Here Comes the New Boss

Stelios Varias,Reuters



A friend who knows my political views asked me: "you're not looking forward to tomorrow, are you?" Referring of course to the ascent of Obama to the presidential throne. Now to be honest, I don't know how I feel about Obama, expressed on a simple level of positive/negative, good/bad, what have you. Unlike Rob Payne, I'm willing to acknowledge that between Obama and McCain, Obama might be marginally preferable, notwithstanding the embarrassment evoked by the contingent who insist on treating him like he can part the sea and persuade the sun to shine.

That's not the same as saying I think he was a desirable choice for president per se, or even for the democratic nomination-- but I'll get to that. This April Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens will turn 89, later this year Ruth Bader Ginsberg will be 76, and in fact the youngest of the liberal members of the court, Stephen Breyer, will turn 70 in 2009. I would have preferred somebody like Dennis Kucinich or even John Edwards had been the president to appoint Stevens's and Ginsberg's replacements, but that was not to be. I note this because it's pretty likely they will retire soon, and with a certain unease I'll nevertheless assert that I prefer Obama rather than McCain(or Palin) be the person to appoint their replacements.

In spite of what I see as the broader reality of Obama's nature as a corporatist quisling, I imagine some modest benefits will emerge from Obama being president rather than McCain. Federal policy on stem-cell research may become sane again, and (possibly) his environmental policies will be better than McCain's would have been. But as far as foreign and economic policy go, I doubt we'll see anything that represents "hope" or "change", with or without ironic quotation marks.

I suppose the thing I find so maddening about the ascendancy of Obama is it comes along at precisely the moment that the broader public was probably readier than they have been in decades for a real liberal reformer in the white house, what with the many missteps of the second George Bush and his cronies. And instead we get Barack Obama, who seems intent on repackaging soak-the-poor and destroy-the-welfare-state politics as the new, new liberalism, the variety you didn't know you wanted until he came along and cleared things up. It seems so abundantly clear to me that he's a fraud, a speaker of pretty words that flatter the ill-informed, and that his bipartisan, "post-ideological" ethos is really just craven opportunism, the positioning of a product-- which in this case is also a person-- in the marketplace of politics so it looks its best in the available light.

And yet, on one side of our screwy political culture we have the Obamazoids who want to flash a victory sign and cheer their new messiah so they can stop thinking and just groove on a warm feeling, and on the other the talk-radio cretins who insist that he's a socialist(?!), possibly because he doesn't want to bomb Ahmedinejad without talking to him first, or because he's never hunted moose from an airplane. Or because he's black.

About that. Although the historical significance of our first black president has been over-sold, I think even people understandably leery of the hype and the cult of Obama need to allow that his election is a sign of social progress, even if you have to qualify it by also recognizing how strenuously Obama bent over backwards to reassure middle America that he was the nice, non-threatening type of black guy, the one that Hollywood leads us to believe will absolve us of our sins in the great shopping mall in the sky.

Another friend tells me to "give him a chance," as if my attitude makes the least bit of difference. While I don't think my attitude towards Obama is remotely relevant, I'm guessing my attitude towards his flock does matter. It's probably vanity to hope to personally change the political landscape for the better, at least in terms of measurable individual effort. But collective effort is the sum of the individuals who try to achieve.....thing x, whatever that thing is, whether it's through the march of a million people or the raising of a hundred million dollars for a cause.

When I saw a news story in October about the Obama organization raising 150 million dollars in 30 days, roughly concurrent with the demise of Cursor, I couldn't help but think about that, about how the flesh is willing, the collective progressive impulse is there, but the collective mind is weak, misdirected by personality-oriented politics. The people at Cursor said all they need is about 75 grand to run for a year,a sum Obama could raise in less than half an hour. And Cursor did more to wake people up to the issues of the day than a hundred celebrity-penned Huffington Post op-eds. Not in terms of audience size, unfortunately, but in terms of the quality and relevance of the content.

But-- also unfortunately-- that clearly isn't enough. I thought about that ironic disconnect again today, when I saw the images of over one million-- and possibly close to two million-- people converging at the mall in D.C. to see Obama become president-- of how the collective progressive impulse is there, but that, functionally, Obama is an agent of (the co-option of) change.

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people," or so the old saying goes. It may well be true, but making fun of those millions who believe in Obama the savior of America rather than reaching out to them is willful and vain and stupid. Large numbers of them, black and white and otherwise, will experience a letdown when Obama emerges as just another politician, and to borrow from Barack himself, that will be a "teachable moment."

