FWIW, Petras sounds like he feels betrayed by Obama. I don't think I
ever had any illusions in the first place, so I can't feel betrayed.
(BTW, one of the many things I don't like about the Trotskyist
tradition is the "revolution betrayed" trope, seemingly with a big
admixture of personal animosity toward the "betrayer.")
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
There's no evidence that Petras had any illusions in Obama.
In fact, he was a Nader/McKinney supporter:
http://petras.lahaine.org/articulo.php?p=1760&more=1&c=1
The Elections and the Responsibility of the Intellectual to Speak
Truth to Power: Twelve Reasons to Reject Obama and Support Nader/McKinney
The presidential elections in the US, once again, provide an
acid test of the integrity and consequential conduct of US
intellectuals. If it is the duty and responsibility of the public
intellectual to speak truth to power, the recent statements of most
of our well-known and prestigious public pundits have failed miserably.
. 10.29.2008
Instead of highlighting, exposing and denouncing the reactionary
foreign and domestic policies of Democratic Party candidate Senator
Barack Obama, they have chosen to support him, 'critically, offering
as excuses that even 'limited differences' can result in positive
outcomes,and that 'Obama is the lesser evil' and 'creates an
opportunity for a possibility of change.'
What makes these arguments untenable is the fact that Obama's public
pronouncements, his top policy advisers, and the likely policymakers
in his government have openly defined a most bellicose foreign policy
and a profoundly reactionary domestic economic policy totally in line
with Paulson-Bush-Wall Street. On the major issues of war, peace, the
economic crisis and the savaging of the US wage and salaried class,
Obama promises to extend and deepen the policies which the majority
of Americans reject and repudiate.
(clip)
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