In much the way that Ulysses had to bind himself to the masts of his ship in order not to succumb to the Sirens’ call and remain on course, sensible voters in 2004 had to force themselves not to listen to what John Kerry said and did in order to remain steadfast in their determination to vote for him against George W. Bush. It is fast becoming that way in 2008 with Barack Obama. If his public appearances these past few days are any indication, not paying attention to the content of Obama’s “inspiring” muttering will be necessary not only for voting for the lesser evil, but even for keeping down one’s lunch.
For political philosophers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, patriotism can be something more than “the last refuge of scoundrels.” But not for the flag waving, lapel button wearing “patriots” Obama pandered to yesterday in Independence, Missouri (not incidentally, the “Show Me” state). Their “thinking” may not be out of line in the Land of the Free, but the fact remains: their patriotism is stupid. But it’s one of those things – there are many others – which Democrats feel obliged to encourage. [Another is “supporting the troops,” which is code for keeping the Bush wars going and keeping the economic conscripts who fight them in harm’s way.] We owe this nauseating spectacle to the fact that the Party of Pusillanimity, the POP, much like the country at large, never quite assimilated the real lessons the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon war against Vietnam (and then the rest of southeast Asia) taught. If it had, it would be unthinkable now that a John McCain might be the one to extend the Cheney/Bush presidency for yet another dreadful term.
The POP has also not learned from its real mistakes in 2004. Instead, it focuses on its imaginary mistakes; thus its determination to turn itself into the party of the godly. After Karl Rove mobilized Christian fundamentalists to clobber Kerry in 2004, it has become a Democratic axiom that, in their obsessive pandering, they must not forget evangelical Christians. It seems that, since 2004, they’ve learned (or at least convinced themselves) that evangelicals are not all the same; and that some of them can be won over (or won back) to “progressive” positions – by which they mean saccharine Democratic positions. Thus today, according to news reports, Obama will tell evangelicals in Ohio that he favors “faith based initiatives” of various sorts. With the primary season over, it’s evidently not enough that he and Hillary Clinton meld together. He now seems to want to go all the way – assuming the God-fearing mantle of George W. Bush.
To be sure, Obama has a problem. In our debased political culture, where the likes of Fox news help set the agenda, a disturbingly large number of very ignorant people believe that Obama is a “secret Muslim.” To this “charge,” a slightly more “audacious,” but still God-fearing Obama could reply: “I’m a Christian, but there’s nothing wrong or ‘un-American’ with being a Muslim” That would at least inject a little oxygen into some moribund brains. But NO. Obama prefers to deny the “charge,” letting the slight to Muslims go uncorrected.
Of course, in a saner possible world, being a Muslim would indeed be a reproach, as would being a Christian or a Jew. But that isn’t the universe Democrats choose to inhabit. Nevertheless, there are some well-meaning but deluded people, some of whom surely know better where godliness is concerned, who find Obama’s stance “pragmatic.” [In their ignorance, these good liberals have turned Sidney Morgenbesser’s quip about pragmatism inside out. Morgenbesser famously, and very wisely, said that “pragmatism is true in theory, but in practice it just doesn’t work.”] “Pragmatically,” Obama is now positioning himself as the candidate of God and Country, while liberal Democrats either cheer him on or turn a blind eye. Thus, like him, they reveal themselves to be the scoundrels they are.
* *
Speaking of which, Obama and his liberal supporters have dealt yet another blow to truth telling. This time, the one in trouble for stating the obvious isn’t Jimmy Carter, whom the liberals would love to go away, or Jeremiah Wright or Ralph Nader, whom the liberals love to bad-mouth: it’s Obama’s own “surrogate” -- General Wesley Clark. Like Jay Rockefeller before him, Clark pointed out that being shot down in an airplane and then held as a POW is not exactly a qualification for being Commander-in-Chief. Were he not a military man and a Democrat, he might have added that volunteering to drop bombs and napalm on a civilian population fighting for its independence isn’t much of a qualification either; or at least that it shouldn’t be. But through some convoluted reasoning, Obama and his handlers felt obliged to rebuke the good General – confounding his truth telling with an attack on John McCain’s “patriotism.”
In the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal pointed out that when a point is carried to its extreme, it turns into its opposite. “Too much light blinds us,” Pascal wrote. Perhaps we’ll see another example today in Ohio. Or is it too much to hope that the next time Obama castigates someone for stating the obvious, he’ll confound their temerity not just with leveling charges about the patriotism of others, which Clark’s adventure in truth telling plainly was not, but with an attack on faith. Or will no Democrat dare state the obvious about believers (except, of course, the Islamic variety).
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Remember the Reasons
On “the issues,” it was always a wash between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; if anything, Obama was even worse. They agreed about everything – except mandates for health insurance. Clinton was for them; Obama against. On the face of it, this made her plan better – at least for inching closer to genuine universal coverage. Her plan probably is better, but it is far from certain; there are good arguments on both sides – and far better arguments supporting a single-payer system. This is why both Obama’s and Clinton’s plans are profoundly unsatisfactory. It is why there is no case to be made for or against either of them on this account.
