Change Is Coming – House Meetings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ym1o0bwThA

http://www.examiner.com/x-1892-Phoenix-Progress...

I agree with Elder Sister Boggs that “energy is a substance that can be invoked by one group or another but depending on how it is invoked can generate its own momentum, its own energy.” For example one could argue that the energy invoked by the Montgomery Improvement Association, despite the lapse of time, eventually evolved into the sit-in movement which led to the formation of SNCC.

However, I would argue that these young people generated their own energy which was the critical element in the success of the Civil Rights Movement. The young people who formed SNCC rejected the appeal by Martin King to become a component of his organization. Under the influence of Ella Baker they decided to become a self-determining entity.

Could elements of Obama’s energy free themselves and organize into a dynamic which addresses the evil triplets. I agree that it could happen, but I don’t just don’t see it. I see that energy as totally captivated and revolving around Obama’s magnetic appeal. For most Afrikan Americans the man is above criticism. “In Barack we trust” is the order of the day.

See: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/11/29...

The energy to address the evil triplets will come from other sources.

I read Boggs as saying that energy is a substance that can be invoked by one group or another but depending on how it is invoked can generate its own momentum, its own energy.

When SNCC organizers go into the deep south to organize voters they couldn't take that energy they put into motion back even if they wanted to. It spilled out into a number of different arenas. Obama doesn't own this mass of energy anymore than SNCC owned the energy in the south.

But BELIEVING he does will have its own independent (negative) effect.

I thought that the focus of Elder Sister Boggs' comments was the mass of energy Barack Obama set in motion.

Certainly I've seen energy organized by one group co-opted and re-directed by others. I'm not sure that is what you are proposing, but if it is I don't see it happening. The mass of energy I'm referring to belongs exclusively to Obama. Everyone else will have to organzie their own.

You're doing it again.

You are measuring the power of this network by the ability of Obama to use it. Again Obama becomes your center. So if Obama can't use it to get X done, then it's power is useless. And on top of that you're reproducing ideas about organizing that are really problematic. You more than other commenters around know how hard organizing is, how much work it takes.

The point that I was trying to make in my first post was that this “energy” revolves around the Obama mystique, and even he couldn’t marshal his forces to support Jim Martin in Georgia without “personal” involvement.

Given that fact, what chance does anyone else have of moving this energy into positive action?

What should we be doing with this moment first? I believe that with this moment, our first step should not be a critical one–that is, it isn't first about going up against Obama for what he doesn't do (for whatever reason). By asking whether people will be willing to move against him, we are actually reproducing the idea that we are critiquing–that Obama is the “One.”

If he ISN'T “the One” then why do we begin by asking whether people are willing to move against him?

Shouldn't our first step be assessing what we can do with this energy to create the new type of spaces we want to come into existence? And aren't these steps more possible now than they were two years ago?

The potential is there, but I don’t see it happening. Obama is a master of political expediency, not a leader of moral conscience. While conscience asks the question is it right, Obama wants to know what are the political risks and rewards of taking any action.

A case in point is Obama refusal to personally campaign for Jim Martin in Georgia during his run-off with Saxby Chambliss for the US Senate. Obama obviously decided Martin’s potential (and eventual) loss wasn’t worth investing his political capital. Campaigning for Martin may have been the right thing to do, but it wasn’t expedient.

If the millions who were inspired by Obama are to move against the evil triplets—racism, militarism, and materialism, they are going to have to do it on their own.