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After Obama
Eight months into it, it now seems pretty clear that the Obama administration is finished.
There were some of us -- indeed, many of us, myself included -- who thought there was a possibility that Barack Obama might seize this moment of American crisis, twinned with the complete failure for all to see of the regressive agenda, to become the second coming of Franklin Roosevelt.
Many think that was a naïve position from the get-go. I disagree. Not only do I believe that it was a legitimate possibility, I would argue that it was the logical choice even just from the narrow perspective of Obama's personal fortunes. The president is every day committing political suicide by a thousand cuts because he chose not to take that track.
That's certainly his prerogative, and at this point I wish him all the worst of luck in whatever comes next. Since I never assumed he would be a progressive once elected, any bitterness that I feel is not rooted in his failure to become the new FDR. However, I am irate that, in domain after domain, President Obama has become the personification of the very Bush administration policies that Candidate Obama so roundly criticized. And I feel deep hostility toward him about the betrayal of legions of voters -- especially the young -- who believed his message of hope and thought they were getting a president on their side, not Wall Street's.
More on that in another column. Right now, the question is what comes next? The Obama presidency is probably already toast, though of course anything can happen in three or seven years. But he is on a crash course for a major clock cleaning and, what's worse, he doesn't seem to have it remotely within him to seize history by the horns and steer that bull in his preferred direction. Indeed, near as I can tell, he doesn't even have a preferred direction.
Obama was complete fool if he ever believed for a moment that his campfire kumbaya act was going to bring the right along behind him. Even s'mores wouldn't have helped. These foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics have completely lost all sense and proportion, and were bound to viscerally hate any president left of Cheney, let alone some black guy in their white house. Meanwhile, centrist voters in this country seem pretty much only to care about taxes and spending, and so he's lost them, too, without the slightest rhetorical fight in his own defense. And he's blown off a solid progressive base by spitting in their eyes at every imaginable opportunity, beginning with the formation of his cabinet, ranging through every policy decision from civil rights to civil liberties to foreign policy to healthcare, and culminating with his choice not to even mobilize his email database in support of his policies.
So if he's lost the left, right and center, just who does he think is going to be clamoring to give him a second term three years from now, especially if the economy remains lousy for most people in the country, as it's likely to do regardless of GDP or Dow Jones growth?
There is the possibility that Obama could change course significantly, just as Bill Clinton did in 1995, following the mid-term election in which his most astute political stewardship managed to turn both houses of Congress over to the Republican Party. But Clinton turned to the right and became just a less snarly version of the Republicans, while Obama is already there. I don't really think he could conceivably turn further rightward at this point, and I don't think he has anywhere near the guts to turn to the left and do what he should have done in the first place.
What all this suggests to me is that Obama and his party will manage by 2012 to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and return the GOP -- and probably an even nastier version of it than the Bush-Cheney junta, at that -- to power. It suggests that the Democrats, who were riding high six months ago over an all but destroyed Republican Party, will be switching places with them within three years time, if not sooner -- and all because of their own cowardice, corruption and ineptitude. This outcome is hardly inevitable, but it is fast approaching. Looking out over the horizon, I see five key factors most likely to effect the health and longevity of the Obama administration, and not one of them looks positive.
The eight-hundred pound gorilla rummaging around in the kitchen right now is the economy. Indeed, this factor alone could readily swamp the combined effect of all the others, particularly if it swings dramatically in one direction or another. My guess, as a non-economist (which, of course, only means that I have a better shot at an accurate prediction than the economists do), is that the economy will exhibit some substantial signs of growth over the next three years. But I suspect the recovery will be tepid, even according to establishment measures such as GDP growth or the state of the Dow. More importantly, I strongly suspect that this will be another jobless recovery, like the last ones we've had, and that the new mean standard of living for the middle class will be pretty mean indeed, significantly diminished compared to what people were already struggling to hold on to when the Great Recession began. Personally, I think if American history teaches us anything at all about presidential elections, it is that for an incumbent president this is more or less the worst possible scenario imaginable upon which to go asking the public to punch his ticket again. Americans vote their pocketbook, and that alone is likely to be the kiss of death for Obama's second term aspirations.
Meanwhile, of course, he's also chosen to put healthcare reform on the table as the signature legislative initiative probably of his entire presidency. That's fine, but watching him in action I sometimes wonder if this clown really and actually wants a second term. I mean, if you had asked me in January, "How could Obama bungle this program most thoroughly?", I would have written a prescription that varies little from what we've observed over the last eight months: Don't frame the issue, but instead let the radical right backed by greedy industry monsters do it, on the worst possible terms for you. And to you. Don't fight back when they say the most outrageous things about your plan. In fact, don't even have a plan. Let Congress do it. Better yet, let the by-far-and-away-minority party have an equal voice in the proceedings, even if they ultimately won't vote for the bill under any circumstances, and even while they're running around trashing it and you in the most egregious terms. Have these savages negotiate with a small group of right-wing Democrats, all of them major recipients of industry campaign donations. Blow off your base completely. Cut secret sweetheart deals with the Big Pharma and Big Insurance corporate vampires. Build a communications strategy around a series of hapless press conferences and town hall meetings, waiting until it's too late to give a major speech on the issue. Set a timetable for action and then let it slip. Indicate what you want in the bill but then be completely unclear about whether you necessarily require those things. Travel all over the world doing foreign policy meet-and-greets. Go on vacation in the heat of the battle. Rinse and repeat.