Why, then, was it urgent that Clinton lose? I never had much faith in the reasons Obomamaniacs have. They have at last two: that Obama is better than he seems, and that, after he’s President, this will become clear; and that the mere fact that he is half of African descent is a good thing. As to the first, insofar as there’s an argument, it’s just that Obama plainly knows better than he lets on. This is doubtless true. But, after you peel away the layers of rank opportunism that the Clintons have piled up over decades, it’s probably true that Hillary knows better too. In neither case, does it make any difference. Obama’s “real” view of, say, Israel/Palestine is probably better than AIPAC’s. But when it comes down to it, because he and his advisors think it necessary for winning the general election and then for governing, he’ll pander to AIPAC just as much as Hillary would. QED. As for his African descent, yes, that would be a good thing for Americans and the rest of the world to see – for the few minutes before reality intrudes and people come to their senses. There is no evidence at all that Obama would govern in a way that would address African American concerns better than any of his former Democratic rivals, Hillary included. In fact, there is now good reason to think otherwise -- after his “denunciation” of Jeremiah Wright and then his scolding black fathers. Neither is there any reason to think that Obama’s African descent would make his foreign policy better, or even affect it at all.
Obamaniacs still have a reed to cling to, however: the JFK argument. Kennedy too had center-right politics and his brief tenure in office was awful, at least for anyone inclined to worry about the prospect of nuclear annihilation. But, thanks to his charm and wit and overall charisma, he did help set more progressive forces in motion; he was especially “inspiring” to the young. That Obama might unleash similar forces is a hope that’s not yet discredited. But, of course, it’s not up to Obama; it’s up to those of us who know better than he does or who, at least, have different agendas. Given the state of the “peace and justice” and environmental movements in this country, I’ve never been very hopeful about this prospect. But it is still a reason for not entirely regretting how the nomination process turned out.
Anyway, my reasons for opposing Clinton were different, and never had much of anything to do with hopes or rather illusions about Obama’s merits. I had two reasons. One has already melted into the ether of our decrepit political culture. The other is rapidly following suit.
We have a Democratic Party, a POP -- a Party of Pusillanimity or, what comes to the same thing, of Pelosiites – that can’t even bring itself to impeach Cheney and Bush et. al., let alone bring them to justice. Because they think it politically expedient and/or because they are cut from the same cloth, they’d as soon let the crime family that has led us to the brink of ruin for the past eight years get away with much worse than murder; this in the case of perps whose criminality is transparent and of historical dimensions. The (Bill) Clinton administration committed many of the same crimes, though in a less obviously offensive way. It was responsible for the deaths of some million Iraqis through sanctions, and for a host of other actionable offenses – many, though by no means all, committed in the name of “humanitarian interventions.” These included an illegal war to dismember Yugoslavia, to cite just the most transparently proto-neocon example. It will be for historians in the distant future, not Democrats today or tomorrow, to mete out to them the judgment they deserve. But a Hillary defeat, I reasoned, would, in its own way, serve the cause of justice here and now; especially if it took the form of an outright repudiation.
Of course, as a rule, wives are not responsible for their husband’s crimes. And, having carpet-bagged her way into the Senate, this wife never did anything in the way of Bush aiding and abetting (her specialty!) that rises to the level of an actionable crime in its own right. Neither is it a crime (in the literal sense) to have permanently marginalized the idea of single-payer health insurance or to have set back the cause of universal coverage for a generation. These were, after all, her signal contributions to American politics before the 2000 election. So it might look like there’s no reason of “retributive justice” to deny her the office she thought her due. But, remember, that she ran against Obama and the others on the grounds that she had more “experience.” Even her diehard backers should realize that this vaunted experience came her way by being Bill Clinton’s official wife. If she wants to take credit for that, then she too should do the time. But since no time will be done, she – and her better half – can at least suffer a political judgment. This was why I hoped not for Obama’s victory, but for her abject defeat.
But, of course,, she didn’t go down abjectly – just gracelessly. Meanwhile, the Democrats, with Obama in the lead, can’t do enough to make nice to her and to pander to her diehards (of whom, evidently, many decades ago, there was one born every minute). Since finally bowing out, the cult of Hillary, dormant since the early 90s, is now again on the rise. It’s a sickening spectacle; not worthy even of Democrats. But it’s happening. Thus the first – retributive justice – reason for defeating her candidacy is now a lost cause. In this respect, from today’s (and probably tomorrow’s) vantage point, it might even have been better had Hillary won.
The more important reason for defeating her, though, was to prevent a Clinton Restoration. There was never any doubt that an Obama presidency would include old Clinton hands. But there was a hope that the more culpable miscreants of the old regime – the Albrights and Holbrooks and their ilk – would be replaced by others slightly less noxious. After all, Obama did surround himself with advisors, like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, though no less imperialist than the mainstream Clinton folk, at least had the good sense to oppose the Iraq War (if not the others) from the beginning.
