General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Liberal activists: Obama as Bush Lite? 'No way in hell' [View all]patrice
(47,992 posts)And I think the poor ARE amongst PO's highest priorities, even over the various partied political ambitions of ANY of the next generation, and, though I may disagree with how he apparently intends to do anything for the poor - through any priority placed on "A Thousand Points of Light" revisited, or "Faith Based Initiatives" 2.0, or "Trickle Down" Obama-style, especially if such policies take precedence over a collective recognition as a nation, through OUR government, of our special responsibilities for the poor - though I disagree with how he may intend any of that, I don't think his agenda is to throw the poor entirely on the tender mercies of the private sector. I think he does intend for the U.S. to make a collective commitment to social and economic justice for those who are in fact in the most need of it . . .
- BUT -
It's that very collective responsibility, the nature of it, and the size of it that is at stake this very minute. Those very traits of our commitment to one another, what those commitments will be and how big the commitments will be are under attack right now, not only by the Right, but more importantly also by what calls itself "the Left" by its completely undisciplined attacks upon this President, anything and everything to cause him harm, practically ir-respective of the specially bad circumstances in which this administration has had to function, and limitations inherent to the office itself, which attacks began in earnest in the 3rd month of his first term and have grown steadily worse, steadily, also, driving him to the Right.
For whatever Obama has in fact gotten wrong, for whatever his own personal liabilities are, for however much he is in fact too dependent upon Corporate Persons to do the right thing, what calls itself "the Left" has, I think in a significant number of instances, INTENTIONALLY made all of that worse. The purpose of their doing so, making this situation worse, is called base-building and though it leads with pot-boilers about the issues, success on the issues is not its goal. It's SOLE goal is base building for the ambitions of the ambitious whom I mentioned earlier and, at this particular point in our history, that is, more than usual, the ambitions of ANY political party, ANY political label, any COUNTABLE (= $$$$) cohort, all receiving the same corporate personhood money that all of them castigate Obama and the government for receiving. Any and all political factions, including what calls itself "the Left", preaching propaganda to divide and conquer. Fuck the issues, especially the issues of the poor who have no corporate persons
outside of government. And what is attacked by everyone more than anything else? Government.
BTW, Have you ever been around any of these organizers? Talk about limitations on what they can/will or allow anyone to say!!! "Free speech"??? HA! ha!! No such thing amongst what calls itself "the Left". If Glenn Greenwald or one of his self-appointed proxies doesn't sign off on the message, it doesn't get said. Period.
Oh, yes, indeed there are authentic persons out there in these various political cohorts, but the blind ignorant narrow hysteria we have seen promoted on the Democratic Underground again and again has achieved such proportions that authentic social and economic justice advocates should realize that they are now part of something that amounts to "the tail wagging the dog".
The intent of certain significant one$$$$$ has been to rob Obama of his Liberal base. Perhaps some naive Liberal or Leftie persons thought by abandoning the President, he'd adapt to the Left. That's a profound mistake and more experienced political operatives KNOW that. As any politician looses support in one part of the spectrum, the Left in this case, s/he moves to the Right, so whatever Obama's tendency might have been, it's been made worse by loosing the countervailing part of his base. As a politician looses support, they move in the direction of wherever their remaining support is, in order to have a chance of claiming whatever "success" on the issues that is possible with that support. Just attacking, 100% criticism, and abandoning doesn't result in moving a politician in your direction. It results in the opposite because they are politicians, they depend upon quantities of persons, subtract yourself from that equation and you and your issues are out of consideration.
If you're a politician, there's no percentage on any of the PRACTICAL issues to do anything for those who declare in every way possible, ON EVERY ISSUE possible, that they do not support you. If a politicians tries to do something for those who are abandoning him/her, s/he stands to be very disappointed by the results of what is given, because if it's not one thing it's another with certain types of operatives.
Who knows what kind of President Barack Obama might have been, had he not inherited this particular national economic situation, this particular cursed Congress, this particular intentionally destructive attack upon his Liberal base, had he reacted more strongly to all of this pressure, but one thing we can be sure of; Obama will be blamed for every stinking part of what is happening by the very persons who are doing it, even though there are those leaders amongst them, such as Glenn Greenwald and Ron/Rand Paul, who never gave a rat's ass for the poor to begin with and are really only using the poor as cannon fodder in the ideological wars they propagate to support Libertarian economic models.