Altogether, it's an astonishingly perfect recipe for getting rolled, so much so that I'm not the first person to have wondered out loud if that was actually the president's intention all along. Look at this freaking fool. Now look at the guy who ran a letter-perfect, disciplined, textbook, insurgent, victorious campaign for the White House. Can they possibly be the same person? And, since they obviously are, is there possibly another explanation for this disaster besides an intentional boot? I dunno. But what I do know is this. Obama's very best-case scenario for healthcare legislation right now represents a ton of lost votes in 2010 and 2012. And the worse that scenario gets, the worse he and his party do. But even a ‘success' in the months ahead will produce a tepid bill, a mistrustful public, an inflamed and unanswered radical right, and a mealy-mouthed new government program that doesn't even begin to go online until 2013. A real vote-getter that, eh?
Which brings us to a third major electoral liability for Obama. Human beings, by and large, like to be led. They like their leaders to inspire their confidence -- even when doing so takes the form of the most fantastically shallow dress-up kind of blowhard buffonery, à la George W. Bush -- so that they don't have to think too much about how little personal confidence they themselves actually possess. Obama is the complete antithesis of this model of the presidency. He is Harry Reid's incontinent grandmother as president. He is Neville Chamberlain's squirrely little nephew knocking shit over in the Oval Office while he plays "Mr. President", in-between episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants. He is a bowl of Jell-O. That someone forgot to put in the fridge. He exhibits no competence as a chief executive. He inspires no confidence as a national leader. And, increasingly, his credibility is coming into question. Who wants to vote for that?
A related problem is that he loves to flash that big toothy grin of his right before his venomous adversaries knock his choppers back into his head. I'm trying to imagine what a wimpier president would look like, and having a very hard time coming up with an answer. I'm trying to imagine how the regressive right could possibly bathe their country's president in a more acidic pool of vitriol, and I'm having a difficult time topping their assertions that he's out to kill the elderly while simultaneously indoctrinating grade-schoolers into the ranks of the Revolutionary Spartacist League. I'm trying to conceive of how vacant a White House could possibly be of any whiff of push-back against these assaults, and I can't quite envision it. Maybe if they went out and did some real scandals and filmed it all as a gift for the GOP? Perhaps they could dig up Vince Foster's body and murder him all over again, this time on video? Or they could hire Ken Starr to just run amok in the White House for a few years, looking for anything remotely juicy? But could Obama's Keystone Kops even do a scandal properly? I'm not sure, but I'm pretty confident the public is losing trust in this guy as their Big Daddy Protector. Who in America would vote for this eunuch to be in charge of keeping their little suburban Happy Meal-stuffed brats safe from tawny evil-doers with bad intentions?
As if all that weren't enough, Obama is probably also sitting on several national security powder kegs - including Guantánamo, which he is unlikely to close; Iraq, which he is unlikely to leave; and Afghanistan, which he is unlikely to win. The latter in particular has now become his war, and lately it is smelling a lot like Vietnam, circa 1964. An decades-long struggle against a popular nationalist adversary. Endless calls from the Pentagon for more troops. Incredibly inhospitable terrain for fighting a war. An American-made puppet government hated for its corruption and for its gross incompetence at every task other than raw predation. Mmmm-mmm. What a yummy stew. Haven't dined on that fine cuisine since 1975. And what another great vote-getter to add to this sorry list, eh?
Put it all together and it's pretty hard to see how Obama gets a second term. Which can mean only one thing: We're looking at a Romney or a Palin or some sort of similar monster as the next president, despite the fact that their party was absolutely loathed only a year ago, and actually still is today. It won't matter. People will be voting against the incumbent, not for any candidate, and that will leave only one viable choice, especially for centrist and right-wing voters. Whoever wins the Republican nomination will be the next president, crushing Obama in the general election (assuming he survives the Democratic primaries). And that's a particularly scary notion, since the party's voting base who will make that choice in the Republican primaries is the same crowd you've seen featured all this summer at town hall meetings. Olympia Snowe is not going to be the Republican nominee in 2012. Know what I mean?
So the question then becomes, what next? What happens after Obama?