But this reason too is rapidly melting away. As I’ve explained in recent postings, to the delight of the corporate media and their sponsors, the Clinton campaign, advisors and all, is folding into Obama’s with astonishing – indeed, unseemly -- rapidity. Meanwhile, as the two former rivals make public lovey dovey, even the appearance of differences in style and temperament are fading. We may be witnessing the birth of a super-individual, hermaphroditic entity – a Barack-Hillary. The charismatic, personable side comes from the male member, as it were; but the politics is pure Clintonian.
The conventional wisdom mongers on NPR and in the so-called quality press may like what they see. But, for anyone with eyes, it’s not a pretty sight. And neither is it a salutary one for those of us who still think there’s a chance to turn “the ship of state” around from the disastrous course set by Ronald Reagan, Bush the Father, Hillary’s husband, and, last and worst, the criminals who now rule along with and in the name of the dimwitted Bush boy.
Democrats squandered an opportunity for real change, not plus ça change…, when they nominated Obama over John Edwards or even Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd (not to mention the unmentionable Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel). Thanks to Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld incompetence, and the disasters they brought on, the prospects for a change of course, leading to a softer landing for the American empire, were more propitious than they had been for decades. But the opportunity is fading. The POP, for its part, is doing everything it can to assure that nothing good, only something a little less bad, will come of the November election – with Obama or rather Barack-Hillary leading the way.
Why, then, was it urgent that Clinton lose? I never had much faith in the reasons Obomamaniacs have. They have at last two: that Obama is better than he seems, and that, after he’s President, this will become clear; and that the mere fact that he is half of African descent is a good thing. As to the first, insofar as there’s an argument, it’s just that Obama plainly knows better than he lets on. This is doubtless true. But, after you peel away the layers of rank opportunism that the Clintons have piled up over decades, it’s probably true that Hillary knows better too. In neither case, does it make any difference. Obama’s “real” view of, say, Israel/Palestine is probably better than AIPAC’s. But when it comes down to it, because he and his advisors think it necessary for winning the general election and then for governing, he’ll pander to AIPAC just as much as Hillary would. QED. As for his African descent, yes, that would be a good thing for Americans and the rest of the world to see – for the few minutes before reality intrudes and people come to their senses. There is no evidence at all that Obama would govern in a way that would address African American concerns better than any of his former Democratic rivals, Hillary included. In fact, there is now good reason to think otherwise -- after his “denunciation” of Jeremiah Wright and then his scolding black fathers. Neither is there any reason to think that Obama’s African descent would make his foreign policy better, or even affect it at all.
Obamaniacs still have a reed to cling to, however: the JFK argument. Kennedy too had center-right politics and his brief tenure in office was awful, at least for anyone inclined to worry about the prospect of nuclear annihilation. But, thanks to his charm and wit and overall charisma, he did help set more progressive forces in motion; he was especially “inspiring” to the young. That Obama might unleash similar forces is a hope that’s not yet discredited. But, of course, it’s not up to Obama; it’s up to those of us who know better than he does or who, at least, have different agendas. Given the state of the “peace and justice” and environmental movements in this country, I’ve never been very hopeful about this prospect. But it is still a reason for not entirely regretting how the nomination process turned out.
Anyway, my reasons for opposing Clinton were different, and never had much of anything to do with hopes or rather illusions about Obama’s merits. I had two reasons. One has already melted into the ether of our decrepit political culture. The other is rapidly following suit.
We have a Democratic Party, a POP -- a Party of Pusillanimity or, what comes to the same thing, of Pelosiites – that can’t even bring itself to impeach Cheney and Bush et. al., let alone bring them to justice. Because they think it politically expedient and/or because they are cut from the same cloth, they’d as soon let the crime family that has led us to the brink of ruin for the past eight years get away with much worse than murder; this in the case of perps whose criminality is transparent and of historical dimensions. The (Bill) Clinton administration committed many of the same crimes, though in a less obviously offensive way. It was responsible for the deaths of some million Iraqis through sanctions, and for a host of other actionable offenses – many, though by no means all, committed in the name of “humanitarian interventions.” These included an illegal war to dismember Yugoslavia, to cite just the most transparently proto-neocon example. It will be for historians in the distant future, not Democrats today or tomorrow, to mete out to them the judgment they deserve. But a Hillary defeat, I reasoned, would, in its own way, serve the cause of justice here and now; especially if it took the form of an outright repudiation.
Of course, as a rule, wives are not responsible for their husband’s crimes. And, having carpet-bagged her way into the Senate, this wife never did anything in the way of Bush aiding and abetting (her specialty!) that rises to the level of an actionable crime in its own right. Neither is it a crime (in the literal sense) to have permanently marginalized the idea of single-payer health insurance or to have set back the cause of universal coverage for a generation. These were, after all, her signal contributions to American politics before the 2000 election. So it might look like there’s no reason of “retributive justice” to deny her the office she thought her due. But, remember, that she ran against Obama and the others on the grounds that she had more “experience.” Even her diehard backers should realize that this vaunted experience came her way by being Bill Clinton’s official wife. If she wants to take credit for that, then she too should do the time. But since no time will be done, she – and her better half – can at least suffer a political judgment. This was why I hoped not for Obama’s victory, but for her abject defeat.
