[Peace-discuss] Street's updated take on Obama.

[C. G. Estabrook]

Street could use an editor.

It would be quite wrong to see this article as a list of mistakes by Obama. 
It's instead an account of the consistent politics of the party that elected him.

The most important remark comes from a year-old (!) article by Howard Zinn, 
well-titled "Election Madness":

 > Let's remember that even when there is a "better" candidate (yes,
 > better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that
 > difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts
 > itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it
 > dangerous to ignore ... Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party,
 > unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two
 > leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they
 > will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system
 > of free health care for all.
 >
 > They offer no radical change from the status quo. They do not propose
 > what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government
 > guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every
 > household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.
 > They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical
 > changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for
 > social programs to transform the way we live.
 >
 > None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with
 > its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection
 > for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the
 > Thirties and the Sixties.

That suggests the way forward for AWARE, rather than the SOP (Support Our 
President) strategy.  --CGE

P.S. -- The link to David Harvey's material ("Why the U.S. Stimulus is Bound to 
Fail" <http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/bullet184.html>) is worth following.


Brussel Morton K. wrote:
> Has Obama done anything praiseworthy? Paul doesn't mention any, which I 
> think is the only criticism I would make of his devastating analysis of 
> Obama's first days in Office. Street tries to convey the essence of the 
> Obama Presidency so far. --mkb
> 
> From http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/20702
> 
> *Obama's Violin: Calibrating Hope Since the Election*
> 
> February 27, 2009
> 
> By Paul Street
> ...