The smartest thing the Left can do now is get over Obama, throw him under a bus in turn, and go find someone else who can do the damn job.
Obama is looking more and more like a Trojan horse whose job was to emasculate and channel the post-Bush rage and make sure that substantial change couldn't happen, just when it was most likely to.
It doesn't matter what his motives are, or whether he's sad, mad, or bad. What matters is that he's not doing what needs to be done - which is why someone else needs to be found who can do it instead.
The biggest danger to the Left now isn't 'betraying' Obama - it's continuing to live in denial about what his values really are, how little he's likely to achieve over the next couple of years, and how that lack of achievement guarantees that some vile creeping right-wing whack job takes over after him.
My guess is he won't be standing again, or if he does, the campaign will be oddly half-hearted.
And if that's true, the Left is going to be wrong-footed without a credible alternative - unless one is nominated and groomed now.
President Obama "is delivering, but for the financial institutions," he told Raw Story, "Which isn't a big surprise - that was the core of his funding. They preferred him to McCain, in fact by a considerable margin. They expected a payoff, and they got a payoff." The Obama administration last month walked into a public relations debacle after the president told Bloomberg News in an interview that he doesn't "begrudge" banking executives making large bonuses for their "savvy" skills. "That was very revealing," Chomsky said, alleging that Obama was merely heeding the threats from the banking community. "Obama months ago shifted his rhetoric and started talking about greedy bankers and even made some policy proposals the financial institutions didn't like," he continued. "And they didn't waste a minute. They told him right off, you continue talking like that and we're going to shift our funding to Republicans. Well they did so." One day before the interview, the New York Times reported that J.P. Morgan, which has traditionally preferred contributing to Democrats, directed most of its cash to the GOP this year. Campaign finance trends on OpenSecrets.org reveal that financial institutions have gradually shifted their funding away from the Democratic Party and toward Republicans in recent months. "And Obama got the message," Chomsky said. "Within days, he said to Bloomberg that the bankers are great guys, I'm in favor of their profits and bonuses and so on; that that's the way the free market works, and I join the American people in applauding their successes."
The Obama administration last month walked into a public relations debacle after the president told Bloomberg News in an interview that he doesn't "begrudge" banking executives making large bonuses for their "savvy" skills.
"That was very revealing," Chomsky said, alleging that Obama was merely heeding the threats from the banking community.
"Obama months ago shifted his rhetoric and started talking about greedy bankers and even made some policy proposals the financial institutions didn't like," he continued. "And they didn't waste a minute. They told him right off, you continue talking like that and we're going to shift our funding to Republicans. Well they did so."
One day before the interview, the New York Times reported that J.P. Morgan, which has traditionally preferred contributing to Democrats, directed most of its cash to the GOP this year. Campaign finance trends on OpenSecrets.org reveal that financial institutions have gradually shifted their funding away from the Democratic Party and toward Republicans in recent months.
"And Obama got the message," Chomsky said. "Within days, he said to Bloomberg that the bankers are great guys, I'm in favor of their profits and bonuses and so on; that that's the way the free market works, and I join the American people in applauding their successes."
Even with the mandate he had after the election, stopping the banks would have required him to be a real leader willing to fall on his sword for the public good. No politician capable of such an act would get the funding required for a presidential run in the first place.
you are the media you consume.
Considering all of the grief so many of the Kossacks and others in the blogosphere gave Hillary Clinton for the sins of Bill Clinton, chief amongst which was "triangulation" I do find it ironic how Obama has turned out. To do what needs to be done anyone would have to betray some of their supporters. To justify that act, it has to succeed and it has to lead to a better future. Taking down the TBTFs in January '09 would have qualified on both counts and could have been done had Obama been willing to take the risk.
Just because we have not gotten a real leader is not reason to believe that we cannot get a real leader. All sorts of improbable things have happened. Some of the most improbable have been good things. That the American Revolution would succeed was highly improbable. It required that the British hand be played incredibly badly. Yet it happened. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
That the American Revolution would succeed was highly improbable. It required that the British hand be played incredibly badly. Yet it happened.
interesting point, ARG, well nailed...
the more i think about it, the repugs are in a way an historical extension of the same values that drove the brits back then, an unholy potage of empah, pecuniary militarism, racist blather, exceptionalist pomp and circumstance.
oh yes, and teh stupid.
we just have to hope the repugs can be that stupid, so gains can be made closer to the ground, with the election of more progs at grassroots level.
i agree with izzy that pointless sniping will do more to help the R's than anything else, but this isn't poutrage here at ET, it's grief, and re-strategising, plus a normal amount of venting.
my guess is obama is the best we'll get for a while, the dems do not have so many potential great statesmen in the visible wings, which is again why so many people aren't mincing their words of criticism, and neither should we, imo. if obama, a highly intelligent -and on the campaign trail a very perspicacious- man, can be shamed into honouring the promises he consciously made then, only then would we be able to hook up the symbolic victory of obama with the energies of social justice and fairness to the underprivileged promoted by MLK, and cherished by so many who voted for him, without checking too carefully whence came the bulk of his campaign contributions.
