Curso de Extensão
Teoria Feminista do Direito:
Uma Breve Introdução
Palestrante: Prof. Dr. Eduardo Ramalho Rabenhorst
Local: Centro de Ciências Jurídicas – UFPB
Data: 21 e 22 de agosto de 2009
Inscrições gratuitas por e-mail: generoedireito@yahoo.com.br
VAGAS LIMITADAS!
Razões da crise no Congresso Nacional (publicado no jornal Metropole S/A.)
O Congresso Nacional está em crise. A explicação desse mal estar não se resume aos pecados familiares cometidos pelo clã Sarney. Escândalos dessa natureza acontecem em todos os lugares o tempo todo. A paralisia dos nossos parlamentares possui razões mais profundas, que merecem ser discutidas.
A primeira delas é a força excessiva do poder Executivo. O presidente da República não é somente o chefe do governo. Ele é o maestro do sistema político, em torno do qual giram os partidos, as reformas, as políticas públicas, as obras, etc. Dessa forma, sobra pouca coisa para o Legislativo...
Como conseqüência, há o esvaziamento da agenda do parlamento alimentada ainda mais por uma opção estratégica feita por Lula: não fazer reformas institucionais que demandem muito esforço no Congresso. O negócio é governar com a menor dependência possível de deputados e senadores.
Dito e feito. A última reforma feita pelo governo foi em 2003, quando o Congresso terminou de votar a reforma da previdência. De lá para cá, nenhuma outra matéria foi seriamente votada, com a exceção da prorrogação da CPMF, derrotada no Senado.
Sem compromissos em torno de políticas públicas e reformas institucionais, o Congresso passa a funcionar em uma frequência muito baixa. A aliança com o governo acontece estritamente em termos fisiológicos e as disputas são travadas para liberar verbas do orçamento e executar obras nos redutos eleitorais dos parlamentares. Prato cheio para corrupção e para o jogo de “toma lá, dá cá”.
O aspecto irônico dessa história é que a competência constitucional de mudar esse estado de coisas é do próprio Congresso Nacional. Ele pode alterar as regras do jogo político, fiscalizar autoridades, mudar o formato de execução do orçamento, aprovar indicações, alterar o processo de tramitação das MPs, etc.
Entretanto, isso não acontece.
Existe uma lógica perversa no poder Legislativo. Aqueles que constituem a maioria ligada ao governo beneficia-se dos cargos, das emendas e dos privilégios distribuídos pelo Planalto e não possuem interesse em mudar o formato das coisas. Por sua vez, quando a minoria torna-se maioria, adota o mesmo comportamento.
Por isso, a força capaz de mover o Congresso Nacional são as crises. A descoberta de um escândalo provoca solavancos que estimulam a mudança. Por exemplo, se não fosse a mobilização da imprensa em torno da denúncia deputado do castelo, que gastava a verba do gabinete contratando serviços de suas próprias empresas, a Câmara não teria mudado as regras obrigando a prestação de contas do uso da verba indenizatória na internet.
É preocupante a situação do Congresso Nacional no arranjo político brasileiro. É necessário valorizá-lo e fortalecê-lo, tornando-o novamente o centro do debate político. Precisamos diminuir os custos das alianças partidárias e devolver a competência de legislar ao parlamento. Ele é essencial para a qualidade das políticas públicas adotadas pelo país e está fazendo muita falta.
Maquiavel avisou...
1 - Um líder sabe a hora de parar
Segundo Dora Kramer, Sarney deveria ter evitado assumir pela terceira vez a presidência do Senado, pois já havia conquistado tudo que um político poderia ambicionar no Brasil, inclusive a Presidência da República.
2 - Um líder nunca pode menosprezar os inimigos
Sarney teria ignorado essa regra e conquistou inimigos até mesmo na base aliada que o apoia, simplesmente baseado na ideia de que seu currículo lhe daria plenos poderes para mandar no Senado.
3 - Um líder nunca esquece as circunstâncias
Dora Kramer afirmou que Sarney deveria ter considerado o fato de que o Senado de hoje está conflagrado há oito anos e que não é nem sombra do Senado que ele havia chefiado em outras duas ocasiões.
