On 2011-08-04, at 3:54 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > On 8/4/2011 3:43 PM, Doug Henwood wrote: >> Lincoln and FDR were produced by a society that was rising in wealth and >> power. Obama is the product of a society that's rotting. >> > > Doug's point is essential. The attack on > the New Deal gains that date back to Carter and continue and even > deepen under Obama are not to be understood by looking at the > mindset of a politician. Nixon did what he did because the USA was > still a rising power and he could toss some crumbs from the table. > Today's Counterpunch article that I forwarded here is excellent > because it looks at Obama's rightwing policies in a global > context. I dare say that if FDR was elected in 2008, he'd be doing > the same thing.
This sounds like Charles B's line. He and others have also argued there is no basis for vehement criticism of the the Obama administration since it is constrained by objective forces beyond its control, and has had no other options within the framework of US capitalism other than to opt for the policies which it has chosen. Which raises the question: If such modest reforms as were being pressed on the administration by its critics, including within the ruling class - for "public option" healthcare; for stimulus primarily aimed at direct job creation; for elimination of the Bush tax cuts; for stricter regulation of the financial industry; for changes to the NLRA modeled on the Canadian industrial relations regime; for mortgage relief to homeowners - if such reforms are no longer realizable in the US because of the "global context" or what others see as the chronic susceptibility of the US organized working class to manipulation by the Democratic party, what possibility is the! re for more fundamental change to the system, and why bother with politics at all? While it is true the mindset of an individual politician is not decisive, there is typically debate within ruling classes between liberals and conservatives about how to respond to a crisis, and there are many examples of ruling class politicians, both in opposition and in power, in both rising and declining societies, who have mobilized their own supporters in pursuit of systemic changes which were deemed necessary. The Obama administration was not above such intra-class debate, and other policy options were not foreclosed to it. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