I see two possible general paths going forth from that point -- one bad, and one worse. The bad path would involve a frustrated but essentially beaten-into-submission public oscillating between incompetent Republican and Democratic administrations, turning one after the other out of office -- not on ideological grounds, but instead seeking any change that has the possibility of stanching the empire's hemorrhaging wounds. This would look a fair bit like Japan or Britain does today. The former just replaced its government and the latter will likely do so next spring. But I don't think either of these major party shifts are really ideological in nature, and I don't think either new government is likely to be hugely different from the one it succeeded.
But Americans seem to me especially piggish critters these days, and the benign model that is sufficient to placate disgruntled citizens of long-lost empires may not suffice to soothe the savage soul of Yanquis still deep in the process of watching theirs crumble around their feet. That moves us from the bad path to the worse. Given what the American public is capable of happily countenancing during relatively flush times (can you say "Reagan"? "Bush"?), imagine what could happen when spoiled Baby Boomers go to the polls under conditions approaching the 1930s.
Such a crisis could conceivably entail a sharp turn to the left, and in every rational country certainly would. But this is America. We pretty much don't go anywhere near socialism, at least not overtly, and in any given decade -- especially the recent ones -- we're lucky to get away with anything less than creeping fascism. Moreover, elections are almost always reactions to the status quo. Since Obama is ridiculously -- but nevertheless widely -- perceived as a liberal, the reaction is all the more likely to involve a sharp turn to the right in response.
Under this scenario, anything portside of Torquemada would be buried alive if not annihilated, and the next regime would likely be one that could make Dick Cheney shudder. And that's the happy side of the equation. If history is any guide, a nifty (not so) little war could only be right around the corner, for the helpful purpose of jump-starting the economy, crushing the domestic opposition, and distracting the public from that pesky nuisance once affectionately referred to as ‘reality'.
I don't want to lay odds on which of these outcomes is the more likely, but I feel pretty confident, I'm sad to say, that any happier scenario is considerably less likely than either of these. For a lot of reasons, America's near-term future looks bleak to me, and this country -- which already has a remarkable tendency to make dangerously foolish and sickeningly selfish political choices -- is altogether too likely to do something that would make the Bush years look like a scene from a Norman Rockwell canvas by comparison.
This tragedy, if it comes, will have many sires who share responsibility for driving America from Republican red to fascist black. But on that list must certainly be included the powder blue of the effete Obama administration that came in between.
Rahm Emanuel once famously averred that "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."
I don't really believe that corporate-controlled fascism is what he had in mind when he said that.
But, who knows? Maybe that's exactly what he was thinking.
135 Comments so far
Show AllThe Corporatist/War Party for U.S. Global Empire will continue, regardless which wing of it (Dumbocraps or RepubliKKKlans) is in "control".
Stop looking to any one person or party to truly represent us any longer.
We must create a People's Movement for OUR Needs (not those of the parasitical corporations).
Short of a Nationwide General Strike for People's Needs, there is little we can do for now. So we'd better start organizing our Movement ASAP, as the Empire's endless wars and health care DEFORM continue to kill hundreds of thousands of us.
i'm sure others will be along to insist, with cogent arguments, that everything Obama has done is purposeful, with understood and intended consequences.
As i watch the disaster unfold, i'm leaning toward Green's conclusion - "maybe nobody at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is doing much thinking whatsoever these days."
"i'm sure others will be along to insist, with cogent arguments, that everything Obama has done is purposeful, with understood and intended consequences."
You mean intentional suicide? (LOL)
I have come to the conclusion that David Michael Green does not like the course Obama has taken.
And I of course agree that they have handed the Congress back to the Republicans in 2010 and the Presidency in 2012. I see no hope of him turning this around.
I do not agree they will be worse, the Neocons have run their trail, a new, more moderate group will be in charge.
What a display of incompetence and inexperience by this administration.
If you are looking for a new, more moderate group to take charge, do not expect either the Republicans or Democrats to be any part of it. Party loyalty and bitter partisanship has only gotten worse. I may sound stale saying this but the only way we will get a truly moderate group to take charge is when more people open their minds and hearts and take the issues deep down serious. At first, it can feel strange and uncomfortable but once you get used to it, the feeling of political loneliness won't stop you from voting inside and out.
Hi Jennifer!
I'm afraid its going to be the Republicans. I really don't see the Democrats holding....they have offended jusdt about everybody and Obama is a sorry excusde fort a leader. Its too late for him to recover. I believe he simply has too many inexperienced and foolish people around him.
I do believe a more moderate and conservative, younger Republican is coming up, more Pawlenty than Coburn.