But, of course,, she didn’t go down abjectly – just gracelessly. Meanwhile, the Democrats, with Obama in the lead, can’t do enough to make nice to her and to pander to her diehards (of whom, evidently, many decades ago, there was one born every minute). Since finally bowing out, the cult of Hillary, dormant since the early 90s, is now again on the rise. It’s a sickening spectacle; not worthy even of Democrats. But it’s happening. Thus the first – retributive justice – reason for defeating her candidacy is now a lost cause. In this respect, from today’s (and probably tomorrow’s) vantage point, it might even have been better had Hillary won.
The more important reason for defeating her, though, was to prevent a Clinton Restoration. There was never any doubt that an Obama presidency would include old Clinton hands. But there was a hope that the more culpable miscreants of the old regime – the Albrights and Holbrooks and their ilk – would be replaced by others slightly less noxious. After all, Obama did surround himself with advisors, like Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, though no less imperialist than the mainstream Clinton folk, at least had the good sense to oppose the Iraq War (if not the others) from the beginning.
But this reason too is rapidly melting away. As I’ve explained in recent postings, to the delight of the corporate media and their sponsors, the Clinton campaign, advisors and all, is folding into Obama’s with astonishing – indeed, unseemly -- rapidity. Meanwhile, as the two former rivals make public lovey dovey, even the appearance of differences in style and temperament are fading. We may be witnessing the birth of a super-individual, hermaphroditic entity – a Barack-Hillary. The charismatic, personable side comes from the male member, as it were; but the politics is pure Clintonian.
The conventional wisdom mongers on NPR and in the so-called quality press may like what they see. But, for anyone with eyes, it’s not a pretty sight. And neither is it a salutary one for those of us who still think there’s a chance to turn “the ship of state” around from the disastrous course set by Ronald Reagan, Bush the Father, Hillary’s husband, and, last and worst, the criminals who now rule along with and in the name of the dimwitted Bush boy.
Democrats squandered an opportunity for real change, not plus ça change…, when they nominated Obama over John Edwards or even Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd (not to mention the unmentionable Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel). Thanks to Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld incompetence, and the disasters they brought on, the prospects for a change of course, leading to a softer landing for the American empire, were more propitious than they had been for decades. But the opportunity is fading. The POP, for its part, is doing everything it can to assure that nothing good, only something a little less bad, will come of the November election – with Obama or rather Barack-Hillary leading the way.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Obama and the Supremes
Was it “bitterness” or crass opportunism that made Obama say that he has no problem with the latest from Clarence and the Supremes: their proclamation that the DC handgun ban is “unconstitutional”? This was a shameless flip flop for the candidate of “change we can believe in.” May Dick Cheney shoot him in the face for it!
Then there’s Obama’s flip flop on capital punishment. Well, perhaps not a flip flop, since he’s been equivocating on the death penalty for as long as he’s been in public life. But it is fair to say that once upon a time (until a few days ago), even relatively informed people assumed that, of course, Obama is a death penalty opponent who just didn’t want to make an issue of it (because of the way blood thirsty Republicans skewered Mike Dukakis on the issue). Perhaps so; it wouldn’t be the first time that Obama knows better than the positions he takes. As a state Senator in Illinois, he did work to limit, but not eliminate, capital punishment, and to make it more likely that the innocent don’t get killed. He certainly gave the impression, back then, that he’d do more, maybe even favor abolition, if the political climate was more propitious. In any case, when even the Supremes decided that it was “cruel and unusual” (unfortunately, not unusual enough) for the state of Louisiana to judicially murder someone found guilty of child rape, Obama thought it important to “disagree.” The candidate of change (of plus ça change…) is evidently not yet ready to lead the Home of the Brave into the middle of the twentieth century (according to the standards of our not very “civilized” world).
Remember how Bill Clinton interrupted campaigning in New Hampshire in 1992 so that, as Governor, he could go back to Arkansas to oversee the judicial murder of a retarded man, Ricky Ray Rector? No doubt, Obama now feels his pain.
Obama is also backtracking on renegotiating NAFTA, on corporate taxes and on increasing taxes on capital gains. Can backtracking on withdrawing from Iraq in sixteen, unconscionable months – Obama’s Pelosi-Reed style “anti-war” policy -- be far behind?
Not only is Barack Obama melding his campaign with Clinton’s; he’s morphing into her. My advice: unless you’re in need of a powerful emetic, don’t watch today’s spectacle in Unity, New Hampshire where the two of them (or are they now one super-individual entity?) will be campaigning together.
It is remarkable how, even in late June, we are already so deeply in the throes of trying times for lesser evilists. As well-meaning “liberals,” always ready to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, acquiesce, the situation will only get worse.
