If this country were a truly representative democracy -- which I've come to see is possible only in a parliamentary system with proportional representation -- then those who elected Obama would be understood as a coalition. Not simply a "majority" who extend unchecked authority and go back to sleep for four years; but an alliance of different groups who each joined for their own valid reasons, who deserve their own voice in the process.
Can anyone argue that one-third to one-half of Obama's voters (possibly more) are truly on the left politically and "from below" in class terms, and want to see more of a change than "Back to Clinton"? Why shouldn't they get representation? They shouldn't have to mobilize a million-person march to be heard, should they?
In a coalition system, one-third to one-half of the cabinet appointments would go to people with genuinely progressive views: supporters not attackers of the unions; genuine ecologists; progressive economists, not only more of the bankers who created the crisis; committed opponents of war as a valid means of geopolicy; at the very least, a few "national security" advisers who strongly opposed the criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 (as Obama himself did!).
What do we have instead? As per the long-term practice (which I believe has distorted the constitution of 1787, but remains largely within it), we have an imperial executive that need answer to no one for the next four years. Not even 10 percent, not even 5 percent of the top appointments have gone to anything other than status-quo career bureaucrats of what is artificially called the "center."
Here's Greg Palast on the Arne Duncan choice, another post-Bush status quo bureaucrat:
Obama Slam-Duncans Education
By Greg Palast
(... on Duncan not being an educator ...)
Not that Duncan hasn't mucked about in the educational system. Chicago Boss Richie Daley put this guy in charge of the horror show called Chicago Public Schools where Duncan turned a bad system into a REALLY bad system. And Obama knows it. Indeed, although he plays roundball with Duncan (who was captain of the Harvard basketball team), State Senator Obama was one of the only local Chicago officials who refused to send his kids to Duncan's public schools. (The Obamas sent Sasha and Malia to the Laboratory School, where Duncan's methods are derided as dangerously ludicrous.)
So, if The One won't trust his kids to Duncan, why is he handing Duncan ours? The answer: Duncan is supported by a coterie of teacher-union hating Republicans. The vocal cheerleader for the Duncan appointment was David Brooks, the New York Times columnist; the REPUBLICAN columnist. Hey, didn't those guys LOSE?
The problem with Duncan is not party affiliation. The problem is education philosophy. And Duncan is a Bush baby through and through, a card-carrying supporter of the program best called, "No Child's Behind Left." At the heart of the program is testing. And more testing. Testing instead of teaching. When tests go badly, the solution is to push the low-test-score kids to drop out of school. If triage isn't enough, then attack their teachers.
Here's how Duncan operates this Bush program in Chicago at Collins High in the Lawndale ghetto. Teachers there work with kids from homeless shelters from an economically devastated neighborhood. Believe it or not, the kids don't get high test scores. So Chicago fired the teachers, every one of them. Then they brought in new teachers and fired THEM too when, surprise!, test scores still didn't rise. The reward for a teacher volunteering for a tough neighborhood is to get harassed, blamed and fired. Now THAT'S a brilliant program, Mr. Duncan. But Duncan's own failures have not gotten HIM fired. As long as his 20-foot jumpshot holds, he's Mr. Secretary.
( ...then some more about the NCLB philosophy, see link... )
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21481.htm
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