4 - Um líder sabe pesar perdas e ganhos
O atual presidente do Senado falhou nessa percepção, diz a comentarista, pois só pensou no lado bom de ser o chefe da Casa, sem pensar nos imensos desafios que teria, às vésperas de completar 80 anos de idade.
5 - Um líder não abusa da autoconfiança
Para Dora, Sarney pensou que desfrutaria de unanimidade no Congresso somente por sua biografia, de mais de 50 anos de vida pública.
6 - Um líder não abusa da esperteza
Segundo Dora, Sarney exagerou no uso da máquina pública.
7 - Um líder não põe seu destino nas mãos de outros
Para a comentarista, Sarney deu ao colega Renan Calheiros (PMDB-AL) a oportunidade de este voltar à cena política em troca de apoio às suas manobras no Senado. Com os escândalos, cada um irá para seu lado e Sarney, por seu cargo, sairá mais chamuscado.
8 - Um líder não afronta o bom senso
Dora analisa que Sarney não deveria ter aceito a presidência do Senado num momento em que seu partido, o PMDB, já chefiava a Câmara, seis ministérios e dezenas de organismos estatais de grande porte.
9 - Um líder junta pragmatismo e ética
Dora argumenta que Sarney não levou em conta a segunda parte desta união.
10 - Um líder sempre prefere a intuição à ambição
Para a analista, Sarney sabia dos riscos de reassumir o Senado e mesmo assim deixou a ambição falar mais alto. Agora, sua biografia será prejudicada.
O arcaico e o moderno no velório de Sarney
A crise política que envolve o Senado Federal e que enterrou a biografia política de José Sarney não é nova. Há pelo menos 10 anos a Casa de representação dos estados brasileiros vive em turbulência permanente. Nesse período, dois presidentes abdicaram do cargo (Barbalho e Calheiros) e pesos-pesados da política brasileira renunciaram para não perderem seus direitos políticos, como Antônio Carlos Magalhães, Arruda e Roriz.
Os pecados individuais dos senadores explicam apenas em parte a crise da instituição, pois há uma razão estrutural. O Senado Federal é onde o Brasil tradicional e o Brasil moderno se encontram. As crises são estrondos de dois mundos que estão perdendo sua capacidade de coexistir.
Por muito tempo, as elites tradicionais e progressistas conseguiram estabelecer acordos de convivência pacífica. Enquanto esse encontro gerou revoluções e guerras em outros países, no Brasil prevaleceu um pacto que tem suas raízes na política dos governadores de Campos Salles e vem mantendo a mesma lógica desde então: os “coronéis” preservam autonomia sobre seus feudos e a “burguesia” desenvolve suas indústrias com subsídios do governo central.
O Congresso Nacional é o local onde esses dois “brasis” se encontram e negociam. Basta analisar as presidências das duas Casas. Enquanto a Câmara é comumente presidida por parlamentares de perfil modernizante (as exceções foram Inocêncio de Oliveira e Severino Cavalcanti), o Senado é comandado por representantes de grupos tradicionais (Lucena, Benevides, Magalhães, Barbalho, Lobão, Tebet, Sarney, Calheiros, Garibaldi Alves e Sarney novamente).
O pacto garante uma posição privilegiada para o arcaico. Prova disso são as gravações envolvendo o presidente Sarney e seus familiares para a ocupação de um cargo de confiança do Senado. Tudo aconteceu no coração do poder, e não em um município perdido no interior. Brasília não acomodaria um “Maranhão” (com todo respeito aos maranhenses, vítimas disso tudo) se não fosse a conivência de “São Paulo”, “Rio de Janeiro”, etc.
Entretanto, esse equilíbrio está se rompendo. A instabilidade do Senado Federal mostra que o nível de tolerância da sociedade civil com as práticas políticas antigas acabou.
Por um lado, há o crescimento econômico e a emergência de elites locais modernas em redutos tradicionais. Por outro, a opinião pública, algumas instituições públicas de controle (em especial o TCU, a Polícia Federal e a CGU) e organizações da sociedade civil (sites de fiscalização de contas públicas, por exemplo) conferiram uma nova dinâmica ao jogo político. Esses atores produziram uma “enxurrada” de informações sobre os bastidores do poder e o resultado é o questionamento e o banimento de velhos costumes.