Then there’s Obama’s flip flop on capital punishment. Well, perhaps not a flip flop, since he’s been equivocating on the death penalty for as long as he’s been in public life. But it is fair to say that once upon a time (until a few days ago), even relatively informed people assumed that, of course, Obama is a death penalty opponent who just didn’t want to make an issue of it (because of the way blood thirsty Republicans skewered Mike Dukakis on the issue). Perhaps so; it wouldn’t be the first time that Obama knows better than the positions he takes. As a state Senator in Illinois, he did work to limit, but not eliminate, capital punishment, and to make it more likely that the innocent don’t get killed. He certainly gave the impression, back then, that he’d do more, maybe even favor abolition, if the political climate was more propitious. In any case, when even the Supremes decided that it was “cruel and unusual” (unfortunately, not unusual enough) for the state of Louisiana to judicially murder someone found guilty of child rape, Obama thought it important to “disagree.” The candidate of change (of plus ça change…) is evidently not yet ready to lead the Home of the Brave into the middle of the twentieth century (according to the standards of our not very “civilized” world).
Remember how Bill Clinton interrupted campaigning in New Hampshire in 1992 so that, as Governor, he could go back to Arkansas to oversee the judicial murder of a retarded man, Ricky Ray Rector? No doubt, Obama now feels his pain.
Obama is also backtracking on renegotiating NAFTA, on corporate taxes and on increasing taxes on capital gains. Can backtracking on withdrawing from Iraq in sixteen, unconscionable months – Obama’s Pelosi-Reed style “anti-war” policy -- be far behind?
Not only is Barack Obama melding his campaign with Clinton’s; he’s morphing into her. My advice: unless you’re in need of a powerful emetic, don’t watch today’s spectacle in Unity, New Hampshire where the two of them (or are they now one super-individual entity?) will be campaigning together.
It is remarkable how, even in late June, we are already so deeply in the throes of trying times for lesser evilists. As well-meaning “liberals,” always ready to give Obama the benefit of the doubt, acquiesce, the situation will only get worse.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
What's Truth Got to Do With It?
Barack Obama got brownie points in the corporate media, and on corporate friendly NPR, for denouncing Jeremiah Wright, though most of what Wright said was, well, right. Now, these pro-regime propagandists have joined leading Democrats to go after their favorite target, Ralph Nader. His purported crime: besmirching his “legacy” by bad mouthing Obama – to get “attention.” His real offense was that, like Wright, he dared speak the truth. Reduced to its core, what Nader said was that Obama has had as little to say about institutional racism as any other Democrat (excluding the handful of genuine progressives still in the party), and that his appeal to liberals depends partly on “white guilt.” Nader pointed out the obvious: that Obama and his supporters have used Obama’s race to immunize themselves from criticism on issues that bear on racism – the better to assuage white voters’ fears. Wright went a little over the top when he accused the feds of spreading HIV/AIDS in black communities, though, given the historical record, the charge isn’t all that outlandish. In any case, most of what he was denounced for saying was irrefutable. Nader’s remarks were entirely dead on. No matter, though; truth has nothing to do with it. What matters, liberals fantasize, is that once Obama dispatches John McCain – no matter how many “compromises” and flip flops he makes along the way – he’ll somehow emerge as better than he’s so far been. It’s unlikely, but not impossible. However, there’s no chance that anything like this will come to pass unless voters to Obama’s left (that would be almost all Democratic voters) put the pressure on him now – and increase it with each rightward turn the lesser evil candidate takes. Even then, the prospects are poor: what with Clinton and Obama “bundlers” paying the piper and expecting their due.
Obama Picks Up the Pace
Barack Obama isn’t exactly coming down from a high plateau. Except for Joe Biden (Obama’s Secretary of State?) and, of course, Hillary Clinton, he was the most right wing Democratic contender from the get go. He managed to win the nomination without doing much to placate voters to his left; after all, once it became a Hillary v. Obama contest, why bother! Then, with the nomination secure, he predictably slouched even more to the right, as I’ve indicated in recent postings. Now, just three weeks after dispatching the Hillary threat, he’s picking up the pace.
His first major flip flop of the past few days, turning down public financing, was probably inevitable, given how much money he has already raised “privately.” But abasing himself before Clinton “bundlers,” as he will at a fund raiser tonight in Washington, is a bit over the top; especially coming so soon. Has the man no shame! Read the reports this morning about how the Clintonite Obama is melding his campaign with the Clintonite Clinton’s. Apparently, it’s the Clinton Clintonites who find the process most unseemly. They should know – unseemliness is the virtue of a political orientation that sprang forth out of Ronald Reagan’s bowels and that, having prepared the way for George W. Bush, now proposes to continue his designs on the world in a more competent, and, as Bush the father would say, a “kinder, gentler” way.
