----- Original Message ----- From: "Evergreen Readers and Writers" <editor at evergreenreaders.com>
Joanna: "But the initial political context for this administration was huge/unprecedented grass-roots support that elected a Obama despite his race and inexperience. That support was based on certain promises O made during the campaign. "
Grass-root support or at least grass-root silent or open consent is there with every regime in the world--whatever its form, savage dictatorship/democracy or whatever. "Election is the process by which people elect the people that shall exploit them for a particular period of time.", something like that has been clarified by Marx long ago.
To expect any change in the capitalist system and to expect that any US president will not polish the shoes of monopoly bourgeoisie class, upon whom his/her life depends every minute, is living with the bliss of ignorance.
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This is all very nice....and very formulaic. My overall sense of Obama was that he was an opportunist and a water carrier, period. I had a miniscule hope, however, given the extraordinary time at which he took office, and given the great volunteer efforts that supported his candidacy, that he might be pushed to use that support as populist leverage to actually deliver on his promises. Instead, he used the bogeyman of the tea parties to reverse everything he said up to the election.
The political reality I witnessed were scores of middle-class professional hi tech workers, normally completely apolitical, giving up their vacation time to go to the south west and register voters and campaign for Obama. I've never seen this before in thirty years. Once elected he rushed to dismiss this sizeable, intelligent, and capable group of people. But these people were part of the political reality. It was different this time. The cynics say it was just an anti-Bush, anti-McCain vote. I can't quite buy that. For one thing, Obama is not a very likeable person. He did deliver some good speeches; but overall, he's persnickety, moralizing, and schoolmarmy. I never understood the talk about his charisma. He wasn't a glamorous Kennedy, or a Eugene McCarthy; he too was kind of an asshole, so I don't think he won on looks and personality.
To say that he was a capitalist tool is not enough. Capitalism has short term and long term possibilities & one may serve capitalism in many ways. FDR served capitalism too, but what a difference for the working class.
Joanna