A crise atual do Senado é um capítulo da evolução da civilização brasileira. O alvo da opinião pública não é a pessoa física do presidente José Sarney, mas aquilo que a sua imagem representa: o patriarca que distribui privilégios aos seus familiares e agregados, que seqüestra o patrimônio público e transforma-o em propriedade de uso privado, remetendo-nos de volta ao Brasil colonial.
Se há vilões bem definidos, os brasileiros ainda não conseguiram identificar seus heróis. Quem são os políticos que liderarão a modernização definitiva das nossas instituições? O espaço do pragmatismo excessivo está diminuindo e os eleitores se tornando mais seletivos. Nas eleições de 2006, dos 40 deputados envolvidos com o escândalo dos sanguessugas que tentaram a reeleição, apenas 5 conseguiram voltar.
O caso Sarney é emblemático. A descoberta de atos patrimonialistas triturou a carreira e a história política de um ex-presidente da República e chefe do maior partido político do país em menos de 6 meses. Não é pouca coisa.
Tudo indica que o pacto político entre o Brasil arcaico e o Brasil moderno foi irreversivelmente quebrado. Mesmo que Sarney seja substituído por outros caciques regionais, eles serão destruídos em velocidade cada vez maior. Os políticos devem estar atentos para o lado que irão escolher e tratarem de atualizarem-se para acompanhar esse processo de modernização política que, a essa altura, é “providencial, durável e para o qual contribuem todos os homens e acontecimentos”*.
* Citação do pensador Alexis de Tocqueville, que previu o crescimento inevitável da democracia e o fim das sociedades aristocráticas européias.
O Cinema da Casa da Cultura da América Latina da UnB (CineCAL) exibe, na última semana de julho, dois filmes do diretor pernambucano, Cláudio Assis.
'A mistura do público com o privado deveria dar cadeia'
Especialistas afirmam que por trás do problema está a certeza que a impunidade provoca
Marita Boos
A perspectiva da impunidade é, para especialistas, uma das principais razões para que políticos brasileiros façam uso, com tanta desenvoltura, de bens públicos como se fossem privados.
Segundo o professor titular de Filosofia e Ética da Unicamp, Roberto Romano, a prática vem da formação do Estado brasileiro, construído sob o sistema absolutista, onde não existe separação do “tesouro do rei do tesouro público”.
— Os nossos políticos se consideram pequenos nobres.
Sobretudo os capitães de oligarquias, que agem como se fossem proprietários da coisa pública — afirma Romano.
O cientista político David Fleischer, da UnB, considerou a conversa entre o presidente do Senado, JOSÉ SARNEY (PMDB-AP), e seu filho Fernando Sarney, gravada pela Polícia Federal, muito grave. Para ele, prova a falta de decoro parlamentar cometida pelo senador.
— Essa conversa evidencia que eles acham que o Brasil é deles.
Pensam assim: “Vamos usar nosso poder e influência para manipular a máquina federal em favor da família, dos amigos.
Vou fazer com essa propriedade o que quiser” — diz Fleischer, ressaltando que a confusão entre público e privado é comum não só em nível federal, mas também no estadual e municipal.
Os dois professores fazem críticas aos mecanismos de proteção jurídica a que têm acesso os políticos: — A mistura do público com o privado deveria dar cadeia, mas, no Brasil, não dá, infelizmente. Temos aqui o conceito de trânsito e julgado, foro privilegiado, réu primário. O jurídico está cheia de lacunas que faz com que o rico leve até 20 anos para ser julgado em ultima instância — lamenta Fleischer.
— Os políticos não teriam essa ousadia de tratar de coisas públicas como se fossem coisas deles se não fosse o privilégio do foro. Com essa ficção de julgamento pelo STF (Supremo Tribunal Federal), eles estão livres e soltos para definir o limite de território da casta deles — diz Romano.
Um deboche ao estado democrático de direito. Assim o professor da Unicamp classificou a alegação dos advogados de Sarney de que houve quebra de privacidade na divulgação dos diálogos entre pai e filho: — Dizer que é privada uma conversa que trata de ato secreto para contratação para o Senado...
Fleischer lembra que pesquisas mostram que os brasileiros são lenientes com a mistura do público com o privado.
