What I've seen and read in the past few days has sickened me. In that short time span, someone who should know better has reinforced every absurd, disproved frame about the American economy, and more fundamentally, human existence.
I bit my Internet "tongue" and said nothing about the sadly obsequious performance by the President of the United States at the joint appearance of Obama and GE CEO Jeff Immelt. Thirty seconds of that video was enough to illustrate to me that any hope that opponents of this evil system might still have that Obama is something of a kindred spirit must be dashed by that performance. Obama's smiling, nodding demeanor, as Immelt spouted Capitalist bromides discredited completely by The Collapse of recent memory, was equivalent to political ipecac.
But that was not enough in the minds of the White House to demonstrate the politically restorative emergence of "Obama 2.0," as always trustworthy CNBC oracle Larry Kudlow tentatively termed Obama in light of the Immelt appointment. A lifelong strategy of playing to professors and influential classmates continued to guide the President as he managed to utter one of the more absurd bromides in the history of Presidential SOTUs:
Our free enterprise system is what drives innovation.
Unquestionably true if what counts as "innovation" is the alphabet soup of MBS, CDS and CDOs. That's innovation Capitalist-style where the impact on humanity could matter less. Ask the people who live and used to live in neighborhoods where 25% and more of the houses have been leveled because of the brilliant "innovation" of our marvelous "free fraud enterprise" system.
Thank the gods for Capitalism, otherwise known as "free enterprise." If it were not for Capitalism, we would not have controlled fire, invented the wheel or learned to make group decisions democratically like the Athenians. Human beings are helpless on their own, don't you know? How could we ever manage to think, create or produce? Without the drive of profit without limit, wealth and power without end, no one would even bother to get up in the morning. Let's forget the historical fact that Capitalism is a relatively recent phenomenon that arrived well after human beings had managed to emerge from total barbarism.
Now it's true that Obama followed that execrable sentence with a half-assed attempt to introduce a disclaimer. Those on the Left who persist in considering this President to be anything other than hostile to their views will try to see this as yet another instance of lousy messaging that unintentionally reinforces the most Randian views out there.
Bullshit. Obama and his team are highly skilled in their usage of words. The paragraph from the SOTU that sits on the front page contains two contradictory views of how human beings advance. One sees competition as the source. The other sees cooperation. Like the typical politician, Obama includes both as if he believes in both. He is a thoroughly 21st century politician. His goal is not to convince others of what is right. It is to convince you that he believes what you believe.
What anyone with Leftist views on economic matters should be asking themselves is: which does he state most prominently, most succinctly and most powerfully. Which is stated as the fundamental principle and which as the qualification?
Obama is the exception that proves the rule. An ambitious fellow determined to rise, he realized early on that too much principle operates as drag, while catering to the powerful works as lift. With his Presidency in trouble, he made a fundamental decision not to stand on principle and make his case to the people who elected him. Instead, he abandoned his campaign promises and made his case to the Immelts of the world that he would serve their interests. Watch the Immelt video here. He smiles and obliges and listens attentively as if the real king in the room was the corporate CEO, elected by the stockholders, not the POTUS, elected by the people.
And when he stands in the Capitol, he elects not to stand with the people against those who oppress them, but to serve as a salesman on behalf of those he views as his employers.
There's nothing new about it. For Bush, Jr., it came naturally. He was no employee, though, but a member of the ruling class as well as its spokesperson. His fumbling, bumbling manner should have alerted those less acquainted with America's elite, that merit has little to do with the accumulation of power and money in this country. It should have served as a warning that this system is destroying itself because it values connections over competence.
My personal reaction to these two Presidents is different. For Bush, it was outrage that such a fool should have attained such power merely because of family privilege in a country that pretends to be democratic. With Obama, it is sadness that such a talented individual, with legitimate working class roots, should have found money and power more seductive than solidarity with us.