"Many liberals and progressives cling to the childish notion that Obama is really one of them"

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Sat Jul-30-11 10:32 PM
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"Many liberals and progressives cling to the childish notion that Obama is really one of them"

Weekend Edition
July 29 - 31, 2011

Getting Things Done ... for the Rich and Powerful
Whose Black President?
By PAUL STREET
Paul Street is the co-author with Anthony DiMaggio of the newly released Crashing the Tea Party (Paradigm Publishers, 2011)

Preparing to run for re-election as a �moderate� in 2012, Obama appears to share the G.O.P�s �preposterous claims that the deficit, not unemployment, is the top economic issue facing the U.S. He says that �Government has to start living within its means, just like families do. We have to cut the spending we can�t afford so we can put the economy on sounder footing, and give our businesses the confidence they need to grow and create jobs.� As activist and writer Shamus Cooke notes, �This is the language of the right wing, now the language of both the Democrat and Republican parties. In reality, the U.S. government could easily access trillions of dollars in revenue; it simply chooses not to. Both political parties refuse to discuss how raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations could easily fix the current deficit issue on both the federal and state levels.� This is quite true, just as the ongoing elite-manufactured �crisis of Social Security� could be solved simply by lifting the regressive cap on payroll taxes and taxing investment income.

A Silly Narrative

Obama keeps �caving in� to the Republican Party, much to the all-too credulous dismay of many liberals and progressives who cling to the childish notion that the president is really one of them. One of the more ridiculous aspects of this summer�s debt-ceiling drama has been the claim of certain Democratic pundits and spin doctors (e.g. MSNBC�s Lawrence O�Donnell) that Obama never really meant to institute draconian Social Security, Medicare and social spending cuts � that the �grand bargain� he offered was really just a clever ploy to expose the Republicans� real partisan and arch-regressive agenda. This is a preposterous claim, as was seen when Obama subsequently signed on to the bipartisan �Gang of Six� budget plan, which �offered huge tax breaks for some of the wealthiest people in the country, while lowering Social Security benefits for retirees and the disabled� (Dean Baker)

We are familiar by now with the standard liberal defense. The president, an all too persistent story line goes, is a progressive, left-leaning man of liberal instincts boxed in by cra-a-a-zy Tea Partiers who �took over the Republican Party� and left him no choice but to shift rightward to �get something done.�� This narrative ought to be understood as embarrassing nonsense. �The Tea Party� is an expression of the long-term rightward drift of the ever more radical, pseudo-conservative Republican Party, for which �deficit reduction� is just a tool in its long-term war on those parts of government that do not serve the rich. Consistent with his longstanding identity as a corporate and imperial �player,� the deeply conservative Obama governed from the big business-friendly, Teapublican-accommodating center-right in his first year, when the Democrats held both houses of Congress, including a filibuster-proof Senate majority. He and his party stood down progressive organizations, energies, and voters (another promise kept to corporate and Wall Street sponsors) in 2009 and 2010, leaving the door open for the Republicans� Tea Party-re-branding and triumph � a victory that helped Obama move yet further into his right-leaning, privilege-pleasing �comfort zone� (Glen Ford).

What Matters Above All

It is historic that a black family has resided since 2009 in the White House. But let�s be clear about whose black president Obama really is at the end of the day: theirs, not ours. As John Pilger noted two years ago: �The clever young man who recently made it to the White House is a very fine hypnotist, partly because it is indeed exciting to see an African American at the pinnacle of power in the land of slavery. However, this is the 21st century, and race together with gender and even class can be very seductive tools of propaganda. For what is so often overlooked and what matters, I believe, above all, is the class one serves . George W. Bush�s inner circle from the State Department to the Supreme Court was perhaps the most multiracial in presidential history. It was PC par excellence�.It was also the most reactionary.�

Read the full article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/street07292011.html