there were some, like myself, who thought even wall st had come around to seeing great change was needed, if they wanted a fat enough society to be worth leeching off of. haha.
expect the unpetty pilfering to stop... good one.
if the country were riding on a rising tide of joy at what obama had done since auguration, these midterms would be a piece of cake, progressive dems would be self selecting, more graysons and franklens would be coming out the woodwork, and blue dogs would be with their forked tails between their political legs.
instead we have dems avoiding obama coming to help their campaigns!
unreal, how history's gyre is tightening so swiftly...
obama will find out about serving two masters, and why it's not smart as it seems. you end up irrelevant to both.
if obams is as big a charlatan as i fear (on bad days), then he was just the last chance for soft, subtle fascism offered the american electorate. (bearing in mind how soft the folks getting droned abroad, or tazered at home find it), and if he fails, the velvet gloves will have to come off, as american joeblows wake up and find out not only that america is no longer king rooster of the global dungheap, but their relatives are sleeping under bridges, while banksters dine off plates of gold, as of yore.
soft fascism will not be enough at that point to hold them to their task of making banksters even richer, and that's when the deathwish so graphically expressed by the Twank here at ET, will have its way.
so to summarise, tis this the reason the sniping gets so angry it crosses lines of taste and decorum.
the basement's on fire, the roof's caving in, folks' retirement money and dreams are melting away to smoke, the poor are looking down the mineshaft of the future without the diehard myth of the 'american dream' to sustain them, the age of basking in some rosy glow of exceptionalism fades to the grim acknowledgment that they're competing with the chinese et al working for a dime an hour. and. no. unions... and al quaida is swelling its ranks in all kinds of fun places to fight in like yemen and somalia, and plotting the next 9-11, while the US GDP consists more and more of spoonfeeding israel (and other hotspots) more weapons, and 'security equipment'. (mustn't forget the 'legal services either')
those on the middle floors of the house are still eating their lunch, wondering what that ruckus above and below them can possibly be...
can't imagine why those adept at sniffing the wind are turning purple at how obama is placematting while the orcs are climbing in the windows, meanwhile we should stfu to fight the good fight.
uh-huh. rooting for obama, for who else is there? but not that way... the problems we have can only be solved by freer media, and here we have a chance still to know how that feels. hushing criticism out of fear is not how it works. ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
if obama, a highly intelligent -and on the campaign trail a very perspicacious- man, can be shamed into honouring the promises he consciously made...
He can't or won't consider that the analysis of the economic situation on which his administration has been proceeding is seriously lacking and that the current situation is unsustainable. Denial is a powerful defense for the psyche. It works perfectly right up until it fails catastrophically. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
... I do recall Gibbs telling a reporter that Obama sleeps well at night and had no problems with his decisions.
Finally an honest statement! My view? Obama is as much a self-centered SOB as Bush. He sleeps well at night because the only people he TRULY cares about are hinself, his wife, his kids, maybe his extended family. Beyond that ... forget it, wishful thinking. Is he ever going to be out of work? Hungry? Homeless? What about his children? How's poor Chelsea Clinton doing?
You people who want to think the best about Obama are deluding yourself in order to justify your 2008 vote. Wake the fuck up! In the end, might makes right. Nothing has changed since the caveman.
i agree with izzy that pointless sniping will do more to help the R's than anything else
Time and effort wasted in identifying and targetting something as "pointless sniping" is time and effort that could be turned to less futile and unconstructive ends. I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
It's been written before: The Obama team seems to think 2012 will take care of itself, as long as they burnish that shining Obama "brand," which requires reaching out to Republicans and independents and ignoring the pesky left, with its old culture-war grudges and its subversive demand for greater economic fairness. I've heard some smart folks speculate that the White House may even welcome a Republican takeover, the better to "let Obama be Obama," and continue to play out his fantasy of being a Democratic Ronald Reagan, creating a generation of what he used to call "Obamacans" and realigning politics for his lifetime.
My own sense is that a new party might be a more likely vehicle in 2012 than a new Democratic nominee, unless Obama declares early that he is not running for re-election. But I fear the most likely scenario for a true progressive to be elected might be the "Obama abducted by space aliens" development. Sadly. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
It's not hard to see how he managed to create a perfectly neutral screen on which the frustrated masses could project their hopes. It's hard to see how he missed the fact that the same screen, in the absence of results, would hold an image turning to anger and bitterness.
"Hell hath no fury like a woman (named "Hope"?) scorned."
Anyone remember Keith Laumer's wonderful character Reteif of the CDT? And Ambassador Magnan?
Perhaps he'll do a "No. 1968 with pathos"- LBJ with youthful pathos and a dash of "It just couldn't be done" thrown in, and fold his cards. And boogie before the house falls in.
Gore Vidal was right. Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.