Remind yourself of 2003, and how unlikely George Bush's days with lower ratings than Nixon seemed when he was prancing around on that aircraft carrier. Obama undoubtedly has more sense than Bush Junior, at least as far as permitting himself such an unrestrained display of hubris, but even he has to realize that you can't get an 80 percent approval rating just for being the president-elect without an inevitable falling action being in store. And how much of his current approval is mere approval for his not-George-Bush quality? Even you and I and the cashier at Quiznos possess that same quality, and as far as I know nobody voted for us.

I could say, "naturally I hope I'm wrong about Obama...." largely out of a desire to seem like a reasonable person. Well sure, I do hope I'm wrong, but I think such a hope is insufficient, and the afore-mentioned letdown is coming. And I repeat: simply making fun of the millions who believe in him is unwise, insofar as large numbers of them WILL decide he isn't what they hoped he would be. And then what? Some of them are-- will be-- reachable.

(If anything, I'd guess that a lot of the newly politicized Obamazoids are among the more reachable, because their brains aren't as full of the accomodationist bullshit that so many regular rank-and-file democrats have crammed their craniums with, the kind of folks that Dennis Perrin regularly warns us about.)

In the meantime, liberalism is bleeding in the gutter where it was left by Reagan, and the Clintons, and Fox news, and by the democratic party leadership, and the faux-liberal putative left who eagerly swallow one "third way" capitulation after another, and by the rest of the news networks... and Obama.


cross-posted at Dead Horse.

Should you vote? Does it matter? pt 1

1.Noam Chomsky and the "lesser of two evils":



2."He Will Probably End the War" - Obama Rally in WI, via the Veracifier:



I note that The Real News has changed the title of the Chomsky piece. Now it's "Chomsky: In swing states vote Obama without illusions." Another video snippet of their talk with him is here: "Chomsky on the Economy."

As far as the Veracifier piece goes, I can't help but feel a little sad, and think that even though kids are supposed to see things as they are in an unvarnished light, the girl who adds the caveat "probably" is nevertheless apparently enthusiastic about the probable end of the war and the probable savior, even as her qualification suggests that his hemming and hawing has registered with her-- well,probably.

But back to the questions, and Mimi's question from about a week ago-- if you should vote, and if it makes any difference, and how do ordinary people do something about our lumbering, out-of-control empire?

I don't think not voting is a valid option, but I'm not quick to put down people who don't vote. Sure, maybe it's laziness, maybe it's contentment, in some quarters. But I imagine for many non-voters it's the sense that US Democracy is an incredibly extravagant dog-and-pony show, and who ends up winning is unlikely to matter terribly much. Is that so easy to refute?

Cheerful boos for Hillary

At the YearlyKos convention, the mixed reception for Hillary Clinton is more evidence that the liberal blogosphere might not take sides in the coming Democratic primary.

Michael Scherer, Salon, 6 Aug 2007:

The only candidate who was booed louder than Clinton at Saturday's presidential debate was the unlikely left-winger Dennis Kucinich. He made the mistake of aping one-time presidential candidate Ralph Nader, who regularly attacked the Democratic leadership as a bunch of sellouts. "Why don't people vote?" Kucinich asked, rhetorically. "It's because they don't think there is much of a difference between the two parties." The booing immediately drowned Kucinich out. He had committed a cardinal sin, demeaning the Democratic Party before a crowd that works countless unpaid hours a week to make the party stronger. He had also provided, inadvertently, another reason for Clinton to smile. The YearlyKos community may not be her most natural constituency, but it is also unlikely to be her enemy.

more recently, Xymphora writes:
A very big Republican loss would be very good for the United States, not because the Democrats will be much better (they won't), but because it will entail a complete reevaluation by the old-school Republicans of the fundamental nature of their party, and the forced removal of the Christian fruitcakes from mainstream American politics.

more later.(cross-posted at "Dead Horse")

Dead Horse: September 1st(Part 1 of 2)

Sometimes it's difficult for me to write according to the perceived dictates of blogging, by which each post is supposed to be about a discrete topic, ostensibly separate from the topics that precede and follow. For example, when I look at the miasma of events in recent weeks I try to give them a context, at least within my own noggin. South Ossetia, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin, the "pre-emptive" Minneapolis police raid(also here (via), hurricane Gustav, the forced resignation of Pakistan's corrupt strongman(and the continued non-resignation of our own president), they're all connected, at least in my mind.

Yesterday I called my father, whom I hadn't talked to in a couple of months, and I expressed my disappointment with Obama. My pop is intelligent enough not to fall for the "historical opportunity" song-and-dance, and he's not the sort to be reactively aghast at the thought that somebody might think that the meaningful differences between the two parties is becoming increasingly irrelevant. Nevertheless, he said that he felt the differences that do exist do matter, and that you don't have to be crazy about the nominee to vote for him, because at least he's not McCain, etc. You know, the lesser-of-two-evils argument.