— É a cultura do jeitinho, da boquinha. É comum na cabeça do brasileiro porque ele mesmo ou os amigos já fizeram.
Para o cientista político, Sarney, ao deixar a Presidência da República, procurou se eleger senador para se proteger, evitar processos, perpetuar seu clã no poder e abrir novos negócios.
— Agora estamos vendo a teia que ele formou. É como se fosse uma história sem fim.
Romano acredita que o Brasil só conseguirá se livrar dessa prática com uma reforma econômica, fiscal, que garanta aos estados e municípios maior participação na arrecadação.
— Do jeito que é, com os políticos como responsáveis por levar verbas para suas cidades, seus estados, o poder regional deles é grande. O eleitor pensa que ele traz recursos para sua região. Isso explica a permanência do Jader Barbalho, o império do ACM, Sarney, grupos que todo presidente da República tem que enfrentar. Permanece o “é dando que se recebe”.
Para o filósofo, a população fica refém do político e se ilude, vivendo uma correlação como a existente entre o tráfico de drogas e os moradores das favelas: de medo e esperança.
— Faltam palavras para descrever a degradação e a corrupção ética do Estado brasileiro. Precisaria da capacidade de um Dante Alighieri, porque é um inferno — lamenta Romano, citando o escritor e político italiano autor de “Divina Comédia”.
Prognóstico de crescimento de alguns países da América Latina divulgadas pela CEPAL (pior e melhor cenário).
A pergunta é: quais serão as consequências políticas desse período de relativa estagnação. Na Europa, os eleitores, paradoxalmente, têm premiado a direita (ligada à idéias de livre mercado que, em última instância, foram colocadas em xeque pela crise internacional) e punido a esquerda…
Os processos de integração regionais também devem ficar parados e há possibilidade de surgirem animosidades entre os países do continente. Nesse caso, vale aquele ditado: "riqueza une, probreza separa...".
Argentina 1,5% e 3%, Brasil -0,8% e 3,5%,
Chile -1,0% e 3,5%, Colômbia 0,6% e 3,5%
Cuba 1% e 3%, Equador 1% e 2,5%, El Salvador -2% e 2,5%, Guatemala -1% e 2,5%
México -7% e 2,5%, Panamá 2,5% e 5%, Peru 2% e 5% e Venezuela 0,3% e 3,5%
Texto publicado no site da revista "The Economist" que compara a situação do Paraguai face aos acontecimentos recentes vividos em Honduras (isolamento do Executivo). Vale a pena ler!FROM THE ECONOMIST INTELLIGENCE UNIT
Paraguay’s first left-leaning president, Fernando Lugo, has seen his governing coalition fracture, and faces new and odd political alliances in Congress. This will make it more difficult for him to secure the support of the congressional authorities for his agenda over the next 12 months. Furthermore, this new scenario raises the question of whether Mr Lugo is at risk—given Paraguay’s record of institutional instability over the past 20 years—of being ousted from government, either legally or via a civilian-military coup d’état similar to what occurred in Honduras in June.
As a result of upsets in the June 26th elections to pick new leaders in Paraguay’s Congress, the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA), the main party in the governing coalition, decided to abandon the alliance, called Alianza Patriótica para el Cambio (APC). Nonetheless, its party members have held on to their government posts, despite the deteriorated relations between the PLRA and the executive.
House of cards
Frantic negotiations preceded the annual elections to select the authorities of both legislative houses and resulted in a deal between the opposition Unión Nacional de Ciudadanos Éticos (Unace) and the PLRA on June 24th. However, last-minute discussions among other opposition parties—Asociación Nacional Republicana (ANR, more commonly known as Partido Colorado), Partido Patria Querida (PPQ) and minor leftist APC member parties—subsequently overrode the PLRA-Unace Senate deal. Consequently, PPQ secured the presidency of the Senate; ANR, the first vice-presidency; and Movimiento Popular Tekojoja (MPT, one of three minor leftist parties represented in the upper house) the second vice-presidency.
The Senate outcome was a blow to both the PLRA and Unace, who were left out of leadership positions. Given other existing tensions, the fact that parties allied to the APC joined the group that undermined the initial agreement triggered the PLRA’s departure from the alliance. As for Unace, its head, Lino Oviedo (a retired general with alleged involvement in a number of past coup attempts), had until then been perceived to be the referee of Paraguayan politics given his recent power to tip voting outcomes in Congress.
