Paul Street

Posted on by Iansã

Obamaism’s shortcomings are the failures of the Democratic Party’s longstanding corporate-imperial centrism and of the dominant narrow political culture that pits an arch-plutocratic, extremist military party (the faux-“conservative” Republicans) against the “inauthentic opposition” of the conservative, faux progressive, and corporate-neoliberal Democrats and leaves no room for non-corporate parties that accurately reflect majority progressive opinion.

The failures of Obama must NOT be attributed simply to the “the People” or to “the Left”, such as it is. However much popular forces have failed to perceive the corporate and imperial reality of Obama, his failures will result form his unwillingness or inability to represent the popular majority against the third corporate regime.

Read and study the whole long, brilliant, and true text. The author discusses his own, then forthcoming Barack Obama and the Future of American Politics (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, August 2008) — a book I should really read — and reviews Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008) warmly but also critically.

…[W]hile a conservative corporate-neoliberal Obama victory may be preferable to an extremist and neoconservative McCain triumph, I fear that an Obama ascendancy carries serious related risks of excessive progressive self-pacification and threatens to dangerously re-legitimize the totalitarian politics of corporate rule and Empire.

Those risks are increased by many progressive Americans’ failure to distinguish adequately between the image and reality of Obama and the broader corporate-crafted “pacified totalitarian” political order that he reflects.

Also too vaguely understood by many U.S. progressives  are the differences: between social movement-building and candidate-centered electoral politics; between a participatory citizenry and an expanded electorate; and between Obama’s goal of winning an election and Dr. King’s dream of a good and democratic society beyond caste, class, and empire.

Axé.

4 thoughts on “Paul Street”

  1. This is one of those little stories that I wasn’t going to bring up but with Obama leaving a meeting with Eric Cantor today because of the intractability of reaching an agreement with the Republicans I thought that it would be amusing. Most people aren’t aware that if the negotiations fail and America defaults on its debt obligations then Canter stands to make a lot of personal financial loot. (this is a copy of one of my posts) From Salon:

    Last year the Wall Street Journal reported that Cantor, the No. 2 Republican in the House, had between $1,000 and $15,000 invested in ProShares Trust Ultrashort 20+ Year Treasury EFT. The fund aggressively “shorts” long-term U.S. Treasury bonds, meaning that it performs well when U.S. debt is undesirable. (A short is when the trader hopes to profit from the decline in the value of an asset.)

    According to his latest financial disclosure statement, which covers the year 2010 and has been publicly available since this spring, Cantor still has up to $15,000 in the same fund. Contacted by Salon this week, Cantor’s office gave no indication that the Virginia Republican, who has played a leading role in the debt ceiling negotiations, has divested himself of these holdings since his last filing. Unless an agreement can be reached, the U.S. could begin defaulting on its debt payments on Aug. 2. If that happens and Cantor is still invested in the fund, the value of his holdings would skyrocket.

    So it’s a double win for Cantor if the talks fail. He scores points with his base and he picks up a bundle of loot for himself. Life is sweet.

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