[lbo-talk] Dennis Perrin on the ecstasy of the Dems

[C. G. Estabrook]

Obama in fact agrees with Rice on an important issue -- the goal of US 
policy in the Middle East.  His shrill cries of "being against this war 
from the beginning" do not mean that he objects to using military force 
to assure US control of ME energy resources -- he just doesn't want it 
done inefficiently.  (Cf. his remarks of Pakistan.) If you read his 
Chicago foreign policy speeches, you'll see that he agrees with the 
elite consensus on the matter -- but saw the failures of Bush 
administration in Iraq to be an opening for his ambitions.

Obama's speeches are worth paying attention to because their relentless 
moralism makes clear what he's trying to do -- cover with smooth names 
the contradictions between the interests of the few and those of the 
many in this country.  He's smart enough both to know that's the problem 
and strenuously to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. (Harvard, as 
it has for centuries, is in the business of educating the progeny of the 
ruling class and -- perhaps more importantly -- talented members of 
other classes who'll run errands for them.)

David Brooks (praising) today accurately describes Obama's speeches: 
they are "abstract, secular sermons of personal uplift -- filled with 
disquisitions on the nature of hope and the contours of change.  He 
talks about erasing old categories like red and blue (and implicitly, 
black and white) and replacing them with new categories, of which the 
most important are new and old."

It's all balderdash, of course. But it's well-said that "Obama's 
post-everything, togetherness-via-neoliberalism message of ambiguously 
described tomorrowhood may indeed be the next phase of American power 
politics."  It's instructive that, of the the two winners in Iowa, the 
Republican is by far the more vocal opponent of Wall Street.  --CGE

Charles Brown wrote:
> 
> ...
> Voting for Obama is an anti-fascist act? Tell it to the Pakistanis.
> 
> ^^^^
> CB: Why don't you pass it on to them. Let them know I said it. In fact
> , tell the whole world: It's an anti-fascist leading indicator when a
> bunch of white Americans vote for a Black person. I mean a normal Black
> person, not Condeleeza Rice that type.
> 
> ^^^^
> 
> Nice to know that major agri-business firms, among other corporate
> backers, are part of the Good Fight as well.
> 
> Dennis