On Mon, 5 May 2008, Doug Henwood wrote:
> "Never" is a figurative expression. This is the Internet, not a peer-
> reviewed journal. But as you yourself put it when we had dinner a few
> weeks ago. Obama is like a hot woman in whose presence men lose 20 IQ
> points.
Yes, but as I've also put it, I've never run into an Obama supporter (and certainly none on this list) who wasn't freely willing to admit 2 propositions: (1) that there is virtually no difference between the policy positions of C and O; and (2) that both of them are located in the dead center of the Democratic Party. So the silliness isn't clouding men's minds about anything fundamental.
I also personally have never met a single person, black or white, who attributes a movement to Obama. And I've met lots who voted for him. Adoph's anti-Obamaian fantasy seems like the perfect complement of Obamian fantasy. It's a daydream people enjoy believing in -- and then, in this case, enjoy denouncing.
I'm begining to think that everyone's choice of C or O is largely based on fantasies and personal hobbyhorses, fond hopes and knee-jerk fears -- all pretending to be theories. And that it can't be any other way precisely because there is no substantial difference between them. (Esp. if you count the political-promise margin of error, i.e., what they say is probably far from what they'll do -- much farther than they are from each other.) We keep trying to produce a solid rational reason for a decision for which no solid rational reason exists. It's driving us crazy. On both sides.
These two candidates are so identical in their positions, and so identical in their lack of records of achievement, that the only basis we really have to choose on is our projections. And the main difference now seems to be what you enjoy more: denouncing other people's fantasies or spinning them yourself. One side enjoys hoping. The other side denounces hoping. But I personally haven't run into anyone among the hopers who really thinks the odds are high of any hopes actually being fulfilled.
Michael