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'S SPEECH IN CAIRO

It is remarkable that Obama has spoken out so strongly about an end to Jewish settlements (fortresses really) on Palestinian Territory recognized as Palestinian territory, by all parties now with the exception of Israel or certain Israeli trends.

Some Israelis still seek the conquest of all of Palestine. This was the goal of the Zionist founders and most Israeli leaders ever since. Then there are the settlers which are the armed militias that illegally occupy the West Bank. Settlements were expelled from Gaza but settlers want to return.

That is what the settlements are all about, making a two state solution impossible and creating the basis for the complete disenfranchisement of the Palestinians, the indigenous people of Palestine.

Today, in Cairo, Obama seemed to repeat this opposition to the Jewish military outposts known as "settlements". Will he flip flop? He hasn't yet.

Obama's speech to the so-called Muslim world, really it seems more the Arab-Muslim world was in many ways remarkable as well. His speech was nuanced and seemed steeped in a level of understanding and even wisdom generally unthinkable for an American President. I will bask in the notion that the United States has a President who is not obsessed with demonic forces such as Gog and Magog but seems fully in contact with reality!

Obama's cultural literacy and indeed multicultural literacy and yes understanding of those Abrahamic texts allowed him to wax as we hope
the good King would alway wax, with genuine respect, understanding and compassion in his heart. I want to believe that all this improvement in understanding is not towards some similar or new evil, I want to believe in Obama and those words he spoke today. So I believe will millions and tens of millions.

And if Obama flips and flops or is unable to continue his efforts in the future I believe that those who heard his words today, women of the Abrahamic faiths in particular will change the world, will remake the world with the wisdom of soft but working hands.

Yes the feminist revolution is rising in the United States and the whole world. Women will not be held back. Women will soon rule the world in a way they never have since the earliest times. It is a great hope and a great challenge for those of us attached to patriarchal rule.

His words in support of women was a very politic and powerful idea. One wonders how Bush missed such a simple way to appeal for change, one based on words, mutual understanding and mutual support rather than warfare.

For the devil is also in the details and in the many ommissions. Hopefully this imperfect vessel of some real understanding will help revolutionize the world.

I have to say I see no abandonment of military rulers or monarchs by Obama. Will such a speech intentionally or not undermine such rulers?
If only Obama had a streak of Napoleon he might win the world by love and understanding alone. Yet the rulers are intact, I do not think he plans on replacing them?

Why Egypt? Unfortunately it is probably to fix the creation of a Palestinian state so that such a state is entirely under the control of Abbas and the CIA. The Egyptian military dictator is part of fixing the deal so Hamas is iced out of all power and influence and so that the Palestinians stay on the reservation.

While Israel can be thought of as a semi-autonomous sub-imperialism and European white settler state Egypt is really still a semi-colonial dependency of the United States.

So it is a lot like the election of Obama. Obama offers progressive hope but is he a Judas goat of progressive politics, leading us to oppression and injustice rather than hunting us down and fighting us as an open opponent. In other words, "Is he a Democrat?"

OBAMA HAS DONE LITTLE TO SIGNAL PROGRESSIVE CHANGE

As we wait impatiently for the Obama administration to begin we can say that we are at once relieved and prepared to be profoundly disappointed. On the one hand Obama could hardly be worse than the Bush regime. Yet he has appointed a gaggle of Clintonites to his new White House staff. Is the Obama administration going to be some peculiar version of Clinton III?

Of course we will have to wait for deeds in order to see if Obama is any less in the back pocket of the fossil fuel industries. Will he, in fact support a genuinely green energy configuration for the United States or will he push such nonsense as "clean coal", continuing dependence on oil for transportation and we already know he likes nuclear power. Of course all of these choices make it possible for a few investors to make a killing charging most of us for our energy usage. What weneed is a return to public utilities that are controlled by scientific minded citizens who want to see the public get the necessary power they need without destroying our climate through global warming.

He seems to be realloy in big with the financial capitalists. Just about everyone in his administration is a financial capitalist or has been at some time in their careers. I don't see how anything progressive can come out of that.

If Obama is waiting to signal progressive reforms he is doing a good job of hiding his intentions. So far he sounds like he thinks the political campaign is still underway, continuing to evade the real policies he will seek to implement. Yet at the end of the day flowery rhetoric without substance will satisfy no one. He doesn't even talk the talk.