I don't trust the Republicans either with the rare exception of a few like Ron Paul and even he is questionable on half the issues. I don't trust either Pawlenty or Coburn. Coburn I know he's an open nut. Pawlenty reminds me of Dubya and Obama. Both of them pretended to be "moderate" when they campaigned and yet ended up being PUPPETS once in office. Pawlenty sounds more like that and what's the guarentee he won't surround himself with mafia like Republicans ala Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Kashkari, Paulson, etc... I guess you finally forced me to confess another reason I strongly distrust both parties. I don't know Pawlenty very well but what indication is there to tell me that he's a moderate Republican. Any plans to end the wars and occupations in the Middle East, end the drug wars and legalize cannabis, fund public transportation and help make it lively, reward gas sippers instead of gas guzzlers, put single payer or at least multipayer that does not allow Big Insurance/Pharma unlimited profiteering ala Germany and Switzerland, getting rid of Big Agri subsidies and allowing small farmers more leeway, reining in "free" trade and switching to fair trade ?? Maybe I'm asking too much but I promised myself and someone that I'd take the weekend to compile a list of issues I have against this administration. I'm tired of both parties fudging the word "moderate" and stealing independent voters with their lying and selling out.
I don't know enough about Pawlenty myself, just that his remarks and reports of him would indicate a moderate.
Look forward to seeing your list.
Hmmm...
The line with all those "progressive" Obama supporters was that they wouldn't vote for Nader because he couldn't win.
So if now those same people are saying Obama can't win in 2012, I guess they'll have to vote Republican. After all, they only vote for people already guaranteed to win the election, right? They would never support a candidate who stood a chance of losing.
If they register early, they can vote for the "lesser evil" in the Republican primaries.
I'm sorry but I am sick and tired of hearing these "he/she is unwinnable" excuses. I voted thrice for Nader while most of the electorate voted for candidates who were hell bent on selling out these same 3 elections. More people need to open their minds and hearts to judging candidates on the issues. People don't get hired on silly dilly "personality" and special group affiliations. Politicians deserve no better. I'm tired of pols who wiggle their ways in and then put us into tears. Obama and Dubya won alright (ok, Dubya in 2000 didn't on the popular vote) but we the people lost and are paying the price every day, week, month and year for it. Sorry to sound frustrated.
No need to apologize. Your frustration is an indication of sanity.
For me, one of the worst points was when Norman Solomon was covering the DNC for CD as a DELEGATE. And even though Obama had basically wrapped-up the nomination, Solomon refused withhold his vote in a merely symbolic protest against Obama's neoconservative policies, OR the over 150 protesters arrested outside the convention (including Amy Goodman) for refusing to be put in free speech zones. We hear a lot about the abuses at the 2008 RNC, but for some reason, much less about the 2008 DNC.
And then there was that awful moment when Michael Moore and Bill Maher got on their knees and begged NADER not to run in 2004. That was pretty bad too.
Michael Moore never did respond to Carl Mayer's "Whatever Happened to Voting Your Conscience? An Open Letter to Michael Moore (AKA God's Pen Pal)".
http://www.counterpunch.org/mayer09222008.html
OH, DMG, I usually love your take on things, but this time, and even if you're right on from all vantage points...I would like to believe that Obama has enough soul that he is practicing a form of satygraha, passive resistence, letting the opposition burn themselves out...I never discount the possibility that anything can happen that is beyond our imaginings, calculation, and intelligence, anytime...and if you expect it, does...(yes, I'm talking miracles and wonders here, but I believe in them by experience in the real world, maybe that is what 'Hope we can believe in' is) We need to get rid of special interests campaign finance bribes and all those who have taken them, and see the planet from afar, for it's needs and sustainability beyond profit...our time here is sacred and has been coopted by the evil forces of man for too long..if we can just wake up... what was the story where the woman finally figures out what the purpose of existence is, only to be immediately wiped out as the planet explodes?...seems like we can be more proactive than that...start by honestly questioning, "What is going on here?!" and be brave enough to face the answer...and when we do, veils of ignorance will fall.
Satyagraha, eh?
Haven't heard that one before!
Do you suppose that his big new speech on health care next week will propose that each citizen be issued spinning wheels?
· Yr Obd't Servant
yick.
Better stop smoking whatever that is.
Om mani padma freakin om.
This is Shangri-La you're describing, not the shark tank that is the United States with all of us as chum in the water. Obama does not possess such wisdom. He possesses no wisdom at all. What he possesses is Rahm Emanuel, hired to be his political assassin but who turns out to be Gomer Pyle attending MIT.
Satyagraha, my ass. It's that Israelite Rahm Emanuel who's calling the shots.
WOW!!!!
WHERE IS EVERYBODY? This is wild. I'll have to read this again, I'm off for a walk. I have to hold my evaluation of this. Some of it makes so much sense. Some of it,well I didn't want to give up hope yet. You see, I thought to begin with that things were SSSSSOOOOOO bad anyway that no one can fix them. Between the economy, the energy situation and climate change, we are behind the 8 ball and have been now for a while. We all were kept in the dark about the climate thing that really started, what two decades ago?
I Also have a side theory that anyone with good intentions and good ideas, taking on this disaster, would have such a HHHuuuugggeee threat coming from the "other side" ya' know the dark side, that it would take mega tons of courage to do what you knew was right any way. I know some of you will pooh pooh this idea- that Obama is under threat from "powerful" sources. But ya' know it does kind of explain the reversals... or maybe this was Obama's plan all along.
