Hold Obama to Boldness.

• Author: Hightower, Jim Allen
• Position: The Lowdown - Barack Obama - Viewpoint essay

Now is our time! I don't mean a time to gloat about Barack Obama's sweeping electoral triumph, nor a time to savor the demise of the Bush ideologues, as sweet as that is. No, no--this is the time for everyone who holds progressive values (economic fairness, social justice, the common good ... things like that) to be on watch and to do the work of democracy. If November 4th's vote for change is to mean anything substantive, We the People have to be the implementers. And the job begins now.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Like fresh-poured concrete, the shape of Obama's Presidency is going to set up quickly, and we can't be lulled into thinking that casting a ballot is all that democracy requires of us. People who really want change can't just crank back in their La-Z-Boys, trusting Obama to do the heavy lifting for us.

Wall Street, the war machine, corporate chieftains, Republican Congress critters, rightwing yackety-yackers, weak-kneed Democrats, and other powerful forces of business-as-usual policies will be all over him. They are the insiders, and intend to shape him in their mold.

We have to be the counterforce--an aggressive and vociferous Loyal Opposition pushing insistently and persistently from the outside. Obama was the candidate of change, but he'll be the President of change only if we buck him up and back him up.

Obviously, the great majority of Americans are longing for January 20, when Bush and Buckshot Cheney depart the White House. People in San Francisco are even celebrating the exact instant of transition with a city-wide synchronized flush of toilets on that day at 12 noon on the dot--fwooosh, they're gone!

But it's not enough to flush Bush and Buckshot. This election was about much more than just ending their miserable, reprehensible regime. It was a national cry to start anew, to build something big, to reach the America that can be.

So now is our time. We must be the ones to hold Obama's Administration to such boldness, pushing it toward progressive principles, policies, and possibilities. We must stand up and speak out on every move the insiders make; we must propose and propel progressive ideas and ideals; and we must certainly expose...