In the lower house, the PLRA-Unace pact was not challenged and thus the PLRA retained both the presidency and second vice-presidency, and Unace the first vice-presidency.
President damaged
This turn of events could substantially weaken President Lugo. His ability to sustain his alliance with the PLRA was key to governability, as he rose to office (he was inaugurated in April 2008) without the backing of his own strong political movement. A former Catholic bishop, Mr Lugo was an outsider to politics, emerging on the national scene only in March 2006 when he led a broad opposition rally to protest against the government of Nicanor Duarte Frutos. In December 2006, Mr Lugo resigned from the priesthood to launch his presidential bid.
Several new political parties and movements were formed at the end of 2006 to support Mr Lugo's candidacy, but none had the network and experience of the traditional parties—the powerful Partido Colorado, the country’s largest party (which held power from 1947-2008), and the PLRA, the second-largest party (and hence the biggest in the APC coalition).
It was always going to be challenging to maintain the APC’s unity. Now that it has frayed, Mr Lugo may find it difficult to stand up to those who oppose him and his policies. He campaigned on an anti-corruption platform, and also pledged to implement land reform and other measures to address the plight of the poor.
Furthermore, in Paraguay there is deep disappointment in the president’s performance, as he is perceived as having little understanding of politics and little ability to negotiate political agreements. Instead, he seems to deal with problems by withdrawing and meditating (to the great dismay of his aides) or by travelling a lot. In the latest episode, President Lugo initially was prepared to take a plane with President Cristina Fernández of Argentina to accompany Honduras’s deposed President Manuel Zelaya on his attempted (but ultimately frustrated) return to Honduras in early July.
Could Lugo be unseated?
These difficulties (along with Mr Lugo’s other troubles, such as the recent scandals involving a series of paternity suits against him) raise the question of whether he might be removed, either legally or by force.
The idea of getting rid of Mr Lugo sounds appealing to some. Indeed, support for something of the sort was implied when on July 9th two Unace senators issued separate statements backing the coup in Honduras. Despite widespread criticism, Mr Oviedo did not issue a disclaimer, strongly suggesting that this is the agreed position of his party. Moreover, the Supreme Court is very corrupt and could easily be bought off by the highest bidders, including those who might be determined to oust the president.
However, an overthrow à la Honduras is highly unlikely for a number of reasons. In recent years the armed forces have been greatly institutionalised, especially since Mr Oviedo was expelled, and they are unlikely to mastermind or support an institutional rupture. Also, the PLRA does not support military intervention in domestic politics. Finally, Mr Lugo is not as close to Venezuela’s radical president, Hugo Chávez, as it seems (by contrast, Honduras’s opposition grew progressively worried as Mr Zelaya became closer to Mr Chávez). Recently, the new head of Petropar (the state-owned petroleum enterprise) stated that Paraguay would not depend for its petroleum needs on a single source (meaning Venezuela’s state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela).
Impeachment of Mr Lugo is more of a possibility, although not in the near future. Unlike in Honduras, Paraguay’s constitution does allow for impeachment of the president. Thus, if relations between Mr Lugo and his political opponents became more fraught and they gathered enough votes in Congress, they could try to remove him through constitutional means.
However, though opposition forces have been putting obstacles in the way of Mr Lugo’s agenda, they have done so in a more passive, institutional way. In June, for instance, they postponed creation of a personal income tax law for a third consecutive year by overturning his presidential veto, and instead voted for an increase in monthly pensions and a doubling of wages for governors and departmental heads.
Their strategy so far has been to wait until Mr Lugo chokes further on problems of his own making before seeking his impeachment. Given Paraguay’s recent experience with impeachments—Congress voted out President Raúl Cubas in 1999 and nearly succeeded in removing President Luis Angel González Macchi in 2003—this course of action would likely generate limited domestic resistance and few international consequences.
