(there are a lot of ellipses below, but they're left implicit.)
On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 1:55 PM, c b wrote:
> I interpreted your comments as political , not personal , criticism of
> Obama. Mine was a political comment, not a personal comment or a comment on
> Obama's person or personality.<
What I was talking about wasn't a criticism of Obama as much as an
effort to understand his presidency. I don't think we should expect
much out of it: as I said before the election, I expect BHO to
rationalize neoliberalism more than reversing it, just as George W.
Bush's father did after Reagan's reign. (For example, BHO replaces
people like the famous Brownie with much more competent folks.)
Because I have low expectations, I am not shocked by what BHO does. (I
was _never_ expecting any kind of social democracy (even the soft
social democracy of the New Deal) out of the Obama presidency.)
CB: > In the following I indicated the Supreme Court might be relevant
in stopping social democratic measures ...<
We should "think outside the box" and not assume that the Supreme
Court will follow precedents, opposing any slight movement to the left
only with weapons used in the past. Scalia thinks outside the box when
it comes to thinking up new and different ways to promote his agenda,
and he's been very successful at dragging a lot of the SCOTUS along.
(Scalia _et al_ have defined the "new normal" in the SCOTUS, so that
"liberal" and "conservative" are defined in their terms.)
CB: > I very much disagree that huge masses of US adults are clear
that Obama is constrained by the rightwing in Congress, especially the
Democratic rightwing. The media has allowed it to be portrayed that
Obama is can force Congressional Democrats to follow his lead.... <
Most US adults know about the "division of powers" in the government.
In any event, when I said "US adults know," it was short-hand for
"there's no reason that I should always mention each and every
external constraint that keeps Obama from being a saint or whatever CB
expects him to be."
Of course, Obama also constrains Congress, while they're both
constrained and shaped by the shit-storm of campaign contributions and
lobbying that dominate DC. Most adults know about that, too, though
many approve.
CB: > I don't think that's caused so much by the environment he grew
up in as by the pragmatic political realities in the US today. There
is no mass base for his "doing" social democracy. As he said during
the campaign, change comes from the bottom up. There is no bottom up
mass movement for social democratic change .... yet (smile).<
Sure, BHO is constrained by his political environment (including by
the liberals who apologize for him rather than turning against him).
But he does have a lot of power (much more than I do, for example), so
his individual personality does play a role. (One working definition
of an individual's "power" is the extent to which his or her
personality changes the course of history rather than being changed by
it.)
CB: > I don't think u can tell how Sotomeyer or _____ will vote if
these issues come up in the future. Earl Warren was a Republican
Governor who one wouldn't expect would lead the reversal of _Plessy vs
Ferguson_.. If u can get Congress to pass social democratic reforms,
the Obama appointees might very well uphold them.<
One thing that's happened is that Presidents have "wised up." No
GOPster would appoint an Earl Warren today. (Likely, no Dem would do
it either, since the DP has shifted so far right over the decades.)
In any event, it's a bad idea to rely on the mistake of our rulers
(e.g., the appointment of Warren to the Supremes) to produce
"progressive" results.
We should also remember that (despite what they teach in Civics) what
the Supes do is partly a matter of political pressure from outside the
official system. In Brown vs. the Board of Education, they were
responding to the Civil Rights movement (which at that point was still
mostly outside of the established political system) in an atmosphere
when the US elite thought that "all problems can be solved" (it was
still the "American Century" after all). It's a far cry from (say) the
mid-1970s, when business was crying because profitability had fallen
(while they tried to deal with the problem by imposing stagflation)
and grass-roots conservatives were mobilizing against "acid, amnesty,
and abortion" (and busing). It's also distant from currently, when the
vastly-empowered financial interests are striving to preserve their
privileges (if not to consolidate and extend their power) and
grass-roots conservatives have built on their successes to move in the
direction of banning abortion completely.
As I said, I don't expect any kind of social-democratic legislation
from BHO or Congress -- and I don't expect BHO's appointees to uphold
it -- without massive political pressure, counteracting the power of
big money (i.e., capital).
BTW, from a left position, BHO's main contribution to the SCOTUS has
not been a matter of appointing "progressives" to the Court (since
he's not doing so). Instead, it's his refraining from appointing
someone like Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, etc. BHO is better than Dubya,
but that's not saying much.
CB had written:
>>> Basically, it is a demand that Obama commit political suicide for the
>>> socialist ideas of the tiny, tiny, I mean really tiny US left. By tiny , I
>>> mean they have no visible means of support in any mass of Americans.<<<
I wrote:
>> I wasn't "demanding" anything. ...<<
CB now writes:
> Advocating it, then. Suggesting it.<
That's your reading. Please don't presume to be able to read my mind.
CB: > I'm defending him [BHO] for the same reason I supported him in
the election. His political location is the best we can hope to get in
the current US political situation.<
So the "current US political situation" determines your political
position? as the US shifts to the right, do you become more
right-wing?
Earlier, CB had written:
>>> Obama is a little American boy with his thumb in the US political oil pipe
>>> rupture, a kind of variation of the Sorcerer's apprentice , who can't
>>> control the forces he has taken on to control.<<<
I'd see BHO instead as a guy sitting on a cork floating in the eddies
and undertows formed by the conflicting forces within the capitalist
class and the rest of US society. He's trying to use "reason" (in the
technocratic sense of the word) to steer the cork, but he's not
succeeding. It's not his fault as much as the fact that there's no
serious opposition to capitalism -- or even to the currency-existing
version of capitalism -- that would push his cork to the left. I don't
see any evidence that he's trying to promote that opposition at all.
If anything, he's doing the opposite, trying to channel discontent to
serve his political goals (getting reelected, rewarding his friends,
punishing his enemies, etc.)
(The currently over-hyped "teabagger" movement seems to be doing
nothing but trying to make the currently-existing version of
capitalism more more extreme, i.e., even more ruled by "free markets"
(give businesses what they want) and finance capital.)
--
Jim Devine
"Those who take the most from the table
Teach contentment.
Those for whom the taxes are destined
Demand sacrifice.
Those who eat their fill speak to the hungry
of wonderful times to come.
Those who lead the country into the abyss
Call ruling too difficult
For ordinary folk." – Bertolt Brecht.
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