A while back I sent an email to a friend and fellow Kossack expressing my concerns about Barack Obama. This is what it said:
"Obama has become code for anything and everything people hope to accomplish. The danger of course being that he will not succeed in even many, if not all of these expected changes.
"I'm guilty of this myself. I have no idea what to expect from an Obama presidency, and often find myself hoping for a miracle. But I fear when code-Obama is replaced by real-Obama, the one with real policies, real compromises, and real limits of power, a backlash will occur. Obama is the most dangerous politician in generations. He's dangerous to, at the very least, the fundraising establishment who are used to a receipt with with their politicians. Or he's dangerous to the people power movement because of the potential backlash if he fails, for whatever reason, or, God forbid, turns out to be a fraud."
Fraud is a strong word and I certainly would not allege that. But make no mistake: Obama has not "moved to the center." He has either dramatically altered his rhetoric or reversed his positions on several extremely important issues.
There is no fucking "center."
The cneter is a myth. A lie that the corporate hacks like David Broder like to sell to explain our politics for us. It explains nothing, and those who subscribe to it are inevitably in the dark.
What there is are issues. And positions on issues. The political spectrum, left-center-right analogy is convenient, like saying "the sun is going down". But we all know that the sun does not go down. The Earth rotates.
Obama is not shifting to any center. He is attempting to appeal to specific demographics on specific issues. National security, globalization, faith. All are designed to make him appeal more to fox news viewers, evangelicals and, of course, the most important demographic of all, the Wall Street globalist elites.
Fuck Unity and Bi-Partisanship
We've seen hints all along that Obama wanted to be a Unity 08 ticket all unto himself. "My ability to bring people together, across party lines..." etc. What we could never know for sure was the extent that that would involve him ending up as just another spineless capitulator Democrat.
Funny how, after all these years under Republican control, when the Democrats finally seize both houses of Congress, the most important thing in the world becomes unity and bi-partisanship.
The consequence of all this unity is that Change, the kind that you don't just put on a banner, always requires conflict. In fact, change IS conflict. And the change this country needs is going to require a monumental fight.
By extending the olive branch to the Right wing, backtracking on his positions on NAFTA, trade and globalization, and FISA, Obama has sent a clear message that his kind of change bears no hope of a fight, or even a much needed argument.
But he needs to be elected first. Right?
Wrong. We went through this with Bill Clinton. We, at least many of us, went along with Clinton's "ends justify the means" strategy of compromising everything we believed in in the hope that a greater good would come out of it. All we got was a massive expansion of corporate power, a green light to the "traders" to turn us into Mexico, ridiculous consolidation of the media, deregulation of Enron and company, and "twenty million new jobs" at Taco Bell. Oh, and Dick fucking Morris.
But most importantly, what we got from Bill Clinton was a complete failure to stand up for the basic Democratic principles that got us through the Great Depression, WWII, sent us to the moon, and created the first, healthy and enduring middle class in human history.
Instead we got New Democrat, pro corporate, Milton fucking Freidman, neoliberal capitalism. The covenant that was the New Deal - we're all in this together, social responsibility - was neatly replaced with you're-on your-fucking-own, "personal responsibility." Remember that? Along with the "Bridge to the 21st Century? What tripe.
We went from believing that democratic American government was the greatest agent of social justice the world had ever known, to the Reagan great lie that "government is the problem". Under Bill fucking Clinton. And Dick fucking Morris.
The False Prophet?
So now we've just hitched our progressive wagon to a guy who, within days of the hitching, morphed into another person. Turns out the extended primary left little time for Obama's triangulation, so it has come in a shocking, kick to the gut, thrust. By October, we won't remember FISA, or NAFTA, or "I'm a free market guy". Right?
Pussies
But the real loss now is these are transitional times. I have never seen the climate more ripe for the real kind of change our country needs. And the arguments over FISA, national security, and globalization desperately need to be heard. Just as the argument defending the role of government was so desperately needed during Bill Clinton's tenure.
But I'm afraid it is indelibly clear that Obama has no intention of having those arguments. He has no intention of challenging the lies of the Bush administration or prosecuting them. He has no intention of challenging the status quo of the con that is free trade. And he has no intention of reforming the corruption of money in our political process. (Oh you think, like Kos, that the small contributions of online donors negates the need to remove the bribery of campaign cash? Here's my correction to that silliness.)
We need a president who will make the argument.
I thought that perhaps Barack Obama would be dangerous to the globalists establishment parasite class who so benefit from the deconstruction of the United States into a meaningless free trade zone.
But now I am thinking he is far more dangerous to a desperate progressive uprising that has hitched their wagon to the enemy's horse. As I said in my email, if Obama turns out to be a fraud, the people powered movement that put him there may not survive.
And even if he's not a fraud but merely playing politics to get the job, he has almost no chance of success. You can't run on one agenda and govern from another. You have to stake your positions up front, during the campaign, fight the fight during the campaign, and if you win, your victory becomes your mandate.
Obama has just pissed his mandate away on two very important issues - the illegal and unnecessary violations of the 4th Amendment by George Bush, AT&T, and Verizon, and the diabolically immoral free trade regime.
The Freidmanian Candidate
The bankers and billionaires who pull the levers of power have a problem: backlash. In Latin America, the victims of the globalist, parasitic Milton Freidmanites known as the Chicago Boys (like Obama's two top economic advisers Austin Goolsby and Jeff Furman) have had enough. They are rejecting the neoliberal con job and wresting their economic futures back for themselves. These economic, populist uprisings have been lead by courageous leaders who risk their lives every day by standing up to the jackals of the CIA, the oil cartel, and the World Bank to try to bring relief to their people.
And this Backlash is happening around the globe. But the bankers and billionaires have a powerful weapon: support and elect faux reformers, faux populist, and frauds who really represent the interests of the monied elite. It almost worked in Bolivia where James Carville and his group of hacks went down to try to defeat Evo Morales with their faux populist neoliberal candidate Jorge Quiroga of the "Democratic and Social Power Party" (Yeah, clever name). Fortunately they failed. Morales won by 54%. Who really lost though was Carville's real clients, Big Oil.
Since Obama entered the race I've been trying to figure out if he is genuinely a man of the people, or the bankers and billionaires best weapon. His fundraising of small donors would suggest he is beholden to no one. But other than that, he sure fits the pattern. He's yet to offer one policy that would ruffle the feathers of the Business Roundtable. His health care plan sucks. He's spent three months doing the AIPAC dance. And for the last three days he's been pandering to the military industrial complex. Oh, and aside from all those small donors, Wall Street loves him too.
But the great thing about George Bush's presidency is any change, even back to the neoliberal policies of Bill Clinton, will seem like change we can believe in.
But I'm seriously beginning to fear for the progressive, people powered movement with Barack Obama at it's helm. We will get our short term triumph over the Republicans, but a false reformer has the effect of pouring cold water on the reform movement. Like I said, thinking our man is on the job.