Um mau presságio ronda Sarney (Informe JB)
A profecia do cientista político David Fleischer, professor da Universidade de Brasília, é catastrófica para o presidente do Senado. Segundo ele, José Sarney deverá renunciar ao mandato entre agosto e setembro. "Ele vai ser empurrado pelo PMDB", diz o acadêmico, que sentiu cheiro de despedida no discurso em que Sarney fez, ontem, um balanço no qual cita 40 obras de sua gestão. Embora tenha garantido que não está amedrontado com "insultos ou ameaças", a frase mais característica de que as denúncias acertaram o fígado estão na parte em que se refere às acusações que corroem o clã no Maranhão. Fleischer acha que, quando se trata de manter os privilégios, o PMDB é pragmático, e nem Sêneca o comoverá. Lembra o professor que com Renan Calheiros foi assim.
O cientista político Leonardo Barreto não considera a transferência de votos como fator determinante nas eleições para que um candidato, desconhecido ou não pela população, seja eleito. No entanto, Barreto diz que não se pode subestimar essa tese. "Não existe uma posição muito forte sobre o potencial do poder de transferência de voto. Na Ciência Política, a gente nunca conseguiu desvendar essa questão. Mas não se pode descartar esse assunto." 
Hoping for Audacity
One of the great character strengths of Barack Obama, and one of his greatest strengths as a leader, is his ability to treat people with civility and respect and to try to inspire others to do the same. We saw that in his speech on race in Philadelphia, in his restraint throughout the campaign on personal attacks against John McCain, and again more recently in his speech to the Muslim world in Cairo.
But our strengths and our weaknesses tend to flow from the same wells. In a paradoxical sense, as daunting as the problems the President has inherited, his greatest stroke of luck as a candidate and now as President was that the prior administration had so thoroughly destroyed our economy, our strength and reputation around the world, and the security most voters had felt in their homes, their jobs, and their health care that they were ready for more than a reshuffling of the deck. They wanted a new set of cards, one that wasn't marked.
The American people were tired of a Republican Party that had nothing to offer but the rhetoric of their most influential leaders, Herbert Hoover and Joe McCarthy, whose ideology of unregulated corporate fraud masquerading as a free market and the politics of terror masquerading as patriotism were the twin pillars of Republican policies and politics during the Bush era. The American people were tired of theocrats telling them that Terri Shiavo was alive and well and living in the minds of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and physician-turned-mind-reader Bill Frist (who believed he could tell what "Terri" was thinking without reading her scans).
Americans were even willing to tolerate a President with a nuanced intellect (okay, one who could also hit three-pointers for the troops) after the destructive, impulsive, Manichean days of "you're-either-with us-or-against-us" and "nobody ever told me there were Sunnis and Shiites in I-rack" George W. Bush.
But a pattern has emerged that is increasingly disquieting, not only because it is politically dangerous for a president who has inherited an economy that continues to shed hundreds of thousands of jobs per month, but more importantly, because it threatens to undermine not only the agenda Americans overwhelmingly endorsed in November but a moment in history that only comes around every half-century or so, when the country is ready for genuine, paradigm-busting progressive reform.
In the first serious mistake of the new administration, the President preached the virtues of bipartisanship and got nothing in return. Instead of putting Senators like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins on notice that their constituents were watching them, he allowed two or three Senators who would have been picked off the next time the electorate had a shot at them if they voted against the President's original plan to serve as Trojan horses for the failed ideas of an impotent right-wing Republican minority that had suffered a resounding electoral defeat just months earlier. That minority promptly grew the debt with the same tax breaks they had already ballooned it with for eight years and eliminated from the President's plan over two hundred billion in spending that could have put Americans back to work rebuilding an infrastructure that had been crumbling under the ideological weight of Hoover Republicanism and McCarthyesque politics. Ever since Reagan resuscitated Hoover's economic legacy, Republicans have convinced Americans that they can have something for nothing and have scared Democrats at all levels of government into acquiescence by threatening to brand them as "tax and spend liberals" (which they have done anyway) if they told them that if you want a loaf of bread, somebody actually has to pay for it.
This was a teaching moment--and a crucial one at that. That moment has now been lost, and instead the polls are now showing Americans increasingly worried about the deficit. That, in turn, is frightening Congressional Democrats back into their defensive crouch, even as their normal predators are on the verge of extinction, with the Republican Party is at its lowest ebb in public opinion in recorded history.
