It’s Really Up To Us Average Joes

by Joseph Segal

Remember when candidate Obama said change doesn’t come from Washington it comes from the bottom up and Yes We Can? When I stood at a speech then-candidate Obama gave at USC here in Southern California I was excited. I thought he would operationalize his experience, knowledge, and background as a community organizer through OFA creating a 50 state infrastructure of civic engagement to push for all the progressive ideas he spoke so eloquently about in his speeches.

But as the nation was in the grips of the last Wall Street fueled Great Recession President Obama appeared to metaphorically say, hey folks I got this, assuring us that the meritocracy of technocrats would come to our rescue. And subsequently, his efforts stopped the recession from spinning out of control into a second great depression.

What the pragmatic neoliberal Obama-Biden approach did not do however was address the systemic racism & wealth inequality that kept those without college educations & particularly communities of color mired in economic stagnation.

Recently campaigning for Joe Biden former President Obama said he would always advise his people that helping some people is better than helping no people and one should always do what you can.