[Marxism] sectarian? Re: The Obama Cult

[S. Artesian]

Come on Mark, you can do better than that.  You do do better than that.

Fred's using it, the word sectarian, in its religious sense?  A sense that 
it is definitely not used on this list?

The magical thinking is not being promulgated by those who aren't quite so 
wrapped in the near-religious ecstacy over the election of an 
African-American to the position of chief executive of the bourgeois state. 
Obama's victory is not, as some have implied, a victory for "our ideals," 
derived from "our struggle."   Our struggle, as best I can remember it, 
started from ideals, but endured because it became material, became a 
struggle for the emancipation of labor; because it became a class struggle.

Obama represents no different class, no different section of that class than 
Bush and the Republicans.  Obama won because that same class requires 
different things than it required in 2004.

Nobody is using incantations here... except maybe for Walter and his spin on 
the positive contributions of the Catholic church to the material and 
spiritual well-being of Cuba, except maybe those who keep repeating, Obama 
is black, things are different, Obama is back, things are different.

Sure things are different, an African American was elected president.  And 
that's as far as it goes.

Are all those who perceive a sort of hope against hope surrounding Obama 
playing, like Muzak in a shopping mall, (or a dentist's office while 
awaiting root canal), in the background of several participants' posts, 
suffering from misperception?

Tell us then, in materialist terms,  what exactly is the opening you see in 
this election, as opposed to all other elections?   By opening I mean, 
stimulus to just those masses and mass actions that will overwhelm the 
pledge of allegiance so fundamental to Obama and his supporters.

Please don't tell me about hope, and hope for change,  and new voters who 
want a better America.  That would really be meaningless incantation-- the 
mantra of "progress."


Here are some of  my incantations designed to win the hearts and minds of 
all peace-loving people who bet on Obama:

1. Immediate withdrawal from Iraq.
2. Immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan
3. No missile placements in countries formerly allied with the fSU.
4. No bailouts for banks, insurance companies, money market funds, asset 
backed securities, etc.
5. Economic stimulus to be organized around the payment of reparations for 
historically unpaid, underpaid black, hispanic, asian labor.
6. No foreclosures.  Immediate cancellation of all mortgage debt on primary 
residences.
7. Taxpayers will place on deposit with the Federal Reserve Bank of NY, $24 
in trinkets, in exchange for which all bankers, financial advisers, hedge 
fund managers, stock, bond, currency, commodity, derivatives, traders will 
immediately leave the island of Manhattan.

You know what?  Those are exactly the same chants I placed in a sealed 
envelope before the election, to be opened no matter who won.

How did the Who put it (got to like that How and Who juxtapositon)?  Meet 
the new boss, same as the old boss.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Lause" <markalause at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] sectarian? Re: The Obama Cult


> Dayne Goodwin <daynegoodwin at gmail.com> wrote:"If Fred thinks that it
> is in the best interests of the working class to have illusions about
> Obama ..."
>