I don't know. All I do know is, like I said. I think things are so bad that there is no solution. Not one that includes our keeping what we've had-the life style that we have gotten used to. Because between climate change and the energy thing, WE ARE TOO LATE...
theinitiate....your assumption that there may be something more from 'the other side may be the only answer...a little blackmail, something so powerful that he has no choice but to go 'with the flow.' I hate to think that is a possibility, but at the same time there aren't too many other valid reasons why he would just drop the ball after having received it on a clear playing field.
"I didn't want to give up hope yet"
there is nothing to hope for but hope itself.
From article: "Many think that was a naïve position from the get-go. I disagree. Not only do I believe that it was a legitimate possibility, I would argue that it was the logical choice even just from the narrow perspective of Obama's personal fortunes. The president is every day committing political suicide by a thousand cuts because he chose not to take that track."
It sure looks like Green is being naively optimistic here. Since when did a D president in the last 4 decades do anything to further social justice? Dr. Green should know, as a Polsci lecturer, that our so-called democratic process is rigged for candidates who command the largest financial resources. Corporations that have personhood and money as free speech ensure that large corporate interests are the forces behind policy formulation and implementation.
No candidate can win in our institutionally corrupt system without kow-towing to the monied interests and toeing the corporate line, period. Full stop.
This happens time after time after time, yet few recognize it. At least some like Nader and McKinney are aware of this, for exmaple.
When Obama embarked on a reconstitution of the Clinton Cabinet, I knew we were in trouble and labeled him a fraud.
He has sold out everyone who believed in him and voted for him to Wall Street, Health Care Corporations, Big Pharmaceutical Companies; you name it.
Taking all of his ineptness and grand deception into consideration, coupled with the absolute jokes claiming to be the next generation of Republican leadership and, it can safely be said, we are in crisis mode.
We are urgently in need of a new political party that will address the problems of all those disenfranchised by 16 combined years of Clinton Republicrats and George W. Bush Republicans. That adds up to quite a few divergent interests that could well have the power to change things for the better. Progressives, Independents, Liberal Republicans, Organized Labor, Free Trade Opponents and the like.
Paul Wellstone's political philosopy might be the place to start.
If we can get back in touch with the finest within us by becoming informed and standing for what is good and decent within us, Americans are a fromidable force with which to be reckoned. We need to start by no longer allowing corporations, the corporate news media and entertainment giants to shape our opinions and our values. We sell ourselves short when we defer to all those who peddle "feel good" crap and seduce us with rhetoric designed to convince us to be what they want us to be, rather than what we should be.
We are not the proverbial sheep waiting to be led to the slaughter. Rather, we are a sleeping giant with which to be reckoned sooner, rather than later.
pioagape: I was thinking myself of the "sleeping giant" imagery as I reflected on Mr. Green's essay, but in a somewhat different way than you use the term. I fully concur that we have to look within slumbering capacities and aspirations within ourselves if we are going to get on the road to recovery from our current malaise. But my thought was of the "sleeping giant" of the immigrants rights movement that unexpectedly awoke (however briefly as it was clubbed back to sleep) 3 years ago. I'm thinking of sleeping giant somewhat as Marx thought of the slumbering "false consciousness" of the proletariat that concealed for a time the fact of their exploitation by the capitalist system that victimized them but to which they clung for a time, something like Tom Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas" description of poor Kansans clinging to the Republican plutocrats who abused them. How do a mass of people---call it proletariat or whatever---ever rise to the level of "true" consciousness and action in their own best interest? Marx of course sees capitalism itself as creating the seeds of it own destruction as, by the "immanent law of capitalist concentration, it forces more and more of the middle class into proletarian status and, by the laws of ruthless competition, it forces them to ever more miserable conditions. When a critical mass is reached, it requires very little in terms of a revolution for the people to assert their right to self-determination.
Doesn't this sound like the kind of state to which we have come in Obama's America?
Untold but ever-growing numbers of people thrown out of work or home, incarcerated in jails because of draconian mandatory drug sentences, terrified by prospects of global warming and facing real environmental degradations of their own neighborhoods, sending their sons and daughters and fathers and mothers and sweethearts to fight and perhaps to die in "wars" supposedly about spreading democracy or defending the homeland, but actually about securing the resources of other people for our own exploitation.
History teaches us, if anything, that people will not indefinitely lie asleep as their deprivations at the hand of the powerful forces in their society continue to victimize them. The revolution will come, though it may not be televised. Instead of despairing as does Green because he does not think outside the box of the dreadful alternatives of left, center and right political alternatives, he and we all need to look southward to where better times are actually coming in the form of the "social movements" of one after another of the countries of Latin America as they reclaim their own destinies from the hand of home-grown and foreign despoilers. "After Obama?" Maybe it will be Louis XV's "apres moi,le deluge," only let us hope that we will not follow the French King's example of "eat drink and be merry" while our deaths impend. We definitely need to think "after Obama," because it's coming if not already here, but we have to be prepared to identify with the aspirations of that growing "proletariat" of people who are driven to despair by the operation of social forces in "Obama's America."