Obama’s worst, and most revealing, flip flop is soon to come: he’ll vote to give telecom companies – not incidentally, heavy campaign contributors – retroactive immunity from law suits for illegal wiretaps ordered by the Bush administration, and he’ll support the other proposed “bi-partisan” changes to the FISA law. The Bush/Cheney government has been operating in blatant violation of the Constitution. What do Congressional Democrats propose to do about these “high crimes and misdemeanors”? They could accept their Constitutional responsibilities by impeaching Cheney and Bush. But not our Democrats! Rather, change the law Cheney and Bush have been violating – and make the changes retroactive. Obama used to oppose this, as any decent legislator would; now he’s for it. Surprise! Surprise!
On the war, on giving corporate America everything it wants, on disregarding the needs of the poor, on keeping organized labor down, on mollifying minorities without addressing their interests, Obama has never been anything but a mainstream (Clintonite, center-right) Democrat. Now it turns out he’s an enemy of American freedoms too – much like his co-thinker, Nancy Pelosi. Compared to John McCain’s Republicans, he’s still the lesser evil – but he’s pushing the limit, and he’s getting closer day by day to going over the edge.
His first major flip flop of the past few days, turning down public financing, was probably inevitable, given how much money he has already raised “privately.” But abasing himself before Clinton “bundlers,” as he will at a fund raiser tonight in Washington, is a bit over the top; especially coming so soon. Has the man no shame! Read the reports this morning about how the Clintonite Obama is melding his campaign with the Clintonite Clinton’s. Apparently, it’s the Clinton Clintonites who find the process most unseemly. They should know – unseemliness is the virtue of a political orientation that sprang forth out of Ronald Reagan’s bowels and that, having prepared the way for George W. Bush, now proposes to continue his designs on the world in a more competent, and, as Bush the father would say, a “kinder, gentler” way.
Obama’s worst, and most revealing, flip flop is soon to come: he’ll vote to give telecom companies – not incidentally, heavy campaign contributors – retroactive immunity from law suits for illegal wiretaps ordered by the Bush administration, and he’ll support the other proposed “bi-partisan” changes to the FISA law. The Bush/Cheney government has been operating in blatant violation of the Constitution. What do Congressional Democrats propose to do about these “high crimes and misdemeanors”? They could accept their Constitutional responsibilities by impeaching Cheney and Bush. But not our Democrats! Rather, change the law Cheney and Bush have been violating – and make the changes retroactive. Obama used to oppose this, as any decent legislator would; now he’s for it. Surprise! Surprise!
On the war, on giving corporate America everything it wants, on disregarding the needs of the poor, on keeping organized labor down, on mollifying minorities without addressing their interests, Obama has never been anything but a mainstream (Clintonite, center-right) Democrat. Now it turns out he’s an enemy of American freedoms too – much like his co-thinker, Nancy Pelosi. Compared to John McCain’s Republicans, he’s still the lesser evil – but he’s pushing the limit, and he’s getting closer day by day to going over the edge.
Monday, June 23, 2008
"Bush Democrats"
Democrats of the Pelosi era hardly count as an opposition party, but there are several oppositional wings within the POP (the Party of Pusillanimity): chief among them is democrats.com. These groupuscules are dedicated to fighting the rot from within. To this end, just yesterday, democrats.com came out against what they call “Bush Democrats”: the eighty Democrats who voted to give Bush and Cheney another $163 billion to continue the occupation of Iraq; and the one hundred five Democrats who voted for telecom immunity – legal immunity from lawsuits for illegally wiretapping American citizens – and for otherwise continuing Cheney’s and Bush’s assaults on privacy and civil liberties on the pretext of fighting terrorism. Two of the three House leaders, Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel, were among the Bush Democrats on Iraq. Nancy Pelosi was not, though in her never-ending effort to provide textbook cases of what Pelosiism is, she, more than anyone else, let it happen. On aiding and abetting Bush’s war on Americans’ freedoms, Pelosi dropped even the pretense of talking the talk, joining Hoyer and Emanuel and the other miscreants.
Democrats.com is to be praised for publicizing and criticizing the extent to which their party collaborates with the Cheney/Bush government. But their term “Bush Democrats” is superficial and misleading. Yes, Democrats still aid and abet the simpleton in the Oval Office, even now that he has no “political capital” left. [Remember how full of himself he was when Condi Rice taught him that expression after the 2004 election! He couldn’t say it often enough.] The problem is not just that Democrats tremble at the thought of seeming like they don’t “support the troops” or seeming “soft on terrorism.” The pathology exhibited by so-called Bush Democrats, and most other Democrats too, runs deeper.
The problem is that what Cheney and Bush want, most Democrats also want: they want to make the world safe for their paymasters in the military-industrial complex, giving them pretty much everything they want or think they need – militarily, diplomatically and domestically. The only difference: the Democrats would do it more competently, and with a little bit more concern for the sensibilities of their core constituencies. The word I’ve been using to describe their political orientation from the day I started this blog is “Clintonism.” As I’ve argued from Day One, the designation is apt. What democrats.com calls “Bush Democrats” are Clinton Democrats.
