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Writing in CounterPunch, Richard Anderson-Connolly asserts that:
In 2008, after a financial seizure that was the inevitable consequence of 40 years of rising inequality, a spectre was haunting America — the spectre of economic reform. Yet by means of skillful misrule Obama and the congressional Democrats managed to avoid direct contact with that most dangerous wraith of redistribution. At long last the November election conjures the magic powerful enough to finally dispel the demon, freeing Democrats to speak boldly of economic reform without the slightest danger of seeing the actual transfer of resources from the plutocrats to the citizenry. Bewildered liberals will soon forget the betrayals by Obama and the 111th Congress and will direct their fear and hatred back toward the Republican beast.
What follows this passage is Anderson-Connolly’s Karpian analysis of Barack Obama’s presidency, one he delivers with clarity and concision. Reading it would be worth the effort.
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This is the same argument made by Howard Zinn at much greater length in his People’s History of the United States. It rings true to me.
They haven’t bewildered this liberal.
Everything they’ve done will result in more damage.
The world looks much different when assessed from ground level than it does when assessed from the commanding heights!
I totally agree on Obama. If he resigned tomorrow it would be a plus for the nation.
But the Karp stuff on FDR seems pretty bent to me. It’s true that FDR saved an unworthy system from itself but at the end of the day he really did create a viable system. One which lasted until the establishment assasination of JFK followed by LBJ’s Vietnam war. What we’ve been experiencing for the last 45+ years is an establishment counter revolution against the New Deal.
At the end of the day, no system is eternally fool proof.
Agreed. FDR was no socialist, but he did help create a mixed economy that demonstrated its viability and undeniable attractions.
Other than that, the CounterPunch article offered a pithy and concise analysis that every Democrat should read (and would likely be more receptive to if not distracted by the questionable FDR assertions – which sound more like the whines of someone who WISHES that FDR had actually been a socialist rather than a social pragmatist).
Word!
I would suggest that we should help disseminate and reference it, along with your little gem of a caveat, wherever possible.
Thanks, szielinski. I went and read the entire article. Great stuff!
Jane and Glenzilla have often referred to Obama’s rotating-villains tactic. She predicted months ahead of time that it would be Joe Lieberman who would eventually deliver the coup de grace to the public option, in front of an apparently astonished Harry Reid. Such drama. Such convincing performances.
But when under resolution they only needed 50 votes, Obama and the Democratic leadership got by with simply shrugging their shoulders and saying, “We don’t have the votes,” in spite of the fact that 53 Democrats had publicly expressed their support. In this case, they didn’t even have to identify that component of their “indispensable en.emy.”
Ugly stuff!
The paragraph quoted from Anderson-Connolly’s article was such a brilliant precis of what we have just watched take place before our eyes that I could hardly wait to jump to the article. Having read the article, and not knowing enough about the mechanisms of New Dealing or Great Societing to just buy into the author’s premise, I can hardly wait to get my hands on Karp’s book.
But aside from the bank-bailout and mortgage mess, aside from the HCR fiasco, hasn’t Obama done enough to convince us all of his total duplicity? Apparently not.
And but even being convinced, I want to find out how he does (they do) it. Because even us convinced ones are being had, kicking and screaming albeit, right along with the (veal-pen, Obamabots, Dims and all the other nifty labels) everybody else. Now we are all dupes.
Yes, I agree. FDR did have to be shoved but when he started moving he moved pretty well. Also, he was thwarted constantly by the Supreme Court and so hence the court packing scheme, which was pretty ballsy.
Obama on the other hand is following the play book perfectly.