Jerry, those "new" "wonderful" social movements have been coming and going my entire lifetime.
It won't be long before Chavez seizes control of the countries media and next seize control of the educational syatem, controlling addmittance to the schools and what they teach. Thats the way it usually works. He's a good example of what will happen in all these Southern countries.
Socialism has been a failure in every single country its been tried in has it not?
Henry8: your post-mortem on Chavez and on "socialism" generally is no doubt written from the perspective of the capitalist-corporate media who furnish most of the "news" about events in the South to people elsewhere. Likewise you'd no doubt label Castro's Cuba as a "failure" because those same media tell you so. There are alternative news sources that would give you very different "information": like Narco News, Venezuelaanalysis and countless others that either you don't read or you discount them as "propaganda" (as if, what else is the news "fit to print" but our corporate media propagands?). Before you make such sweeping denunciations of the "failure" of socialism, I'd urge you to "consider your sources."
Sioux Rose
JERRY: Excellent post. Thanks for elaborating at length.
Green does a big boo-hoo on behalf of the disappointed Democratic Party liberal voter and I have no sympathy for the guy at all. This all was so utterly predictable that only a professor of political science could not see it coming. If Green was a real activist he would never have to put on this sordid act. To Green's credit though, he's not continuing his honeymoon with this particular individual cretin put up by the corporate DP. He's waiting to 'be fooled' the next time coming! And so goes the DP liberal voter...
Take it down once, I'll put it up again, as best I can remember it, minus the well-deserved obscenity.
I feel deep hostility toward him (Obama) about the betrayal of legions of voters -- especially the young -- who believed his message of hope.
Obama has not shown one iota of shame or guilt about the monstrous lies he told during his campaign or the fact that he is no better than what he replaced. I too wish him the worst of luck. After eight years of Bush/Cheney, it is now possible for the United States to sink into the basest kinds of depravity. And Obama has given that possibility his personal seal of approval.
I'm hoping our country can rise above its leaders. Is it possible for the left and right to come together and pull our country out of trouble in spite of our government? And once its righted and the economy restored go back to squabbling about which direction to take. I almost think it is with the level of disgust on all sides.
"jobless recovery"
(sigh)
Yes, prof. Green, I do think it was a naive position from the get-go, and I take no pleasure in the Cassandra complex that has been prodding me to say "I told you so" ever since I washed my hands of mainstream parties in 1996.
Instead of hoping and wishing for the success of the essential emptiness that is style without substance, I hope you'll let me welcome you into the cohort that thinks attractive emptiness isn't good enough ***and continues to express that in the democratic franchise***.
We may not have immediate electoral success, but it's a far better alternative than adding to the mess by voting for policies that are the opposite of what we believe.
Voting is only one small element. As ED notes above (1:37), we need a people's movement. Socialist, also above (2:16), reminds us of the influence of monied interests and the vital need to oppose them.
There's a lot to do. Wishful thinking has run its course. Now comes the hard part, and we can only hope to live long enough to see it bear fruit.
"And I feel deep hostility toward him about the betrayal of legions of voters..." Yep, he screwed the little guy over real good in favor of the banksters. And I'd not be surprised to learn that it was Rahm, investment banker, ex-IDF soldier who 'advised' the president to make his own little Gaza-fication of the people while handing the cash over to Goldman Sachs.
Olden ways of the kleptocracy held that the ripoffs hit segments of the people on a rotating basis for a steady stream of disappointment and thefts. This guy, drives a tank/bulldozer over us as if we're Palestinians.
I agree with most of this except; he may make a second term. I see no credible opposition in four years. A slow muddle, muddle and economic decline is the future of U.S. The dissolution of Empire is not dramatic. It is painful for many and a gigantic stew of corruption and moral decay for historians to sip. For individuals leaning toward social pathology,the decline offers opportunity.
Bush was NOT legitimately re-elected in 2004. See Ohio and the excellent work of Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman on this subject. Some people even went to jail over that scam.
Just two comments:
"I don't really think he could conceivably turn further rightward at this point"
Think again.
"An American-made puppet government hated for its corruption and for its gross incompetence at every task other than raw predation."
This is our government.
Welcome to coporatocracy. Next stop corporatic fascism or the 1960's. I moving to the 1960's. Actually, it has always been the 1960's. It is always the 1960's. It is always a struggle of the sane against the ravenous. Stop being one of the ravenous. Spend less and live better by not accumulating. Every purchase of a corporation produced "consumer good" supports your own political, social and economic domination.
If you are tuned in, you realize you have already been dropped out.
We don't need a new political party. We need a new political consciousness and a new politics. They will look remarkably like the old one's we left behind. The new politics will take place in the street, no permits required, no bail for the arrested. (When it come to "filling the jails", it does not work if they are only filled for an afternoon.)
Let's see where has this worked before? In the US, regarding civil rights and Vietnam. In India, regarding independence. In Eastern Europe, regarding the iron curtain. In the Philippines, regarding Ms. Aquino. In Russia, regarding Yeltsin.
It doesn't work right away, witness Palestine. So,...
Let's get it on.
See you in the streets and at music festivals.
Peace and Love, man.
No, RichM. The Black Swan is right. I have seen no better model of hope in the past 40-odd years than the '60s revolt. Bring it back! Off the pigs! Make love, not war!
What's wrong with "offing the pigs?" The cops are protectors of capital. That's their role.
The most revolutionary group in the 1960s and early 70s was the Panthers. They got their start as a community program in Oakland to keep the cops in line because blacks were (and always have been) overcriminalized by the local police force. Seale, Cleaver, and Newton eventually shifted the focus of the party to community outreach, including starting medical clinics, free legal assistance, and providing breakfast meals for kids. The whole point was to educate blacks about the power structure so they could fight back against it. Those guys were reading Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che, Fanon, and Malcolm. Talk about a threat to the establishment. At the height of the Panthers' run, 20% of black Americans self-identified as "revolutionary" and supported what the BPP was doing. At the time that poll was taken, the Panthers had only been around for FOUR YEARS. Pretty remarkable.
But we all know what happened to the Panthers. Hoover infiltrated the group and worked informants, started media disinformation campaigns, and got a bunch of them wrongfully arrested. Some of the leaders were murdered by the pigs including Fred Hampton.
When I think of "revolution" in the 60s, I think of the Panthers. The "revolutionary" history as told by the boomers is largely revisionist. Those Vietnam protests dried up like tofu left out overnight as soon as the draft got stopped. In other words, once it was only poor kids doing the killing and getting killed, nobody cared.
The Civil Rights Movement? The heavy lifting was done by the generation before the boomers. Brown v. Board was in 1954. The Deacons of Defense, the march on SElma, the march on Washington - all done before 1964. Note the dates. Unless the boomers want to argue that the heavy lifting was done by brave 10- to 18-year-olds, it wasn't them.
Same with the feminist movement. Friedan was published in 1960. Everything after 1966 was mop-up, "second generation" coattails shit.
Hell, the boomers can't even take credit for rock and roll. R&R kicked off in the 50s with performers who were born in the 30s - Little Richard, Frankie Lymon, Jerry Lee Lewis, etc.
Almost everything the boomers take credit for was started by and the heavy lifting done by the "Silent" Generation.
Oh, I guess there are a few things we can pin on the boomers, though - they swept Ronald Reagan into office, they overwhelmingly voted as a cohort for Prop. 13 in California (the start of the 30-year tax-cutting orgy in this country), and they voted overwhelmingly for Bush in both 2000 and 2004. Somehow, whenever I see boomers on forums describing how heroic their generation is, they always manage to leave out this bit of history.
Without the egregious mistakes, without the selling out. With more political consciousness. But, at its best, distilled, it was a powerful anti-capitalist, anti-industrialist statement and a way of life that really did explore ways of living on the earth with respect. No way can we fault it for what it tried to do. (Must have hit a nerve, the apoplexy it elicited at the time, seemingly far out of proportion to its threat...or was it?)
I'd love to see it happen, but those who don't consume corporate crap are enemies of the plutocracy. "Making love, not war" isn't easy.
RichM -- I'm with you on developing a political program and that "growing your own" and so on is good but not effective politically as stated. In my opinion, you are correct in saying it's from a consumerist seed, and I think it should be added that it can be, in consequence, a self-involved option. What is required is a structure of political solidarity which it can be part of.
I differ on your last sentence (or maybe I'd just tweak it slightly.) With corporations and lobbyists and the MIC writing the legislation, I think it can be safely said that we are "governed" by the plutocracy and that the two parties of the Corporatocracy are simply tools, like the front office.
That being the case, not only do we need to develop political structures for our purposes, but we need to disengage ourselves from everything that benefits the corporatocracy. I believe boycotts are an essential element of that disengagement...not the only element, of course. I'm not talking about a 'buy nothing" day. I'm speaking of massive boycotts designed to achieve a political purpose. Naturally, we'd have to build a sustaining fall-back economy and organization, which we'd better start doing right now.
Oh, I was pretty sure I understood what you were saying. Just advancing the dialogue a bit. A few years ago I tried to organize some big corporate boycotts. It was one of the most frustrating things I ever did. I just couldn't get beyond the "individual basis" in people's minds. I don't think you would even believe me if I told you the adamant and solid wall I came up against. It's like no one had ever heard of boycotts and strikes being used to achieve a political purpose. That part of their brain was "no entry". I couldn't even discuss the pros and cons because "boycott" had only one connotation in their minds.