Freud used the word “illusion” to designate beliefs that are expressions of (unconscious) desires. As such, illusions can be true, though they usually are not. Many liberals harbor illusions (in Freud’s sense) about Barack Obama. Perhaps, after he becomes President, they won’t be too disappointed. As of now, however, the evidence suggests that they will feel sorely deceived; it supports the hypothesis that Obama is a Clinton Democrat too. As I’ve explained in my two most recent entries, by incorporating old Clinton hands into his campaign apparatus, Obama is currently moving even more unmistakably in a Clintonite direction. Now, it seems, that Hillary herself will be campaigning with Obama later this week. Can Bill be far behind? One can only hope that these developments will bring Obamamaniacs, the ones who weren’t born yesterday, to their senses. Don’t count on it, however.
Not seeing Obama’s Clintonism for what it is makes it ever more likely that yet another opportunity will be missed. [The biggest missed opportunity for the Democratic Party was not selecting a more progressive nominee. John Edwards would have been a far better choice than Barack Obama; so would Bill Richardson or Chris Dodd. If we add in the “unelectables,” Dennis Kucinich and (my favorite) Mike Gravel, it is plain just how awry the nomination process went.] Anyway, the time to start working on Obama is now. He must be pulled away from the Clintonites, towards the hundred fifty-one Democrats who’ve finally seen the light on Iraq and the hundred twenty-eight who’ve seen the light on “the war on terror.” It will be too late to wait for the defeat in November of the greater evil, the doddering war-mongering, “maverick” Bushman Obama will run against. To be sure, a Clintonite Restoration, especially one without a Clinton in the lead, is an improvement over another four years of the Republican version of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush politics. But, at this juncture, we can do better than that; we can have a much less evil lesser evil. However, to that end, it will be necessary to push hard; Obama and the forces pulling him Clintonward must be fought diligently every step of the way.
Democrats.com is to be praised for publicizing and criticizing the extent to which their party collaborates with the Cheney/Bush government. But their term “Bush Democrats” is superficial and misleading. Yes, Democrats still aid and abet the simpleton in the Oval Office, even now that he has no “political capital” left. [Remember how full of himself he was when Condi Rice taught him that expression after the 2004 election! He couldn’t say it often enough.] The problem is not just that Democrats tremble at the thought of seeming like they don’t “support the troops” or seeming “soft on terrorism.” The pathology exhibited by so-called Bush Democrats, and most other Democrats too, runs deeper.
The problem is that what Cheney and Bush want, most Democrats also want: they want to make the world safe for their paymasters in the military-industrial complex, giving them pretty much everything they want or think they need – militarily, diplomatically and domestically. The only difference: the Democrats would do it more competently, and with a little bit more concern for the sensibilities of their core constituencies. The word I’ve been using to describe their political orientation from the day I started this blog is “Clintonism.” As I’ve argued from Day One, the designation is apt. What democrats.com calls “Bush Democrats” are Clinton Democrats.
Freud used the word “illusion” to designate beliefs that are expressions of (unconscious) desires. As such, illusions can be true, though they usually are not. Many liberals harbor illusions (in Freud’s sense) about Barack Obama. Perhaps, after he becomes President, they won’t be too disappointed. As of now, however, the evidence suggests that they will feel sorely deceived; it supports the hypothesis that Obama is a Clinton Democrat too. As I’ve explained in my two most recent entries, by incorporating old Clinton hands into his campaign apparatus, Obama is currently moving even more unmistakably in a Clintonite direction. Now, it seems, that Hillary herself will be campaigning with Obama later this week. Can Bill be far behind? One can only hope that these developments will bring Obamamaniacs, the ones who weren’t born yesterday, to their senses. Don’t count on it, however.
Not seeing Obama’s Clintonism for what it is makes it ever more likely that yet another opportunity will be missed. [The biggest missed opportunity for the Democratic Party was not selecting a more progressive nominee. John Edwards would have been a far better choice than Barack Obama; so would Bill Richardson or Chris Dodd. If we add in the “unelectables,” Dennis Kucinich and (my favorite) Mike Gravel, it is plain just how awry the nomination process went.] Anyway, the time to start working on Obama is now. He must be pulled away from the Clintonites, towards the hundred fifty-one Democrats who’ve finally seen the light on Iraq and the hundred twenty-eight who’ve seen the light on “the war on terror.” It will be too late to wait for the defeat in November of the greater evil, the doddering war-mongering, “maverick” Bushman Obama will run against. To be sure, a Clintonite Restoration, especially one without a Clinton in the lead, is an improvement over another four years of the Republican version of Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush politics. But, at this juncture, we can do better than that; we can have a much less evil lesser evil. However, to that end, it will be necessary to push hard; Obama and the forces pulling him Clintonward must be fought diligently every step of the way.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Obama Slouches Rightward, part 2
Lets be ultra-charitable and forgive Obama for doing what he thinks he must to get elected. If he doesn’t want to be pictured with Muslim women wearing headscarves, as happened at the Gore endorsement rally in Detroit, that’s reprehensible, but OK. In a better possible world, public displays of godliness would be as offensive to the vast majority as public displays of same-sex love are to the godly in this possible world. But, in our time and place, the exclusion of those women makes public relations sense – notwithstanding the plain fact that it represents a concession to the most rampant form of contemporary xenophobia. A Democrat’s gotta do what a Democrat’s gotta do. Ditto for rejecting public financing. Ditto even for abject pandering to right-wing Cubans and Zionists; though that’s even more blatantly reprehensible because it wouldn’t happen in that better possible world where the godly would feel compelled to act out their superstitions and ignorance in private. One could even forgive Obama’s likely acquiescence in the Pelosiite “compromise” on Bush war funding when it comes to the Senate. I’ll bet he finds some way to absent himself when the time come to vote. If he doesn’t, my guess is that he’ll vote like the Pelosiite he is. What is least likely, the way things are now going, is that he’ll side with the minority of Democrats who are finally willing to join the handful of their more principled colleagues who were in the opposition from day one, by insisting that enough is enough. Ever since Bush and Cheney launched their campaigns of murder and mayhem, Democrats have been falling over themselves to “support the troops” (by keeping them in harm’s way and forcing them to perform unspeakable and often criminal acts). Don’t count on Obama to put that perceived public relations “necessity” in jeopardy any time soon.
