ALL: PLEASE UNREC THIS DIARY (I've got my answers) AND REC THIS ONE BY TOMP (On the rec list, but should go to the top). THANKS TO ALL FOR YOUR COMMENTS AND RECS.
For the past couple of weeks I've gone somewhat 'round and 'round with Obama supporters here and elsewhere. My premise:
Hope, conciliation, making friends and finding common ground make for fine, wishful thinking, but such Happy Thoughts will do nothing to effectuate change in the mindset and dark, soulless hearts of what I call the Neo Robber Barons, e.g., Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Insurance and the Banking, Credit Card and Health Care Industries. And, if he goes to the White House, Obama's lovefest be CRUSHED under the weight and remorseless power of these industries, their GOP minions and lobbyists.
Typical Obama-supporter responses to this assertion are below the fold. I'm afraid they range from the "fingers-in-the-ears 'la, la, la' I can't hear you" vein, to vague, to, well, silly. Not much "there" there to back up this "hope", it seems...
First, let me lay out my case/position with a little more clarity (so as to, hopefully, get some clearer responses than I've thus far received).
I'm an attorney. I've compromised and settled many more cases than I've had to try. But I also know, from about 17 years of experience in taking on the worst of offenders, that no large corporation or insurance company has, or will, EVER come to the bargaining table unless their made to: appeals to "reason" and "doing the right thing" are taken as weakness by the corporate behemoths. Mind you, they can be brought to the negotiating table: when you've got their balls in a vice.
But sweet talk, while no vice, ain't no vise. Or, to quote Kosniac philgoblue: "(Mere) hope will lose to the profit motive".
"Allow me to further quote from a comment posted by another Kosniac attorney, Kentucky DeanDemocrat:
"I'm an attorney too, and so is John Edwards. He knows these people, as do you, and there is literally no way they're amenable to sweet talk or appeals to their consciences. They have none. These people are ruthless, and politics to them is simply an extension of their businesses. They recognize power and money and nothing else. They let people die for the sake of the corporate bottom line, for God's sake. FDR fought them tooth and nail and won. Nothing less will even get you into the arena.
"Audaciously hoping is, quite simply, a waste of time."
I wonder how many Obama supporters have actually filed fraud, bad faith, personal injury, discrimination or other such lawsuits against large corporations and insurance companies and have seen what they're like when you (1) accuse them of wrongdoing; and, (2) try to separate them from their profits. I've represented clients in claims and cases against the likes of Allstate, Halliburton, Accor, ServiceMaster and a host of other insurance companies and corporations. They. Do. Not. Negotiate. Unless. They're. Made. To. Negotiate. They laugh long and loud at "sweet reason" and appeals to conscience.
Other Obama Supporters, besides the Hopeful Ones.
"Even a cursory glance at Obama's money men is enough to confirm that fact. The list includes Wall Street hotshots from Lehman Brothers, Oppenheimer and Co., and Citigroup, a smattering of Hollywood players and Native American casino interests, representatives of big pharmaceuticals and the insurance sector — in short, all the major food groups of reviled corporate influence-hunters.
"Worse still, Obama's financial backing is reflected in some of his Senate votes and campaign positions, including most notably his support for expanding NAFTA to Peru, limiting the ability of injured workers and consumers to sue for damages, and pouring federal funds into E85 corn-based ethanol, an alternative fuel for which the market is dominated by the Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland Company. More than once I heard Obama give stirring speeches, only to mar them with plugs for ethanol."
(Emphasis mine)
See Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi, December 13, 2007. Hat tip and thanks to TracyLynn for bringing this to my/our attention.
Obama-Supporter Responses:
So, with that, the kind of responses I've received range from (actual quotes over the past 48 hours on Daily Kos):
+ Obama's fought "against the Chicago machine".
+ I'm just doing a "chicken little act" when I ask how "Happy Talk" will be able to wrest any smidgen of power from the Neo Robber Barons.
+ I'm just engaging in the "politics of fear".
+ "Whatever. Like Edwards is any better."
+ Obama worked with other Senators on "ethics reform".
+ A WaPo column gave one (count 'em: 1) substantive example of Obama working with opponents in Illinois: getting a bill passed to have police interrogations videotaped. Note - the column also cites Obama's helping out the cops pass legislation they wanted; it doesn't say what that legislation was (a pay raise? additional immunity from prosecution for using excessive force during roadside detentions?).
+ HERE'S ONE from the comments below: "Nah, cuz you're probably beyond convincing anyway."
Forgive me, but none of these really address my issue with Obama, to wit: Happy Talk, Hope, and Fairy Dust will run into a BUZZSAW of GOP/Neo Robber Baron opposition that will CRUSH all those pretty notions of "change".
So, like Diogenes searching for that "one honest man", I'm searching for that "one substantive response" to my issues with Obama. I should make special note of the fact that I looked at supporting Obama and came almost close to doing so, and then got very turned off, not at "hope" (hell, I hope, too!) but at what I consider to be a milquetoasty naivety that hope alone, that a willingness to be conciliatory, that wishful thinking and a willingness to compromise -- before even beginning to join the fight -- will do anything but (again) leave a large swath of the American citizenry under the heel of the most powerful corporations in the world, and a hellofalot of stunned Obama supporters wondering if anyone got the number of the truck that ran 'em all down in the weeks and months following Inauguration Day 2009.
One interlocutor hurled this back in my direction yesterday:
"'Mega Corps' will chew up and spit Edwards too."
Fair enough. But, as a Democrat with spine, I'd like to know that if that's the case, we went down fighting.
UPDATE: Good gracious, the fluff continues (sad to say). Over and over again Obama supporters (below) ignore this diary's request for a SUBSTANTIVE answer and just say "he has a track record" -- and simply can't or won't cite any real-world examples of how Obama's used Happy Conciliation (right from the get-go) to bring a conscienceless Neo Robber Baron to the bargaining table. Gad.
BenGoshi
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