Tom Morello: Obama needs to fight for the poor and working class

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Via News Corpse, I see that Tom Morello, he of Rage Against the Machine and The Nightwatchman fame (and one of the greatest rock guitarists ever), was on Bill Maher's Real Time on Friday. Morello, you may know, is a serious, impassioned activist for social justice, and particularly for economic justice and the poor and working class. And he's absolutely right about this:

Much like the President, I am half Kenyan. Like the President, I'm a Harvard graduate. Like the President, I'm from Illinois. And, like the President, I've been on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. I got a message for him. 'Dude, it's time to grow a pair. A lot of people who put you in office put you in office to fight for them; to fight against the Tea Party; to fight against this bullshit in Congress; to fight against those sons of bitches who are attacking the working class and the poor in this country.' And he hasn't done any of it.

At the same time, I'm not waiting for him. I'm with the people in Madison. I'm with the people who are occupying Wall Street. That's what my music's about. When progressive, radical or even revolutionary changes happen in this country, it's come from below. When women got the right to vote, when lunch counters were desegregated, it was people you do not read about in history books who stood up in their place and their time for what they believe."

The problem is, Obama isn't much of a fighter. Sure, he's a great campaigner, a fighter to get election, but, whether in the Senate or in the White House, he hasn't shown he's anything other than an establishment Democrat. Just look at who he's named to the top spots on his economic team -- the same old Clinton-era Wall Streeters and their ilk who were so much a part of the mess to start with, who bear a great deal of the responsibility for the damage that Wall Street has done to the country, and to the world beyond.

Morello and other progressives may end up voting for Obama anyway, given the reality of the choice voters will face next November, but Obama has obviously lost a lot of support on the left, with much of the base he built up fed up and pissed off. He'll need to get some of that support back, some of that enthusiasm, some of the sense of hope that swept him into the Oval Office.

Taking Morello's advice would be a good start. And I, for one, do not think it is too late for the president to rediscover the spirit of '08.

**********

Here's Morello on Real Time:

News Corpse posts a clip of Morello performing "The Ghost of Tom Joad" with Bruce Springsteen. I did that several weeks ago. So here's Morello performing that great song as The Nightwatchman, without Springsteen -- it's a fantastic cover that very much reflects his political activism: