Workers Get It

By Scott Marshall

I went to my local Walgreens and had a very interesting conversation at checkout. The very friendly clerk leaned over close and told me under her breath that “corporate” had ordered the store to take all Obama material out of the store. Until then Obama’s book “Audacity of Hope” was on display near the checkout isle. “And,” she added, “they made us take off our Obama buttons. So much for freedom of speech.” I asked to see the manager and she asked me to wait until another visit so it wouldn’t come back on her. I called the Walgreens and complained. The person I spoke to passed it off as “corporate policy.” So maybe you want to give Walgreens a call and ask them what’s up with selling a book.

But the second part of my conversation with the clerk really got me thinking. She asked me if I had heard what the McCain high-up said about us being a country of whiners – that the bad economy was all in our heads. “He should come over and visit my house and family if he thinks economic hard times are all in our heads,” she said.

For people who think that average working people aren’t closely following the presidential campaign this should be a sign. Yea it’s anecdotal, but most of us are increasingly having this kind of well informed discussions with our friends, neighbors and co-workers – people are tuned in and paying attention to the issues. That bodes well for Obama. Remember when George Bush senior didn’t know what a check-out scanner was?

As I left we agreed that corporate Walgreens policy wasn’t going to save the election for McCain, just show people more vividly which side McCain is on.

Change in the air

I read with interest a recent article by Tom Hayden that appeared on Common Dreams. It compares the political possibilities of the 1968 and 2008 elections, mentions the transformative potential of Bobby Kennedy and Barack Obama ( having finished a new book on Bobby Kennedy's presidential campaign a few days ago made me appreciate Hayden's observations all the more), notes the remarkable entry of youth and the African American people on each occasion, and reveals a political imagination that correctly allows for contingency and novelty in the political process.

Hayden also writes that it makes no sense for progressive and left minded people to allow moss to grow underneath our feet in this election season. Who can disagree?

In fact, sitting out the elections in my view gives up the battle before it is joined and fails to appreciate the incredible opportunities that this election offers to throw our country onto a progressive and peaceful trajectory. It also privileges form over content in so far as it gives faint praise or no praise at all to the mass upsurge and struggle that erupted over the past five months because they happened within the shell of the Democratic Party and the two party election system.

If I had any quarrel with Hayden (and quarrel is not the right word) it would be that he doesn't mention the broadly based electoral people's movement that began gathering in the primaries and will gain in size and strength this summer and fall. Young people and African Americans are at the core of this movement as he mentions, but its core also includes labor (we didn't see it full power in the primaries, but that will change now that Obama is the nominee), other nationally and racially oppressed people, women (their entry into the primary process was remarkable as well) and seniors - not to mention social movements of all kinds.

In a blog yesterday I said that the social forces and movements marching into this year's election in opposition to McCain and the rest of the Republican right will be broader in their reach than anything witnessed in US history. I still believe that, but I would go a step further. I would argue that this loose, but broad people's coalition has the potential to defeat McCain and gang in a landslide and shape the post election agenda.

On another note, this evening I plan to set the elections aside and instead plant myself in front of a TV set and watch game three of the NBA finals. Growing up in New England, I have to say, "Go Boston, Beat LA."