There's an old saying, that "The enemy of my enemy is my friend".
While I don't necessarily subscribe to that chestnut in any absolute sense, my ears do perk up when I hear right wing reactionary conservatives go into hysterical attack mode against someone like Obama.
It naturally makes me think that this person must have something going for them, if the right hates and fears them so much, heh.
When they started calling Obama "the most liberal Senator in the Congress", it piqued my interest in him substantially, even knowing that it wasn't really true,
As absurd as it may be, for them to call Obama some kind of flaming commie, or "socialist", for consorting with "terrorists" like Bill Ayers, and "anti-American ideologues" like Rev. Wright, I think such reactions are really a good opening for further discussion of the real implications of the right wing line, and pressing the contradictions of that line and practice, in so many ways.
Polarization is good, if we don't let the opposition use it to beat us over the head, but wield it as our own powerful weapon to clearly delineate and define the issues.
My main disappointment with Obama during the campaign was how he avoided that deeper conversation, by backing away from Ayers and throwing Wright "under the bus", instead of meeting the charges head on.
Instead of discussing in any detail what Ayers was really all about, back in the day, and especially now, or providing any real analysis of the completely out of context and misrepresentative sound bite loops of Wright's "Goddamn America" remarks, Obama evaded those very real and substantial issues, and merely tried to distance himself from the totally contrived, bogus media hype.
I think it indicated both a lack of confidence in the ability of the general public to understand and deal with those issues, and also a more practical understanding that the commercial bourgeois media would never allow such an addressment to occur without merely selectively manipulating any such attempt at rational dialog, to just further stoke the contrived, bogus hype.
It was like John Kerry, when he got "swift-boated", and retreated from the principled stand he had taken against the war upon his return from Viet Nam.
Instead of proudly standing up and contending, and confirming that he was against the war, and why, he avoided that deep subject altogether, and chose instead to emphasize his "service" in the military.
While the fact that he had, indeed, fought in Viet Nam was a very good point to raise, in the context of an opponent who had chosen to exercise his rich white privilege and dodge the draft to avoid "service", Kerry did not even press that point, taking the "high ground" by just bragging about his own "service", and leaving it to others to draw attention to the contrast.
He never once, that I saw, spoke to or defended his subsequent opposition to the war, or his regrets over having been suckered into participation in the war. This only lent credence to the right wing assertions that he had something to be ashamed of, and that his big mistake was not his participation in the war, but his opposition to it.
When politicians assume that the public is not ready to deal with the deeper aspects of such issues and seek to merely gloss over or avoid them, they only allow such deep wounds in our social fabric to fester.
We need to lance the infection, release the puss, and allow the healing process to ensue. As nasty and repulsive as the puss may be, covering it up with bandaids and ignoring it only prolongs and tends to spread the infection.
Now, those who choose to take the most extreme absolutist idealistic ultra-left dogmatic doctrinaire oppositionalist stance can point to this phenomenon as a confirmation that all liberal bourgeois politicians are nothing but disgusting half-stepping, back-stabbing wimps with no backbone, and thus unworthy of any support whatsoever, let alone a vote.
And they won't be entirely, absolutely "wrong", in that regard, sigh...
But to my mind there is still a qualitative difference, between, say, a Bush, or a freakin' Palin, and someone who, on the other hand, opposed the war in Viet Nam, or who is willing to listen to what Bill Ayers has to say and work with him on some common goals, or who goes to Rev. Wright's church for 20 years.
However inadequate and vacillating liberal bourgeois theory and practice may be, I see them as "better", to a very substantial, if only relative, degree, heh, than those who are freaking out and attacking them so hysterically and viciously from the right.
You can say it's only an exercise in bogus drama, to create an illusion of "difference", but I'm just not buying that line that they are all "the same".
Rhetoric matters, and develops legs of it's own, in terms of raising, or lowering, the hopes and expectations of the masses. Obama's rhetoric of "Hope" and "Change" is just way better in that regard than the fear and loathing promulgated by the Republicans.
Even, I say, if he's lying through his teeth...Obama's more positive rhetoric is "better", relatively speaking, than that of the right wing reactionaries, in terms of what we, as revolutionaries, can do with it, and use it for.
And I don't think Obama is necessarily lying through his teeth, in every regard, heh.
His analysis and practice may be grossly inadequate, and he may, indeed, dissemble to a dismaying degree...but I think his more sincere intentions, and his actual material practice will still prove far superior to anything McCain/freakin Palin could ever be expected to manifest.
Will it be different "enough"? Highly unlikely, I must acknowledge, from all indications. He is, after all, just another rich bourgeois liberal, more or less, relatively speaking, even if he is black, with some muslim and foreign heritage, and some personal experience of poverty and of later fighting as a grassroots community organizer and a lawyer, for poor people.
LOL! I just think this is way better, than freakin' Palin, say, and her associations with Joel's Army, which should be grounds for her execution, as a traitor.
(Please understand, I am not saying that someone should just drag her out in the street and shoot her out of hand...she should get a fair trial first...suppression of such elements should be conducted in a just and legitimate democratic manner)
Oh well...it seems few of the people who "matter" would agree with me...if we can't even prosecute Bush and Cheney, such ultimately necessary comprehensive developments seem highly unlikely, at least for a time.
But, anyway, is Obama a flaming right wing reactionary conservative? I hardly think so. Not any more so, indeed, considerably less so, than he is a "goddamn commie", a flaming "liberal", or an absolutely politically correct "progressive".
There is only one absolute in politics, and that is that there are no absolutes.
Now that Obama has had a chance to actually do some stuff, we can begin to move out of the realm of sheer speculation and extrapolation, to evaluate what material relative differences we have seen thus far, and what we might be able to realistically expect as an indication from that, in the future.
So, lets see your Pros and Cons, in the comments, please? Both in terms of Obama, and also McCain/Palin, if you will...
You can compile your laundry lists of grievances, detailing every appointment, every projected policy statement, and every actual action taken thus far, to prove that Obama is not good "enough" by any absolute standard of ideal perfection...and you certainly won't be "wrong" in that regard, lol. But, in all fairness, please state how this is "exactly the same", or "no better" than Bush, or McCain/freakin' Palin?
And, for those who think Obama can do no wrong, lol...or who just agree that he is, relatively speaking, at least somewhat better than the Bush regime and what McCain/freakin' Palin have to offer, you can compile your lists of Obama's positive accomplishments thus far, and what can reasonably to be expected of him.
As deplorable as all of the Cons will be, no doubt, I will still most likely hold, for the most part, that even then, he's "better", relatively speaking, in terms of lives lost, lives improved, steps in the right direction as opposed to steps in the wrong direction, and overall progress toward our ultimate goals, as revolutionaries, than anything McCain/Palin and the Republicans would ever "offer" us.
Let the Pros speak up for this perspective! To the extent that you're willing and able to articulate a direct comparison to what Bush delivered, or what could have been expected from McCain/Palin, so much the better...
I will consistently take a position that even if Obama allows, or even directly causes, 100,000 deaths, and "only" improves the lives of a million people, that this is, relatively speaking, far "better" than causing a million deaths, and improving only 100,000 lives.
Is it good "enough"? Hell no, and I never said it was. Is it "better"? Hell yeah, if you care anything at all about peoples' lives.
Meanwhile, the struggle continues, regardless.
I still say that democracy is the most fundamental revolutionary concept.
Call off the electoral boycott, and mobilize that 100 million people who refused to vote this time! Sweep the rest of the Republicans and Blue Dogs from all levers of power, at all levels, to the greatest extent possible!
Seize the Time!
All Power to the People!