--- Dwayne Monroe <dwayne.monroe at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> While entertaining and somewhat profitable, these
> heated topics miss
> the most important thing: the neutralization of
> genuine
> left/progressive politics (what Wojtek derides as
> purist delusion) and
> near total replacement of that politics - even
> amongst some of the
> sharpest thinkers and activists - with a tolerance
> for pleasant
> appearance, airy aspiration and feel-goodism.
>
[WS:] And that is Obama's fault, or what?
I agree that left/progressive politics are on a life support system, if not already dead, but that is not a result of the electoral politics in the US of A. These politics have always had conservative and nationalistic leanings and open or thinly veiled hostility toward anything left of the center. This is a god's country, petit bourgeois, enamored with its "exceptional" position in the world, wealth and money making - and all political candidates must "bark with the pack" (to quote a memorable HL Mencken's phrase) to such a tune or be lost. It is not a fault of Barack Obama, or any other Democract for that matter, but the reflection of the state of the hearts and minds of the American people - or at least a majority thereof.
What I deride as purist delusion is not well-defined social goals that affect the majority of of people, such as national health care, social secuity, transportation, proportional representation of political interests, sustainable land use, or environmental protection, but identity politics that apeal only to small fringe groups, which consists mainly of bashing the usual suspects (cops, prisons, capitalists, yuppies, Democracts etc.) and blaming others for one's misfortunes and waiting for a radical millenary changes that will end the misery once and for all.
Wojtek
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