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"...So far as the US Senate is concerned, the Tea Party has been the
prime factor in keeping Democrats in certain states in any sort of
contention ... one can make a convincing case that purely on the
basis of cui bono – who stands to gain – the Democrats surely
invented the Tea Party out of whole cloth ... Contrary to a thousand
contemptuous diatribes by the left, the Tea Party is a genuine
political movement, channeling the fury and frustration of a huge
slab of white Americans running small businesses – what used to be
called the petit-bourgeoisie ... The President's aides are already
confiding that the White House will move right. The question is:
will his liberal base tolerate their hero colluding with Republicans
in seeking to destroy Medicare ... in the interests of political
survival? If that is the course Obama takes, look for a serious
challenge to him from another Democrat, as we head towards 2012..."<br>
<br>
<br>
<u>The Twilight of Obama-time</u><br>
<br>
The sun will rise next Wednesday on a new American landscape, the
same way it rose on a new American landscape almost exactly two
years ago.<br>
<br>
That was the dawn of Obama-time. Millions of Americans had dined
delightedly on Obama's rhetoric of dreams and preened at his
homilies about the inherent moral greatness of the American people.<br>
<br>
Obama and the Democrats triumphed at the polls. The pundits hailed a
"tectonic shift" in our national politics, perhaps even a
registration of the possibility that we had entered a "post-racial"
era.<br>
<br>
The realities of American politics don't change much from year to
year. The "politics of division" which Obama denounced are the
faithful reflection of national divisions of wealth and resources
wider today than they have been at any time since the late 1920s.<br>
<br>
In fact the "dream" died even before Obama was elected in November
2008. Already in September that year Senator Obama, like his
opponent, Senator McCain, had voted, at the behest of Treasury
Secretary Hank Paulson (formerly of Goldman Sachs) and of Fed
chairman Ben Bernanke, for the bailout of the banks. Whatever the
election result, there was to be no change in the architecture of
financial power in America.<br>
<br>
Two events are scheduled for next Tuesday. If we are to believe the
polls, the voters will install Republicans as the new majority in
the House of Representatives. A longer shot - they may even win the
Senate.<br>
<br>
If that happens, Obama will be in exactly the situation that Bill
Clinton found himself on November 9, 1994, the day after the
Republicans won control of both houses of Congress for the first
time in 40 years.<br>
<br>
Also on Tuesday or maybe Wednesday, chairman Bernanke and the Open
Market Committee of the Federal Reserve Board will convene in
Washington and decide on how much money to create – "quantitative
easing" - and hand to the banks, in order to lift the country out of
a Depression which has 30 million Americans either without a job, or
working part-time. Their deliberations will be more consequential,
at least in the short term, than the verdicts of the voters in the
democratic contest.<br>
<br>
The November 2 election will at least settle a simple question: will
the Tea Party movement, as nutty a bunch as has diverted America
since the Goldwater movement of 1964, have any sort of decisive
political effect?<br>
<br>
So far as the US Senate is concerned, the Tea Party has been the
prime factor in keeping Democrats in certain states in any sort of
contention.<br>
<br>
Even though persuasive detective work by CounterPuncher Pam Martens
and others has established that a couple of oil millionaires from
Wichita, Kansas, the Koch brothers, have been sluicing money into
Tea Party-related political organizations, one can make a convincing
case that purely on the basis of cui bono – who stands to gain – the
Democrats surely invented the Tea Party out of whole cloth.<br>
<br>
If it wasn't for Tea Party maiden Christine O'Donnell, the
Republicans would be counting victory in Delaware as a sure thing.
But in a primary race, O'Donnell defeated the orthodox Republican
and courtesy of her jaunty admission that she had once dabbled in
Satanic practices – something this very religious nation takes as a
serious disqualification for political office – she now lags far
behind Democrat Chris Coons who, by the way, is already pledging
that when elected he’ll be working to keep the Bush tax cuts for the
super-rich.<br>
<br>
There are other states - Colorado, Nevada, Alaska and Kentucky -
where Democrats may survive because of whacko performances by their
Tea Party opponents. Joe Miller in Alaska has confessed to so many
lies that Alaskans may well try to revert to Lisa Murkowski. But as
a write-in candidate she labors under the burden of many Alaskans
being unable to spell her name, so the Democrat, McAdams, might
squeeze through.<br>
<br>
In Nevada, Harry Reid may live to lead the Senate majority another
day because of Sharon Angle’s racist ads, targeting Hispanics. Dan
Maes, a Tea Party man battling to win the Colorado governorship, has
impaled his candidacy with the charge that Denver’s pro-bicycle
program (espoused by Democrat gubernatorial contender, Hickenlooper,
currently the mayor of Denver) is part of a one-world conspiracy
promoted by the UN. Maes is probably right, but as a conspiracy it’s
not drawn voters to his cause. Rand Paul’s security guards in
Kentucky were photographed stomping on the head of a liberal
protester. Also on Wednesday, Tea Party Nation founder Judson
Phillips came under fire for an Internet column published over the
weekend in which he called for the defeat of Rep. Keith Ellison
(D-Minn.) because he is Muslim.<br>
<br>
If the Tea Party may yet save the Senate for the Democrats, in House
races its candidates may have had the effect of juicing up
Republican voters. Or not. A lot of the electorate clearly can’t
make up its mind about which of their houses should be more
plague-ridden.<br>
<br>
Contrary to a thousand contemptuous diatribes by the left, the Tea
Party is a genuine political movement, channeling the fury and
frustration of a huge slab of white Americans running small
businesses – what used to be called the petit-bourgeoisie.<br>
<br>
The World Socialist Website snootily cites a Washington Post survey
finding the Tea Party to be a “disparate band of vaguely connected
gatherings.” The WSW sneers that the Post was able to make contact
with only 647 groups linked to the Tea Party, some of which involve
only a handful of people. “The findings suggest that the breadth of
the tea party may be inflated,” the WSW chortles, quoting the Post.
You think the socialist left across America can boast of 647 groups,
or of any single group consisting of more than a handful of people?<br>
<br>
Who says these days that in the last analysis, the only way to
change the status quo and challenge the Money Power of Wall St is to
overthrow the government by force? That isn’t some old Trotskyist
lag like Louis Proyect, dozing on the dungheap of history like
Odysseus’ lice-ridden old hound Argos, woofing with alarm as the
shadow of a new idea darkens the threshold.<br>
<br>
Who really, genuinely wants to abolish the Fed, to whose destruction
the left pledges ever more tepid support. Sixty per cent of Tea
Party members would like to send Ben Bernanke off to the
penitentiary, the same way I used to hear the late great Wright
Patman vow to do to Fed chairman Arthur Burns, back in the mid-70s.
Who recently called the General Electric Company “an opportunistic
parasite feeding on the expansion of government? ” Who said
recently, “There are strains in the Tea Party that are troubled by
what they saw as a series of instances in which the middle-class and
working-class people have been abused or hurt by special interests
and Washington.” That was Barack Obama, though being Obama he added,
“but their anger is misdirected.”<br>
<br>
In 1995 Bill Clinton clawed himself out of the political grave by
the politics of triangulation – outflanking the Republicans from the
right, while retaining the loyalty of his progressive base. Can
Obama display similar flexibility? The President's aides are already
confiding that the White House will move right. The question is:
will his liberal base tolerate their hero colluding with Republicans
in seeking to destroy Medicare (more likely than an onslaught on
Social Security, which the Democrats may want to run on in 2012) in
the interests of political survival? If that is the course Obama
takes, look for a serious challenge to him from another Democrat, as
we head towards 2012...<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10292010.html">http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10292010.html</a><br>
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