Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
"So please tell me what does the Obama campaign promise? And how?"
You answered your own question with your remark about Wall Street and corporate lawyers: they want someone who can deal with our "clients and allies". This is not a small thing, after the last eight years, and particularly important as trends in global power relations are moving against us.
BW
On Thu, May 8, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
>
> Acknowledging that Obama is lifesize, however - and I've seen no evidence
> that anyone on the list thinks otherwise - shouldn't obscure that he is a
> very astute politician whose campaign for change, however nebulously stated
> and however uncertain the outcome, is on the whole the most promising
> development in US politics in decades, and should be encouraged on that
> basis alone. I think most outside observers affected by the US election
> feel
> the same way.
>
>
>
After Marvin's brief and bright analysis of the election he ruins it with by
saying that Obama's "campaign for change" is "promising" (What does it
promise?) and that we should be "encouraged" on the basis of the "promise."
I simply don't know what this means.
But first let me state a couple things that I think Marvin left out of his analysis.
It seems to me that Obama, or the people around Obama, simply ran a better organized campaign, on all levels, than any other candidate in this electoral season leading to the national plebiscite. I think this is a significant social fact for bourgeois politics no matter how you interpret it.
The second significant fact is that Obama is the preference of the big corporate law firms, i.e. the law firms that act as the negotiators and diplomats for the large corporations. He also seems to have large amount of support from Wall Street and the Insurance industry. Why this should be so I am not completely sure, except that these are the same people who think that the U.S. should pay more attention to its clients and allies.
Perhaps both of these facts are part of the the content of the conclusion that Obama is a 'astute politician.' I agree that he is quite slick and might turn out to be astute also.
But what bothers me is the illusions so many people on the "left" seem to have in Obama. There are certain fundamentals that he will not change. As a small example Jeremiah Wright in one of his infamous sermons said: "We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinian people." This seems to me to be just a statement of fact. How will Obama change this? In as much that Obama is arguing that Obama is "normal" "politics" I think he is correct.
How Obama varies from the norm is interesting but not necessarily "promising" or "encouraging." Partially, I say this because I am unable to predict the future. When the hopes raised by Obama are dashed the result can either be reactionary despair or radical anger, and everything in between. Partially I say that the Obama candidacy is not "promising" because the social forces behind him are the same ones that were behind Carter in 1976 and the electorate behind him (as Doug's post pointed out) is the same as that behind Kerry in 2004. In fact if you are looking for Obama's "uniqueness" I think that it is that he is a smart cocktail of candidacies -- a little Gary Hart, a bit of Jimmy Carter, some more of Kerry, and throw in just a small pinch of Jesse Jackson.
So please tell me what does the Obama campaign promise? And how?
Jerry ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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