[WS:] Charles can speak for himself, but I am NOT defending the record of Obama administration. I am only reacting to some of the more extreme opinions expressed on this list bashing O's administration with preposterous claims painting them as traitors and fools. If I wanted to hear that shit, I would tune into the Fox news or talk show radio. As I said time and again - I did not particularly like Obama's campaign promises, and I did not expect much from his administration. I wish he did more to stimulate the economy, but then I none of us really knows why he decided not to. Perhaps the only thing that I did like was the amount of civility he introduced to the American political discourse - albeit it was largely throwing pearls before swine. So to answer your question about what line he would have to cross for me to become his critic - the answer is 'adopt fearmongering rhetoric as the other party does.’ That is about all, since I did not expect much of anything else.
As to your comment about the "class struggle" and "socialism" point of view - I do not think I am fooling myself. These words meant something some 100 years ago, but today they are only buzzwords of left-leaning intellectual circles, devoid of any real meaning. The class struggle was won by the capital some 20-30 years ago. The working class lost not just on the industrial front but on the cultural front as well. Not only the labor's resistance has been largely wiped out - what is left is bits of mumbling and grumbling here and there - but it was also effectively transformed into a class of consumers who identify themselves by consumption patterns rather than political, class, or union affiliations. So what are we talking about here - reality on the ground or delusions of people living in their own dream worlds untethered to reality?
Finally, your comment about "changing minds." First, minds are more easily changed by common interaction than by words, as Carrol in one of his rare lucid moments aptly observed. But as an old saying goes "a fool tries to convince me with his arguments, a wise man - with my own." Most of the public discourse in this country - which spills over to lists like this one - consists of shouting insults over a megaphone and bullying people into toeing in the party line. It silences critique, but if it changes any minds, it makes people more resentful. Case in point, as I already said, I used to be rather skeptical about the prospects of O's administration, but the vicious diatribes against his administration on this list and elsewhere actually changed my mind - to become more contrarian and say things in defense of his administration.
Wojtek