OBAMA AND AXELROD HAVE CYNICALLY EXPLOITED PROGRESSIVE SUPPORTERS

  As Obama turns his back on the problem of Global Warming in Copenhagen it is almost impossible to continue wondering if this leader is progressive in any way other than in the hopes of his often progressive supporters.  

  Turning his back on all humanity and the future of our species was not enough for the well spoken closet reactionary from Hawaii.  His pseudoprogressive medical bill  consolidates the the alliance between big government and the industries who want to shake down the American people so they can profit by denying healthcare.  Now the government will criminalize those who don't pay their full share to the insurance, pharma, and hospital rackets.  


   Then Obama's escalation of the war in Afghanistan is an obvious sign that he is
just another imperialist war lord.  Enough said,  imperialist war lords are not
progressives!



   Of course Obama's complete sell out to finance capital and Wall Street is his and Congresses overarching crime against democracy, liberty and justice.  


    Obama also seems to be preparing the public for a more open war with Iran. He has done nothing for the Palestinians.


    In Latin America Obama has led an offensive against democracy and justice from Central America to South America.  His regime supported and/or led the coup in Hondurus and the subsequent regime.  He is laying the basis for a more open war on Venezuela and the continued enslavement of Colombia.



    Of course Obama is different than Bush in many cultural and social ways.  He is also a good reader of his script whereas Bush was the opposite.  But these pleasant and shiney differences are trivial compared to Obama's reactionary policies and his political philosophy which leaves truly progressive Democrats out in the cold.

   That is the role of the Democratic Party in the United States.  It is a dead end road for progressive hopes, decade after decade.  When will we learn?  Obama is, in substance, little different than Clinton, maybe worse.

The Mystery Continues Obama Flies Like a Conservative, Stings like a Progressive?

     It seems to me that Obama is in many ways an improvement over Bush.  These improvements are relative, however, and do not represent a departure from unwavering support for the rule of private capital, albeit with massive support from the state.  That is to say that the system we have now is some sort of capitalist system where private capital retains the reins but the horse pulling the cart is fed and owned by the state and paid for, once again by the taxpayer.


    So the modern capitalist exploits the worker twice, once at the point of production by paying her less than the value of her labor and then again through taxes which is funneled by the government to the coffers of the finance capitalists, banks and insurance companies.


  Obama convinces this observers that he has a considerable competence which Bush seemed to lack.  His comments generally indicate a deeper degree of understanding than he may be articulating whereas Bush seemed to have difficulty putting his thoughts, however simple minded, into words.


     On certain social issues Obama has stood up for LGBT people in a way that other Presidents have not.  His Supreme Court nominee is most likely better than one McCain would have delivered. It seems that Obama has gone along with the liberation of women theme in his foreign policy in a way that may actually cramp some patriarchs somewhere.


    But the Clinton-Obama version of women's liberation is no substitute for proletarian feminism which would struggle for not only women's liberation but working class rule.


  Certainly he is an example of an extraordinary leader who is also an African-American.  I think his ascent as a person of color has shattered a lot of myths and cynical beliefs.  So many people in the United States and abroad are surprised that a person of color became the President of the United States.  That is the one area where Obama is  broadening the political vision and career possibilities people of all colors are willing to believe in and conceive of.


Of course he continues to frighten this observer with his close relationship to Israel and the Israeli lobby which seems to dominate his foreign policy team.  He has had no backbone with regard to Israel, immediately caving on his insistence that settlements halt further construction.  It was a somewhat trivial and modest position for him to take given that all the settlements are illegal but even this was too much for him to live up to.  Obama promised hope and delivers a lot of the same old dung.  It may be processed manure but it is still the same old colonial s~t in Palestine.


He seems to be menacing Iran and I wonder if he will attack Iran just the way a Republican or a Likud Party member would like to do as well. If so it will be impossible to defend him and call yourself progressive.



Obama's bailout of the capitalist financiers is troubling and appears to intensify the problems of concentration and bigness that so many policy wonks talk about.  Nothing has been done about it by Obama.


Health care reform may or may not look progressive later.  Obama and the Democrats will pass a bill and perhaps route the Republicans for some years but now it looks like the health plan is written primarily by those entrenched profiteers who make good health care less and less available to the American population.

Obama is better than Bush but his progressive credentials are still uncertain and he seems to have a lot of rightist exploitative policies.  We shall see who the real Obama is.  You can't rope a dope past the fifteenth round! 

OBAMA TAKES ON BUSH'S LINE ON SO-CALLED MISSILE DEFENSE

Obama's trip to Russia seems to offer up some things that could be progressive, maybe, and then some old Bush policies.

Were real commitments to meaningful reductions made? I hope so but I need to look at what the reduction in nuclear weapons and missile launchers is really all about. Sometimes they just take out the warhead or some warhead component that could be reattached in a few hours or less.

So what is the fate of the decommissioned weapons and were they already decommissioned. I am skeptical.

It would be good to see the nuclear weapons decommissioned and is a step that is in the progressive direction but if both powers still retain thousands of weapons the reduction will still look relatively meaningless to nuclear have nots or those with relatively tiny arsenals like Pakistan, India, China, Israel and Korea.

As for the ridiculous advocacy for the so-called "missile defense system"
it is Bush Lite all over again.

The big change is the willingness of Russia and the United States to work together in fighting the wars to Russias southeast in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq. Iran may feel safer now that the Russian ally is providing a corridor for United States military forces. I suppose this may be necessary because Uzbekistan is closing the US military base there.
I don't really know but I suppose supplying these remote wars is a real
problem for the empire.

Once again, the apparent willingness of the United States to call Russia
"equal" appears to be a recognition that Russia is a regional power to be worked with rather than an enemy to be continuously opposed. It almost looks like an alliance?