It was depressing. I didn't know whether to attribute it to lack of education or to the continuing corporate colonization of the mind and isolation of the spirit.
It's like when I was trying to register people into the Green Party, we'd have these vehement discussions, "By god, that's right" and so on, then, "Well, join the Greens, it's your party"...A film comes over the eyes, a blank, confused stare. "I may think about it." Or, "I'm just not ready."
OK, I've vented. That's water under the bridge. I'm coming at this from another angle, refreshed, I hope.
I have to wonder, with Green, if the purpose of an Obama presidency was to pave the way for the next Republican one, worse than the last... The instant he was in office the great give-away began, while the majority of the country was still blinded by "hope" and that smile. Once the give-away was finished, maybe the purpose of the presidency had been fulfilled, and everything after that is just a big game of international travel, vacations, and biding time.
I wonder though if there wouldn't still be a very large group of African-American voters who will feel compelled to get him a second term, joined by the die-hard contingent of his original supporters who may still refuse to consider any of his actions as anything but wise, prudent, patient, long-suffering, blah, blah, blah.... With regard to the former, we could maybe add that long-delayed national racial turmoil to Green's list of things to come.
Actually, the "great give-away" began while Bush was still in office, but your substance is correct because Obama spoke and voted for that giveaway and has since escalated it. President Taft is a red leftist when compared to Obama; and given that comparison, one could call Taft a Progressive. Obama stands to the right of most Torys, who are mostly left of Republicans and even most Democrats. I would argue the Democrats were only the party of the CommonMan during FDR's first two terms. If only the Populists hadn't merged with the Democrats in the 1890s--Sigh... another of History's What Ifs?
What follows Obama is dependent upon what occurs between now and the end of 2011.
(accidental double post)
Green says, "Indeed, near as I can tell, he doesn't even have a preferred direction," and then procedes to show what that "direction" is--ever further to the right. Paul Street was very able to see and describe what that direction would be prior to the election. I'm not surprised at his direction either, as it's the direction the national government's been moving in since they overthrew the Articles of Confederation and created the conditions for the rise of our national monstrosity.
These people, including Obama, are not stupid, nor are they fools.
He was black. He became the President. The circle in now complete, and African Americans have now "arrived". From slave, to Slavemaster.
We put way too much stock into what we think the presidency stands for. Democracy. Justice. Moving humanity forward. Its none of that.
Moving the money -- and the Empire's borders -- are what matters and its the only thing that matters.
camus13
Professor Green is right on the money except for one item.
Fascism
Check the following and see how close we are, if not there.
American Fascism
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14-defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. TOP
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
**(Sound like any certain party and/or President and administration that we know? Hmm??)
________________________________
An interesting note to end this article: As of January 2004, the United States fulfills all fourteen points of fascism and all seven warning signs are present. But we're not alone. Israel also fulfills all fourteen points and all seven warning signs as well.
Green sez: "Rahm Emanuel once famously averred that 'You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.'
I don't really believe that corporate-controlled fascism is what he had in mind when he said that."
***
That's exactly what Rahm had in mind. Although "corporate-controlled fascism" would seem to be an oxymoron.
Yes, for some time the Obama USA has been transforming itself into a USA version of the Weimar Republic. The neocon corporate-sponsored right-wingers are rapidly positioning themselves for the take-over. Soon those gun-toting disruptors of the Town Hall meetings and the like will be wearing coloured shirts (though probably not brown ones to be too obvious) and bashing all who aren't with them. It's bloody scary but it's hard to see any other likely future.
Perfectly correct on the US, we are well on the road to fascism. But as wrong as could be on Israel, and is itself nothing but an expression of the vilest anti-semitism. What's most disturbing about this statement, in fact, is that the anti-semitism that's becoming so prevalent in the US, on BOTH the left and right, is itself another and quintessential sign of fascism: finding some minority group to blame things on and persecute!!! See Nazi Germany for a good example of this!!!
Stop blaming everything on this small country thousands of miles away. It is one of the most progressive countries in the world, and Jews in general are far and away the most progressive people on the planet, and the ones who have done the most to fight fascism. (See the life works of Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and countless others.) It has its faults as do all countries, but to suggest that it is even remotely fascist is beyond absurd and a blatant lie. Start blaming it on the Democrats and the Republicans, and the apathetic minority who continue to vote for them.
mikep September 5th, 2009 7:28 pm...........Do you know anything about Judaism, Zionism, the State of Israel or Palestine. Israel is a country. Judaism is a religion. Were any of the people you mention born in Israel? Incidentally, Dylan is a born again Jew.
Screw you, mikep. People like Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman would flee you like the plague. It's you who are the new fascism that is upon us. Go away.
mike: could you post a complete list of the medications you are currently using
i want to go to happy town too...