On 2010-11-07, at 5:32 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> It is utterly naive to expect any political party
> to side with those who have no power against those who have a lot of power.
> Any political party in this situation would go with the dictates of power.
> If anything, O's administration deserves a credit for accomplishing what
> they did in this situation - they faced a force majeure and they softened
> the blow a bit.
Yet only last month you were puzzled and dismayed that the Obama administration wasn't "bashing" its enemies on the right, and had no objections then to my criticisms of the administration's policies which were identical to those I and others have since made in the aftermath of the election.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20101011/013063.html
The power imbalance has not been as extreme as you suggest above. I've previously alluded to support within the ruling class, outside of the Democratic party, for restructuring rather than bailing out the banking industry, for mortgage writedowns to clear the housing market, and for fiscal stimulus directed at job-intensive projects which would both boost consumer spending and modernize the economy.
Had the administration signed on to these rather orthodox capitalist reforms, mobilized its base, and engaged in the "massive public relations blitz" you advocated last month, it's more likely than not Obama would have boosted his congressional majority as Roosevelt did two years into his first term.
There is no credit owing to the administration for ostensibly facing down a "force majeure", as you have now decided, nor has not it produced any meaningful change - only an electoral debacle which has now almost certainly eliminated any possibility of overdue reform and the raising of the political level of the general population which would necessarily accompany it.