science, and I, as a musician, am tired of the arts being the first thing put on the chopping block when schools run short of money.

I apologize for being a bit off-topic, but it seems to me that this culture sees artists in the same way as it sees the poor: dead weight. So how do we organize all the dead weight so we can throw our collective dead weight around a bit?

For citizens like those of

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 16:15 — GT66 (not verified)

For citizens like those of Gary Indiana, the American political system is hopelessly broken and pretty much useless. As for trailers, don't think of them as bottom of the line homes, think of them as top of the line shanties. The 2nd American Revolution will start in a town like Gary.

Massive and chronic

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 16:35 — Anonymous (not verified)

Massive and chronic unemployment, a steady reduction of government services in a time when they are most needed, a growing sense that hope is slipping away for millions of people—this is the reality in America today. It is the same all over the world: Tunisia is the latest example, and many of its problems are the same as here at home. This is the ultimate result of free-market capitalism: The idea that unfettered markets will prove most efficient in the long run, and that government has no business helping provide jobs, social services, or any kind of aid to its weakest and most vulnerable citizens. When the “conservatives” talk of shrinking the government, this is what they are talking about, make no mistake! It is, in effect, a law-of-the-jungle scenario where the strong prey on the weak and then look away as they flounder and die. So, what is to be done? There is too much apathy, too much complacency in our land these days. Everywhere, we see these injustices and yet few of us speak out against them. The people of Tunisia finally had enough. They began to see that action, even violent action, was the only way to effect change within their land. And so the question: When we will finally decide to get off the couch, organize and take to the streets in protest?

The Sputnik moment was not

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 16:44 — Anonymous (not verified)

The Sputnik moment was not about the moon. It was about the Russians having a missile big enough to hurl an atomic bomb over the North Pole and hit the USA.

He has bought the idea that the problem is "spending too much" not "taxing too little". Once you take that step the conclusion is inevitable.

Obama lied; comity died.

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 17:09 — Vic Anderson (not verified)

Thanks for your article Maya

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 18:03 — Betty Dodson (not verified)

Thanks for your article Maya that brings the problem home first hand. Your sister represents many others living border line lives of quiet desperation struggling to make ends meet. I remember a low period in my childhood when my brothers and I went to bed still hungry after a dinner of bread broken up and soaked in a glass of milk with sugar added. Looking back and comparing that to the world at large, we had a feast.

I'm so disgusted with Obama and the Dems in general that I didn't listen to another one of his shitty speeches about compromise while we lose hope of ever becoming a democracy. I've always seen that concept as a work in progress, but the idea of anything changing is growing dimmer. I'm with Keith on this one: Pitchforks and Torches for one and all.

If there was ever any doubt

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 18:19 — Anonymous (not verified)

If there was ever any doubt that TBTB own both sides of the isle, it was extinguished last night.

The US spends more on the

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 18:40 — AH_Melb (not verified)

The US spends more on the military than the rest of the world put together! Shouldn’t you be spending some of that money on getting your own house together rather than causing such mayhem and suffering around the world. Maybe if you made the US a more pleasant place to live you might not feel the need to meddle and devastate other countries. At least you’re not getting American bombs dropped on you every day.

At this point I don't think

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 18:43 — Anonymous (not verified)

At this point I don't think Obama would be of any future use even as a martyr.

Time for a socialist government, a new constitution, and great big labor camps full of ex-billionaires and yuppie filth like this turd of a so-called president.

Barry is a prisoner of Wall

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 19:13 — Anonymous (not verified)

Barry is a prisoner of Wall Street. He has few principles, so it's easy for him to blather about "principled compromise."

Your beautiful essay will, unfortunately, not affect the distorted and destructive thinking of this former "community organizer."

The President is a believer

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 19:26 — hbro (not verified)

The President is a believer in the philosophy that "Progress" is good; worth any cost, as long as those who bear the cost are invisible. That sounds like the Tsars who built Petrograd on the the bodies of those who died building it.
That explains the total disinterest in those Americans who lost their savings, their jobs, their pensions, their homes while Wall Street and the Multinational Corporations prospered.
It must take great courage to say to those who suffer and get not even a promise of help, "Hey. Someone's gotta take one for the team".

How disappointing and

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 19:37 — Fe2O3Y (not verified)

How disappointing and frustrating to watch and listen to our State of the Union. And the title of your article says it all - winning for whom?

The room was filled with millionaires, many of whom could chose to never work another day in their lives. These people are so completely out of touch with the average US citizen.

This is what failure looks like, and we better wake up and admit it.

