[lbo-talk] Doug's Vote

HMFJ hardwin1 at googlemail.com
Wed Nov 5 03:43:11 PST 2008


As I watched the victory speech I thought I saw Obama become the Manchurian candidate - the choreographed televised spectacle, the uniform waving American flags against the invisible mass of voters, performing their function of cheering while the swooping camera recorded it for the spectacle, the meaningless soundbites, the way he became stern, presidential and therefore less-than-human, not emotional; I thought I saw some faces lose sympathy, what they were grasping for in their heart not being answered in the words, perhaps? As he walked off stage I thought I saw capital open its jaws and accept its quadrennial offering of fresh blood from humanity, from we the people.

This is what we'll get for our alienated and debased form of democracy; where people's stake is represented by queuing dumbly, by making credit card payments (as important, symbolic and moving, and ultimately decisive as those were, though not decisive in the direction of the change they are hoping for, instead neatly arrogated by the democratic party) all the popular support leveraged and (supremely effectively siphoned and coopted) via the internet (as opposed to it being a movement for grassroots democracy), instead of having real decision making power all the way up from their communities and workplaces to their national representatives (circles and talking instead of lines and silence).

Given as people have said here a few times, Obama will continue imperialism, he'll represent the US national interest as he has to (contra climate change treaties etc for example), how do the people hold him accountable for the wave of feeling which elected him and is being enacted in so much joy today? The hope, the idealism, the social instinct, the conscience, the community, the democratic feeling..

How does the current and coming financial crisis perhaps loosen the hegemony of the financial capital BHO cleaves to ideologically and emotionally to favour genuine social alternatives?

On Wed, Nov 5, 2008 at 6:03 AM, shag <shag at cleandraws.com> wrote:


> At 12:44 AM 11/5/2008, shag wrote:
>
>> At 11:01 PM 11/4/2008, John Thornton wrote:
>>
>>> John Thornton wrote:
>>>
>>>> If I were white I would feel uncomfortable...
>>>>
>>>
>>> This should more accurately read "If I were white I BELIEVE I would feel
>>> uncomfortable...."
>>>
>>> Shag recently wrote that sometimes I really piss her off.
>>> I wonder if my earlier post also pissed her off?
>>>
>>> John Thornton
>>>
>>
>> huh?
>>
>
>
> are you talking about taking the side of people of color in the election?
>
> if so, nah. i said long ago that i'd vote obama since i'm in VA
>
> i'm very much in support of _decentering_ whiteness, which does NOT
> necessarily mean centering people of color.
>
> but what I would ask is, why draw the boundary around the u.s. and the
> people of color within the u.s.
>
> what about the uhuru movement, with which I'm closely associated. they
> don't support obama at all b/c they argue that he is not in support of
> people of color world wide. if you aks them, dennis is right. a democrat
> dropping bombs on their heads isn't much in support of people of color in
> afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, iran.
>
> so, _which_ people of color? the ones who might have bombs dropped on their
> heads? or just the ones in the u.s.? granted that mccain would drop bombs on
> their heads too. the issue is, of course, the tendency to end up defending
> the decision of democrat for bullshit domestic issues where were wave flags
> for The One, supporting his every move, in order to prevent the fuckstain
> conservatives from getting a stranglehold on our electoral system. sure,
> sure, the democrats suck , but the republicans suck harder. i'm tired of
> that shit. yes.
>
>
>
> shag
>
>
>
>
>
> http://cleandraws.com
>> Wear Clean Draws
>> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
> http://cleandraws.com
> Wear Clean Draws
> ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>



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