What I find more troubling, precisely because it is so plainly unnecessary, is Obama’s incorporation of Clintonites into his “Senior Working Group on National Security.” About the only redeeming feature is that Richard Holbrooke isn’t included – yet. But Madeleine (Mad Maddy) Albright is. Our former Secretary of State is at least as guilty as her boss of actionable offenses in Iraq (killing at least a half million children and many more adults through sanctions), Yugoslavia (illegally promoting the disintegration of the country, causing wanton devastation and encouraging ethnic cleansing), and wherever else it seemed expedient. So is the hapless Warren G. Christopher, Clinton’s first Secretary of State and the “mastermind” of Al Gore’s strategy in the Florida vote recount. There is also Tony Lake, Clinton’s national security advisor; Georgia’s former right-wing Senator Sam Nunn of fund-the-military-industrial-complex fame; and Oklahoma’s David Boren, lifelong friend of the “intelligence” community. There are others equally bad. Read about them here.
During the primary season, when the worst of the Clintonites still had a Clinton to work for, Obama, whether by necessity or conviction, assembled a slightly less motley crew of foreign policy advisors, comprised of people who at least had the good sense to oppose the Iraq War and otherwise to fault the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld crew for their rank incompetence. Thus we had the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Clarke, Larry Korb, and “humanitarian interventionist” (and other woman’s other woman) Samantha Power running the show. It was, on the whole, a lesser evil. But now even that improvement over the Hillary group is slipping away, as the Hillary group is melded into the Obama fold.
It could get a lot worse too. There are many indications that the Bush government will soon give Israel the green light to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. If that happens, all hell will break loose. Who can say how much worse the situation in the Middle East will then become, or what the effects will be on the American economy. All that is predictable is that instead of slouching rightward at his present, ever accelerating pace, Obama, eternal friend of the Promised Land, will go into full gallop mode – with the worst of the Clintonites in tow.
What I find more troubling, precisely because it is so plainly unnecessary, is Obama’s incorporation of Clintonites into his “Senior Working Group on National Security.” About the only redeeming feature is that Richard Holbrooke isn’t included – yet. But Madeleine (Mad Maddy) Albright is. Our former Secretary of State is at least as guilty as her boss of actionable offenses in Iraq (killing at least a half million children and many more adults through sanctions), Yugoslavia (illegally promoting the disintegration of the country, causing wanton devastation and encouraging ethnic cleansing), and wherever else it seemed expedient. So is the hapless Warren G. Christopher, Clinton’s first Secretary of State and the “mastermind” of Al Gore’s strategy in the Florida vote recount. There is also Tony Lake, Clinton’s national security advisor; Georgia’s former right-wing Senator Sam Nunn of fund-the-military-industrial-complex fame; and Oklahoma’s David Boren, lifelong friend of the “intelligence” community. There are others equally bad. Read about them here.
During the primary season, when the worst of the Clintonites still had a Clinton to work for, Obama, whether by necessity or conviction, assembled a slightly less motley crew of foreign policy advisors, comprised of people who at least had the good sense to oppose the Iraq War and otherwise to fault the Cheney/Bush/Rumsfeld crew for their rank incompetence. Thus we had the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Richard Clarke, Larry Korb, and “humanitarian interventionist” (and other woman’s other woman) Samantha Power running the show. It was, on the whole, a lesser evil. But now even that improvement over the Hillary group is slipping away, as the Hillary group is melded into the Obama fold.
It could get a lot worse too. There are many indications that the Bush government will soon give Israel the green light to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. If that happens, all hell will break loose. Who can say how much worse the situation in the Middle East will then become, or what the effects will be on the American economy. All that is predictable is that instead of slouching rightward at his present, ever accelerating pace, Obama, eternal friend of the Promised Land, will go into full gallop mode – with the worst of the Clintonites in tow.
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