All Presidents make their early mistakes, and it looked like this administration had learned its lesson after the first one. But if the events of the last several weeks are any indication, that may not be the case.
Perhaps their political calculation is correct. Maybe the economy is in such bad shape that an extraordinary orator-in-chief will be able to convince a Democratic Congress still suffering from years of Post-Election Stress Disorder to enact a series of sweeping reforms that resemble the transformative measures of FDR rather than a series of half-measures forged by unnecessary compromises that leave us only half as vulnerable as before.
But on issue after issue, the President is selling hope without audacity, leaving centrist Democrats from purple states and districts fearful of attacks from the right on everything from deficits to "socialized medicine." Why? Because of his steadfast refusal either to call out his opponents by name or to tell the story of how we got into any of the messes we're in.
In place of the earlier rhetoric of bipartisanship we now here the repeated rhetoric of "looking forward, not backward." But it's hard to fix a problem and prevent its recurrence if you refuse to investigate what happened. And it's hard to call for accountability and transparency when you refuse to hold anyone accountable for anything, whether incompetence or malfeasance.
The American people would understand why we need regulation of every past and future financial product Wall Street speculators can invent if someone would just tell them the story--and repeat it until they know it by heart--of how those bankers, speculators, and those whose job was to regulate them risked our life savings, homes, and jobs through get-rich-quick schemes, compensation plans that rewarded irresponsible risk-taking with our money, and fraud.
The American people would understand why we need to offer at least one health insurance plan not controlled by the insurance companies if someone would just tell them the story of how it came to be that our premiums have doubled as millions more Americans have lost their coverage.
The American people would understand why the government needs to invest, with or without private partners, in alternative sources of energy that you don't have to burn, if someone would just tell them the story of how Big Oil has been telling us they're for "all of the above" (a mix of fuels) when "all of the above" for them really means regular, premium, and super unleaded.
The President is offering the public a series of stories that are all missing half the plot and half the characters--namely, the part of the plot that says how we got where we are (e.g., 50 million without health insurance, half a million losing their jobs every month, 1 in 8 homes foreclosed or in danger of foreclosure, 70% of our energy coming from regimes hostile to us and gas prices on the rise again even as demand has fallen)--and the characters responsible for those gaps in the stories. He is trying to sell health care reform without calling out the drug and insurance industries, whose profits have soared at our expense. He is trying to sell financial reform without pointing his finger squarely at the banks and speculators who bankrupted us. He is trying to sell energy reform without blaming the oil companies who racked up record profits as Americans racked up record debts paying for their gas. And he is trying to sell all of these essential reforms without mentioning that there's been a party--not just nameless "naysayers"--that has been fighting every one of these reforms for decades. When the President does feel compelled on occasion to mention the people who not only put their interests above the public interest but are now funding the lobbyists and attack ads aimed at derailing his agenda, he speaks in passive voice about how "mistakes were made," or refers to unnamed "naysayers." The President's hero is Abraham Lincoln, but it is the Lincoln who penned the Gettysburg Address, not the Lincoln who ordered Union troops to fire.
Roosevelt never made the mistake of letting Americans forget for one moment that the Great Depression was Hoover's depression. And as Paul Begala noted this week on Bill Maher, Ronald Reagan, who inherited an economy in trouble and an American public that felt humiliated over our government's inability to recover our hostages from Iran, never failed to blame Jimmy Carter for every mistake he ever made as President--and then some. We remember Reagan's brilliant ad as "Morning in America," when in fact, the first line of that ad was, "It's morning again in American" (emphasis added). The ad was, indeed, inspirational in tone, but it was also relentlessly critical by contrast with the "dark night" of Carter/Mondale.
Neither Roosevelt nor Reagan ever made it personal, and nor need Obama. FDR did not, for example, attack Hoover's intellect, nor should he have. Hoover was no fool. Hoover's problem was his inflexibility and his ideology, which did not allow him to solve the grave problems his ideology had inspired--the same ideology that brought us to the precipice again 70 years later.
