<\/p>\n
UPDATE<\/b> below<\/p>\n
After his first months in No person making it to President these days is stupid. Not even George Bush. <\/span>Further, there has been a clear pattern to Obama’s “weakness.” <\/span>He has not been weak on serving the I think a glaring but too little appreciated weakness <\/p>\n Plurality election rules But today we have three<\/i> broad The third They have always been strong Whether deliberately or The most right wing Each such candidate will Each candidate also But when push comes to No matter who wins, the This destruction is happening With that in mind now let’s look again at For Progressives Obama With Obama’s tax Obama figures we have no There is a possible non-extreme solution over the long run, but it is one that most of the progressive wing of
\noffice Barack Obama increasingly perplexed me, particularly for the
\nfraudulent way he campaigned and then turned on his most dedicated supporters. I was particularly alarmed at his disdain for our constitutional principles<\/a> and his truly craven subservience to corporate criminals such as BP<\/a>. <\/p>\n
\nbanks, he has not been weak on serving big corporations, he has not been weak
\non serving the military industrial complex, and he has not been weak on
\namassing executive power. <\/span>He has only
\n<\/i>been weak on keeping his major progressive
\npromises. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n
\nin the American political system explains what is happening here.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
\n(who has the most votes wins) guarantee that we will almost always have a two
\nparty system. <\/span>Under those rules if
\nyou vote for a third party in practice you almost always help the major party
\nfarthest from your position.
\n<\/span>(Think Ralph Nader and Al Gore and George Bush) Throughout our history except just before the Civil War we have had only two major parties.<\/p>\n
\npolitical divisions of (1) moderate progressives – there is no real left in
\nAmerica, along with some ethnics (2) a combination of religious zealots,
\nnativists, and the rest of the right, and (3) corporatists and the financial
\nelite who finance both parties. <\/span>So
\nwe have a two party system and a broad three-way division.<\/p>\n
\ncorporatist\/oligarchical group has a problem – they are supported by the fewest
\nnumber of Americans. They could rarely win on their own. <\/span>They also
\nhave an advantage. <\/span>Collectively,
\nthey are richer than God and getting more so all the time, and they own the media.<\/p>\n
\nin the Republicans and especially beginning with the Clintons, have become
\nincreasingly dominant in the Democrats. We do not need to posit conspiracy in this outcome,
\nthough far seeing oligarchs would have seen the possibilities. <\/span>Even without deliberate planning by them this result simply
\nshakes out as the current electoral system operates. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nnot, I think we are seeing a “good cop\/bad cop” rope-a-dope strategy
\nplayed by the corporatists against the rest of the country. Nobody much likes
\nthem, but somehow they always win. It’s no accident.<\/p>\n
\nfinance Republican corporatists who talk the tea party\/right wing talk. <\/span>The more liberal finance Democratic
\ncorporatists who talk a moderate progressive line. The completely cynical
\nfinance whichever they think will win.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n
\nsupport his or her side only when it does not risk the financial interests of
\nthe oligarchs. <\/span>Their loyalty is
\npurchased usually not by bribes but by the promise of lucrative contracts and
\npositions after leaving office. <\/span><\/p>\n
\ndepicts the other side as demonic. High drama on symbolic issues and issues not
\ndealing with the income of the rich keep most of us who are politically aware
\nfocused on where the most important action for the country as a whole is not
\ntaking place. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nshove both sides<\/i> push the corporatist
\noligarchical line incessantly. Obama has been called a socialist, a Hitler, a Marxist,
\nand such, yet the stock market goes up and the bankers make out like the
\ngangsters they are. <\/span>Anyone who
\nknows what a socialist or Marxist is, let alone Hitler, knows these charges are utterly absurd. <\/span><\/p>\n
\noligarchs are the major winners and average Americans are the losers. Meanwhile
\ntheir path to dominance requires that they continue financing tearing the
\ncountry apart because it distracts us from what is really happening, and
\nguarantees their interests are never really challenged. Yet the mostly
\nRepublican strategy of focusing on “values” makes compromise next to
\nimpossible. <\/span>(Democrats are far
\nless prone to this because their focus has historically been on bread and
\nbutter issues of money, but Republican “values” are so destructive to this country’s well-being that I fear we are reaching a point of serious divorce.) <\/span><\/p>\n
\nbecause Madison’s hope that the constitution would work to reward genuine
\ncompromise has been circumvented, so that its structure exacerbates divisions. <\/span>I am sure I am not the only American
\nwho would prefer secession over a lifetime of this stuff. The small countries of Europe are better governed, more prosperous, and more humane than the US right now, even with their economic difficulties. But secession is an extreme solution, and there may be others far less extreme.<\/p>\n
\nBarack Obama.<\/p>\n
\nlong posed as the “good cop.”
\n<\/span>But as soon as he took office he hired almost entirely Clinton people
\nand left out even highly qualified democratic progressives, like Paul Krugman
\nand Robert Reich, both Novel Laureates.
\n<\/span>Both have proven more accurate in their assessment of our economic
\ndifficulties than the Clintonites he hired, and that has not mattered at
\nall. <\/span>He also let progressive
\nnominees like Dawn Johnson dangle for months, did not make interim appointments
\nof progressives, and finally ditched them. <\/span>Elizabeth Warren was a last minute nominee done a little
\nbefore the election and, to my mind, obviously under duress and grudgingly. <\/span><\/p>\n
\n“compromise” it should be becoming obvious to all that his priorities have
\nlittle to do with his promises. In a very interesting columns Bill Black has documented what is really
\nhappening by exposing the dishonesty and conflicts of interest <\/a>among the most
\nfervent supporters of his tax deal. Obama’s much touted “11 dimensional chess” has been played primarily
\nagainst his supporters. They gay community knows this now, as they continually play Charlie Brown to Lucy’s football. The rest of us should learn as well.<\/p>\n
\nplace else to go, and to some degree he is right. <\/span>Sarah Palin is not an option. <\/span>I now believe Obama was always a corporatist oligarch at heart,
\nand a fraud to the rank and file where he posed as an alternative to Hillary
\nfor those of us disgusted with Clintonian “triangulation.” <\/span>If Clinton had won the primaries and
\nbecome president we would be in essentially the same situation with nearly all
\nof the same people in the administration. Again, either way the corporatists
\nwould have won. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe Democrats and those Tea Partyers who actually believe their rhetoric have
\nyet to grasp. <\/span>We must break the
\ntwo party oligopoly that makes us all pawns of the ultra-rich. <\/span><\/i>For
\nthe short run primary challenges against corporatists are really important –
\nespecially in Congress and the Senate.
\n<\/span>But that is a stop-gap. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n