The cartoonishly earnest change-fetish segment of Obama's supporters get a lot of media(and blogosphere) attention, but, win or lose, it's unlikely they make up that big a segment of the voting populace, or even of the people who will end up voting for him. I suspect that the number of voters who choose Obama in November who take a more sober approach like my father are far larger. In a recent comment thread at Jonathan Schwarz's ATR, Nell of A Lovely Promise argued that turning away from the Democratic ticket because you're hoping to hasten the decline of the US empire was a form of "armchair Leninism", and noted that it's pollyannish to expect that a more enlightened state would inevitably emerge from the rubble-- and I suspect she's right.

cross-posted at Dead Horse.)

Two items

Dave Neiwert at Orcinus, "The crazies and Obama":

read some of the details emerging from that militia bust in Pennsylvania that the media have been studiously ignoring. To wit:

Bradley T. Kahle, 60, of Troutville, was one of five people arrested in last weekend's sweep. He told undercover agents he hoped Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama would be killed if they were elected president, and that he would shoot judicial and law enforcement officials if he became terminally ill, according to an affidavit of probable cause made public Tuesday.

"Kahle said words to the effect of, that 'if Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama, get elected, hopefully they will get assassinated, if not they will disarm the country and we will have a civil war,'" the affidavit stated.

The same man also told authorities he planned to visit Pittsburgh so he could get on top of a high rise and start shooting black people. And of course, the judge let him go on bail. Would I be crazy to suspect that if he were a Muslim talking about shooting white people from a high rise and hoping John McCain would get killed, no judge on earth would let him go?

Jay Taber writes, on the "Culture of imbeciles":

"This Guy apparently thinks most Americans are incapable of even comprehending a concept like centrist."

I've been trying, as is so often the case in fits and starts, to wrestle with a longer piece about how Right and Left/Conservative and Liberal have stopped meaning what they used to mean in practical terms, even if many people continue to apply the old assumptions. Of course many of the assumptions aren't really that old, but stereotypes developed by the Reaganites in the 1970s and 1980s. But they still have a lot of currency, in terms of how people think about the political spectrum here in the U.S.

At one point I wanted to call it "Liberalism and its Discontents", but that seemed insufferably gaseous. Later I wanted to call it "Liberalism in the Pelagic Zone", using the metaphor of being at sea far from recognizable landmarks, and discussing the ways we seek out things by which to establish reference points, and the unseen creatures towards the bottom, beyond where sunlight penetrates, like the mysterious Kissinger Fish or the Carlyle Group Lamprey.

Part of my meaning, which I'm having some difficulty fleshing out, can be limned by asking yourself why in the world anybody would consider either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama to be liberals, when at the very best they're centrists. (And by no means our best centrists.) It's NOT simply a question of being "more liberal" than the centrist democrats-- I think Ron Paul's candidacy and the nerve he touched helped demonstrate this.

(The usually perceptive David Neiwert, whom I quote above, insisted on doing everything he could to tear Paul down earlier this year. He did this , I think, in part I think because he could only see the forest for the trees, while nevertheless grasping that Paul represented a mirror that showed the cracks in modern liberalism's facade, and had to be put down at any cost...)

Jeremiah Wright and Samantha Power and their relationships with Obama also demonstrate this, in two more ways.

I'll get back to this soon.

Mike Gravel leaves the democrats

On Wednesday Mike Gravel announced that he was leaving the Democratic party and joining the Libertarian Party, with the intent of securing their nomination for president. While I don't think Gravel is a real libertarian(and that's mostly a good thing), I can easily understand his sentiment when he says "I didn't leave the democratic party, the democratic party left me." (see video, above)

Although I don't entirely agree with his platform, to me the fact that he's nearly 78 is the only shortcoming Gravel presents as a viable candidate. Yes, he's an unpolished debater and very few people take him seriously, but those are separate matters.(I also like his sense of humor, as evinced by the rock-in-the-lake video.)

If you live in a solidly red state like I do, it makes very little sense to vote for the democrat when the GOP will win all your state's electors, but a vote for Cynthia McKinney of the Green Party, or Gravel should he secure the Libertarian nomination, is a meaningful way to vote against the war, and doesn't strike me as any more of a "wasted vote" here than voting for the democratic nominee, especially one who's already hemmed and hawed about withdrawing from Iraq by 2012, as both HRC and Obama have.

Perhaps even less of a "wasted vote," if you think about it. In the past the Libertarian Party has always made the ballot here in Texas in presidential years, but the Greens weren't on the ballot here in 2004. The dynamic is substantially different in a place like, say, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.


Given Gravel's historically important role in defending an open society[video], you'd think the mainstream press would have told you about Gravel's announcement. I didn't see anything about it on TV, but both the Washington Post and New York Times dealt with it using the new 21st century style of burying news on the back pages: by only discussing the news in their blogs.

WaPo, here, and NYT, here.