[lbo-talk] Rove

John Thornton jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net
Fri Feb 22 15:09:40 PST 2008


The fact is that Obama and Hillary are, as I said before, ideological twins keeps getting lost by a small group of Obama supporters. If you want to express a preference for one over another for some minor reason that's probably cool with everyone here and I doubt you'd get much flak. The objection is to statements like:

"American racism gets in the way of seeing Obama's political and moral superiority."

"Obama is not part of "neo con unilateralist and humanist interventionist camps of the US imperium." He is the only one who has distanced himself from it."

"Obama actually could win and throw a wrench in the war machine which the putatively feminist Hilary Clinton would keep running."

"Obama's sane and humble acceptance of diplomacy with world leaders whom we have no right or interest to put beyond the diplomatic pale--he alone makes likely the aversion of war with Iran and the US exit from Iraq."

"I contrast it with the alternative political processes we can observe -- e.g. those underpinning the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John McCain."

"She (Hillary) obviously does not really believe in diplomatic resolutions. That's not Obama's approach...."

and on and on and on. All this is either very selective conjecture or easily demonstrated as false. The objection is not to Obama but to Obamamania (or any mania for that matter) where objective outlooks are jettisoned and replaced with hero worshiping. If you claim a preference for Obama because he has no precondition on a dialogue with Cuba and Hillary does, that's fine. If you prefer Hillary because her health care plan has mandates that too is fine. No one here has ever spoken of Hillary in the silly mindlessly rhetorical ways that a few have spoken of Obama in the last few months. If they did we would see the same anti-Hillarymania we are witnessing with regards to Obama. Other than Charles support for Obama based on what he originally claimed was the small amount of progressivism he saw in Whites voting for a Black almost everything else pro-Obama is based on very selective conjecture and/or hero worship. Since one can just as easily claim males voting for a female is equally progressive this strikes me as a not important point. Were Obama running against a white male with an identical platform I'd back Charles up on this point.

Obama is a politician first and foremost. He backed down on his support for single payer, just like his opponent. He backed down on his anti-war statements when Bush's war had high support and then went back to them when Bush's war declined in popularity. To quote from one recent Chicago Newspaper story about Obama. ""In fairness, there's no double dealing," he said. "It's part of his stated strategy – he wants to get maximum unity." I don't expect to dissuade any Obama supporters, they're beyond that now just as I cannot cannot convince the supporters of the religion of a dead guy on a stick that the historical record for his existence is nowhere near on par with the historical evidence for Julius Caesar. The facts are irrelevant when on is discussing opinions arrived at through non-rational means. I have no emotive argument against Obama except for my loathing of his comment concerning Blacks being 90% equal with Whites. I've seen list members spin this into something non-offensive (and misrepresenting it along the way) or excuse it as irrelevant too many times to try to use it emotively against Obama fans however. I think statements like "....Obama's political and MORAL superiority" should be convincing evidence of the quasi-religious nature of some Obama support.

John Thornton

Max B. Sawicky wrote:
> Your problem is you can't take yes for an answer.
>
> For we the perplexed, please describe some alternative path or scenario from our present wretched state to better times. Is it Rosa's mass strike? A more handsome Ralph Nader? What?
>
>
>
>>> You keep saying things like this without offering any evidence. Which I suppose makes sense, since the available evidence is to the contrary.
>>> Doug
>>>
>> Forget it, Doug. From this point on, Obamaites will be unreachable. They've got religion, and nothing will stop the snake waving.>Dennis



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