Now some might say that critics doubted Obama before, and that he got elected by a wide margin using precisely the same strategy he is using now. But that is revisionist history. His advisors did not want him to give that speech on race in Philadelphia--they would have preferred to act as if no one noticed his color, a pretence they maintained publicly all the way through the election and afterwards--and it was only when he broke with the politics of avoidance that he turned the corner on the bubbling issue of race and won the Democratic nomination. And while the "generic Democrat" was leading all over the country by double digits, John McCain had overtaken Obama in the polls and was holding a marginal lead in mid September, just weeks before an election that should have been long over. It was not until then-candidate Obama finally decided to mention his adversary and tell the story of why four more years of Republican rule would be devastating to the country that the wind returned to his sails and he never looked back. Consider the following paragraphs from a post I wrote here in mid September of last year:
It was Tuesday afternoon last week, and I was heading back from San Diego to the East Coast when I caught a piece of a speech on the economy by Barack Obama. I almost missed my flight because I couldn't walk away from it. My immediate response: This was a game-changer, and we ought to see a five-point shift in the polls if he keeps this up for the rest of the week.
I was wrong. The shift was bigger. He leapt from 2 points behind John McCain to 6 points ahead at one point by the end of the week. His newfound voice in fact yielded dividends. The question is whether he and his campaign will draw the right conclusions about why he earned those dividends or whether they do what they have done so many times before: drop their gloves and start getting beaten up again after having their opponent down on the canvas.
Mark Sept 16, 2008 as the date Obama may have turned the election around. What he did in that speech in Colorado was something he had only done once before, in his convention address: not just to inspire voters about himself and his vision for the future, but to make the case against John McCain. The truth, he stated with the razor sharpness of a good prosecutor making his closing statement, is that what McCain was saying in response to the extraordinary financial crisis that was unfolding "fits with the same economic philosophy that he's had for 26 years...It's the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It's a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people...We've had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples' life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet. The cost of everything from gas to groceries to health care has gone up, while the dream of a college education for our kids and a secure and dignified retirement for our seniors is slipping away. These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up."
That is the story President Obama needs to tell again and again until it sticks in the minds of voters the same way Ronald Reagan made "government is the problem, not the solution" stick in the minds of voters for 30 years.
The President could get lucky. Without mentioning that the crises we face are not accidents of nature but are in fact man-made--the result of a failed ideology, a tortured morality of unregulated greed, and acts of bad faith perpetrated by bad actors--the economy could pick up, unemployment could reverse itself by this time next year, the deficits could start to decline, and comprehensive health care and energy reform could pass. In that case, he will build his majorities in Congress in 2010 and will likely become the transformative leader most of us voted for. He is a man not only of tremendous vision but of brilliant rhetorical skill, and he has clearly found his voice as President. If his team is appropriately frustrated that commentators are not giving him enough credit for the impact of his speech in Cairo on subsequent electoral events in the Arab world, they have every right to be, because it was an extraordinary speech that clearly reached the Arab street, and no one else could have given it.
But it would be as risky to depend on luck--or on one emotion, hope--as it would be to leave a large loophole in his plans for regulation of the financial industry. Hope and inspiration are very powerful tools, but so are anger and moral indignation, and the American people have every right to feel both.
No one should have been allowed to play with our financial futures the way the banking industry did. No one should have been allowed to amass fortunes in the oil industry or in oil speculation as everyday Americans were loading themselves down with credit card debt to pay four dollars a gallon for gas. No one should have lost a job or a home because someone wanted to turn a quick buck and didn't give a damn what the impact might be on millions of families, shareholders, or pensioners. No industry should have been incentivized to increase its profits every time it denied insurance to someone with a "pre-existing condition" or stamped "denied" on a legitimate medical claim.
Those are stories the American people need to hear. Those are stories conservative Democrats need to hear echoed from their constituents if they are going to do what's right by them.
As the President is fond of quoting Martin Luther King, the arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.
Mr. President, now is the time to make it bend. Dr. King didn't seek conflict, but he never avoided it. It's time to follow his example.
Drew Westen, Ph.D., is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University, founder of Westen Strategies, and author of "The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation."
Nos dias 5 e 6 de Outubro de 2009 acontecerá no Insper Ibmec São Paulo o "IV Research Workshop on Institutions and Organizations". Este é um evento realizado anualmente numa parceria entre o Insper Ibmec São Paulo, FEA-USP e FGV/SP. A cada ano o evento é organizado e hospedado em uma das escolas parceiras.