The speech, however

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 19:44 — LP (not verified)

The speech, however eloquent, clearly stated the administration's goals - to cater to corporations and elite, well-represented in the front rows in the audience. As another post noted, education's goals are to serve business; innovation is to serve business. So what of all the talk of new jobs and opportunities? Who will ensure that these jobs are not still shipped overseas, or that our citizens wages will be reduced to third-world levels, rendering yet more impoverished. Speaking of healthcare reform; sure, they can't refuse insurance to those with pre-existing conditions, but they can sure jack up the premiums and rider the $7!+ out of them!

I was particularly offended

Wed, 01/26/2011 - 23:48 — Frances (not verified)

I was particularly offended by his comments about parents and schools which spoke of responsibility and effort WITHOUT even a nod to the effects of poverty and to the need that children have for food, housing, medical care, and early childhood education. The same goes for the need working parents have for quality childcare which is far, far beyond the budget of many working families, not to mention a single parent.
Also friends who know the school he praised as a great example of Race to the Top got good scores by creating a select student body minus the low achieving or troubled students.

Excellent article,

Thu, 01/27/2011 - 00:21 — Anonymous (not verified)

Excellent article, describing a bleak Gary, Indiana with chilling clarity. I was there at your sister's while reading the article.

The government, indeed, needs to pour money into infrastructure projects in these areas; public transportation was a great example, just for a tiny starter. Of course, an expanded and greatly Medicare for the country, including social security. Bringing in businesses like groceries with local produce, energy, so on.

They need to get out of our military engagements draining this country so terribly. Invest in America.

Personally, we are among those 1 in 3 Americans right now, and here I am, a mom with a child, considering if we can possibly "pull ourselves out of a hole" by stepping out of the public schools, put our stuff in storage, and camping out somewhere, so we can save on rent which is eating us alive, apart from the costs of food. And we're not even living in Gary. Our area is "pretty." Though not that warm for camping.

The government could actually save a lot of money by hiring people and/or putting them to work in a number of industries. I couldn't find a non-skipping version of the speech to be able to listen past the beginning, but just hearing about all this glorious business of America at war, at the beginning, was enough to tell me, that the speech wasn't for us.

someone else finally came

Thu, 01/27/2011 - 06:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

someone else finally came out and freakin said it:

america has a migraine, and obama is passing out shadeless halogen lamps and cymbals.

I'm tired of bitching about

Thu, 01/27/2011 - 10:11 — Sharonsj (not verified)

I'm tired of bitching about how bad things are (and they will only get worse). If somebody would just start the revolution, I'm ready to join. I don't think voting in or out new clowns makes a damn bit of difference. And please don't tell me to start it myself; I'd need an electric wheelchair just to join a march. Where are the young revolutionaries?

this is my comment

Thu, 01/27/2011 - 10:34 — Anonymous (not verified)

"We The People " are pretty

Thu, 01/27/2011 - 10:36 — AngryMan (not verified)

"We The People " are pretty much vermin. America does not serve the people, only corporations as "persons". Corporations are too big too fail. People are at the other end of the spectrum ... too small to care about. Who gives a shit about 80% of our energy will be "clean" energy, when so many don't even have food?

If clean energy is so damned important, why did we just let our nation's largest maker of solar panels, outsource all those jobs to China? This JUST happened! We keep sending jobs to Asia and then wonder why nobody has food.

Obama says those jobs are not the jobs that will sustain our nation. Well those jobs are preferred over no job at all! Starving is better than dying from starvation. Does nobody "get it"? We are the hungry, starving people you see on TV. You don't need some bearded guy showing us faces of sad, malnourished kids in some third-world country. They are right here, right now! They are your neighbors. They live just down the street or next door.

Let's work on climate change AFTER people have jobs! Let's go to many more wars AFTER we all have food and shelter! It is about priorities, folks. We need to fix what we've broken before we "dominate the world". And much of what we had is so very broken. Wars of choice are a poor choice and they suck our economy into the mud. Not one person has yet explained what is the payoff for these wars.

Sadly,the unnecessarily

Thu, 01/27/2011 - 10:50 — Anonymous (not verified)

Sadly,the unnecessarily strong compromise to Corporate interests ,out of balance with the obvious need for domestic improvements,reflects excessive pragmatism,misplaced spending priorities and resultant weak leadership skills-despite the hopes of so many.Basic to change is elimination of the vast influence from Corporate financing of Congress,consideration of a third political Party,electing leaders prepared to serve the wider interests of the country's developement.

	Your name: *
	E-mail: * The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
	Comment: * Allowed HTML tags: <em></em><strong></strong><b></b> Lines and paragraphs break automatically. More information about formatting options

Winning the Future for Whom?

(function() { var s = document.createElement('SCRIPT'), s1 = document.getElementsByTagName('SCRIPT')[0]; s.type = 'text/javascript'; s.async = true; s.src = 'http://widgets.digg.com/buttons.js'; s1.parentNode.insertBefore(s, s1); })(); Tweet

Comments

MOST POPULAR

© 2013 truthout

Tweet