[Marxism] The shifting ruling class mainstream

[Gary MacLennan]

>
>   Joaquin writes:Gary says "criticism of Obama ... is desperately needed."
> In other posts he
> speaks of a "howl" (I wonder if the allusion to Ginsberg was conscious) and
> expressing "rage" (ditto for the Weather Underground).



> My response:  Well I enter a plea of guilty on the Ginsberg and certainly
> not guilty on the Weather Underground. (Rage against the Machine actually) -
> but what is the point here? Is Joaquin saying we need patient respectable
> comments which "even" point out the meaning of "some" of Obama's
> appointments?  The tone of the propaganda against Obama is of course a
> matter for debate.  But what is not for debate is that all, as in all, his
> appointments are bad.  There is no "even" or "some" here.


Let's go back over it. Obama's presidency has begun with his appointments.
Lou has posted a lot of material on reactions to them. Suffice to say that
the Right are delighted.  It's high fives and chest bumping all round.
Meanwhile on this list the Panglossians are saying "We cannot make too much
of this"; ''He is not president yet";  "We do not know what these
appointments mean". "Nobody will listen if we say the appointments are
bad";  "We'll just be preaching to the usual suspects", "It is sour
socialism and pessimism to attack Obama"; "It's sniping at a dead horse to
criticise the appointments" etc, etc.

So the right are having a great "fete dans les rues" and some of the
brightest on this list are saying we must not read too much into this fact.
Let me say it once again. Wake up Joaquin, Fred, Paddy, Walter, Charles.
Smell the shit.  It is everywhere.

Now of course Obama is a smooth act. Absolutely and I will confess to
almighty god so help me Mary ever virgin, it is a relief bordering on joy to
hear a President of the United states who can actually finish a sentence.
It was such an insult to have Bush foisted on us. but that very smoothness
does as Joaquin realises constitute a problem.

But let Joaquin come out now on the list.  Let him stop this shifting
maneuver of pretending that we have strategic agreement but are merely going
thru the throes of a tactical dispute.  Let him write out clearly "Obama's
appointments are all bad" and "Illusions in Obama are dangerous". Then we
will have strategic agreement and can go on to debate tactics.
Let me make an early contribution to the debate on tactics - a narrative as
befits these pomo times. I can just see Joaquin in my mind's eye.  He is
standing outside an eviction.  In between chants and pushing back against
the bailiffs. Like the brave militant I have heard he is, he has no fear of
the police. But he whispers nervously to the young Latino beside him
"Actually I am a bit worried about Obama".  The young Latino turns round and
says "What?!!" and Joaquin says "Oh nothing really".  Back in the closet.

Let me take two more points on the "dual mandate" and on Hilary.

Firstly Obama's dual mandate. That formulation is actually offensive.  The
people voted for change but such is the state of American democracy that
they are going to get the same old same old.  There is no mandate for
Volcker.  There is no mandate for Clinton.  There is no mandate for Emmanuel
etc. There is no mandate for what America is doing and will do in Iraq,
Afghanistan or Iran. None at all.

It seems to me incontrovertible that Obama was the choice of the American
ruling class.  They funded him but such was the strength of the illusions in
Obama that they could actually sit back and watch the working class pay up
and save their rulers a lot of cash.  The elites must have laughed
themselves silly at the number of small contributions.

Next on Hilary.

I repeat by appointing her Obama is sentencing Arabs & Afghanis to death.
Eli thinks this is not ncessary to say.  Joaquin for his own purposes seems
to agree.  But Eli must acknowledge the difference of Obama and how that
constitutes a special case and a special problem.  But what of Joaquin's
defence?  Those who are going to be murdered would have been murdered
anyway. A large section of the Islamic world consists, it would seem, of
dead men walking.  A shame that actually but you know...

Of course Joquin is ignoring here the important point of being an accessory
to murder. And let us never forget that choice is choice. Obama has chosen
to go down the murderer's path and btw he is also marching under the banner
of Jesus Christ as William Blum pointed out. That every other bourgeois
candidate would make the same choice is of course the very point I am
making.  Barack is a bourgeois politician and should be treated as that by
each and all of us.

Yet millions seem to have expected him to bring about change. And that is
the problem. However let me also point out that there is an audience who are
not enchanted by Obama.  They are those on whom the bombs will fall and to
talk of murder does not appear "strident" to them.

Of course Joaquin will reach into his deck and pull out the "What do you
expect card from a bourgeois politician card?"  Well I expected nothing and
I have made that abundantly clear, I would have thought.  But millions did
and do and on this list there have been those who have been swept up in the
tide of illusion that Obama has spread.

So how stands this debate? Inexorably and quite horribly I and Lou and
others will be proved correct.  We will have to do nothing.  Simply leave it
all to Barack Baby.   If as I optimistically believe the tide turns and
people begin to howl and rage then he will change tack.  But if most people
react like Fred, Joaquin, Charles, Paddy and Walter then he will think he is
getting away with it.  He can talk of change and give us more of the same.

So that is why I reject the calls for silence however they are dressed up.
A charlatan is in the field and he serves the ruling class.  And I will say
so.

comradely regards

Gary










One last and somewhat separate point: "The absolutely cold hard truth is

> that by appointing Hilary Clinton, Obama has passed a death sentence on
> Arabs & Afghanis and others who oppose American Imperialism. No metaphor
> about dead horses or sleight of word can wipe that away."
>
> Can Gary name even one U.S. politician whose nomination for secretary of
> state would pass the giggle test in U.S. ruling class political circles
> about whom the same could not be said? Aren't we being a little bit
> melodramatic and disingenuous, and skipping quite a few necessary linkages,
> when w is sentencinge put things in this fashion, as if some OTHER
> plausible secretary of
> state would likely be different in this regard, but Obama chose the one
> MOST
> identified with imperialist crimes?
>
> In choosing Mrs. Clinton, Obama did NOT "pass a death sentence" against
> ANYONE. The coming dead were sentenced long ago. At most, we could say this
> appointment does nothing to help those who are victims of imperialism. It
> is
> an appointment that changes nothing. And, again, whatever tactical
> adjustments there may be in the stance of the U.S. Government in pursuing
> the interests of the United States as the world's uniquely pre-eminent
> imperialist power in the cultural, military, political, economic and
> monetary spheres will be Obama's adjustments, not Clinton's.
>
> Such exaggerated formulations, especially with Obama actually taking the
> reigns of government still a month and a half away, easily create the
> impression that in the universe of bourgeois politicians, Obama is an
> especially odious and execrable example.
>
> I understand why some radicals feel that way: he is a much harder target to
> hit than a Bush or a Palin, someone who, instead of instantly generating
> intense dislike among the more conscious working people, instead is
> attractive to the big majority of them. I believe that the exaggerated
> violence of some of the verbal Obama-bashing on this list is, as some have
> already suggested, a sectarian reaction to this phenomenon.
>
> Joaquin
>
>
>
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