"Note to “the Left”: Obama Hates You" By Paul Street

[WizardLeft62]

Note to “the Left”: Obama Hates You

By Paul Street
Sunday, November 28, 2010

"...The 2008 Barack Obama campaign reminded some hopeful left and liberal observers of the fantastic, feel-good presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy (RFK). Like RFK in the turbulent summer of 1968, Obama swept up a considerable number of progressives in the illusion that big democratic transformation, peace and justice could be achieved by electing a different ruling class-sponsored candidate. In both cases, many on “the left”1 drank heavily and wistfully from the corporate-crafted pitcher of liberal, candidate-centered Kool Aid. It was a great and dreamy seduction...."

"...In one common narrative, the left-sounding Brand Obama seduced portside Americans with rhetoric and imagery encouraging liberals and even some self-described radicals to believe that he was/is “one of us” and “on our side.” Call this the Barry White story line on how the president charmed silly, star-struck left voters and activists with progressive pillow talk and deceptive rebel’s clothing that included the color of his skin.  It has some basis in fact. I saw Obama pose as a left-leaning progressive again and again during the 2007-08 primary campaign within and beyond Iowa. But there’s another, meaner Obama when it comes to relating to “the left” – a more Barry Bonds-like bully who arrogantly lectures, mocks, disrespects and works to marginalize and repress serious liberals, progressives, and leftists....  

"...Some of the meaner side of Obama’s relationship with the left was displayed when Obama spoke to Rolling Stone magazine five weeks before the 2010 mid-term elections (when his corporate-captive administration and party took a widely predicted beating at the polls). Admonishing “progressives,” Obama said it would be "inexcusable" and "irresponsible" for unenthusiastic Democratic voters to sit out the midterm elections, warning that the consequences would include the squandering of their agenda. "People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Mr. Obama said. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place." Ticking off a list of supposed progressive victories under his premiership, he denounced the “glass-half-empty” view of many progressives as “a debilitating force” that distracted from the real concern: the Republican Party. "It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election," Obama said. The message took on what CBS called “a stern, lecturing tone” after Obama concluded his lengthy Q-and-A session with Rolling Stone but then (according to the magazine) returned unprompted to denounce the progressive voter enthusiasm gap: “The idea that we've got a lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base, that people are sitting on their hands complaining, is just irresponsible....""

Read the Entire Article at:

http://www.zcommunications.org/note-to-the-left-obama-hates-you-by-paul-street

[Name removed]

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[anachro1]

8. yeah, but

which party is strong enough to step up?

[polichick]

12. imo it'll be a new party - progressive and populist with a candidate who...

...is already well-known - just a hunch.

[Crazy Dave]

19. At first the main stream republicans blew off the Tea Party

So anything is possible and now could be the time.

The Wall Street bailouts haven't stopped yet and there were never any bailouts for Main Street. Millions are still without a job and health care, the unemployed 99'ers are screwed and Obama is even calling Social Security an entitlement.

And if you thought the Patriot Act was bad under Bush, at least you could still get on a flight without you and your kids having to expose yourselves and/or get felt up.

[Citizen Worker]

44. Neither. Change will require a new, from the bottom up, political movement.

[Radical Activist]

3. Do you get the feeling he was eager to write this editorial in November of 2008

and has been waiting for justification to prove his expectation?

[NorthCarolina]

6. No, I don't get that feeling at all. nt

[girl gone mad]

9. Nope.

[Radical Activist]

16. Comment 14 suggests I'm right.

[TheWraith]

13. Hell, they've been writing this editorial one way or another for years.

Right back to Nader 2000 and long before.

And the people who seriously believe this stuff are the ones who have forgotten Nader and what he did to this country, that they could seriously believe Bush and Gore were the same.

[struggle4progress]

14. Oh, Mr. Street was spewing nasty crap about Obama even before the 2008 election:

Paul Street: Obama IS like JFK, but that's no compliment; or, Faking MLK While Betraying His Mission
Monday, July 28, 2008
http://ministerfaust.blogspot.com/2008/07/paul-street-obama-is-like-jfk-but-thats.html

[WizardLeft62]

23. "Nasty Crap" or Reality about Mr. Obama?

Not only was Mr.Paul Street criticizing Obama in 2008 but so too were the entire staff at Black Agenda Report from Glen Ford to Margaret Kimberley to Bruce Dixon and Professor Adolph Reed. As a matter of fact Reed debated Karina vanden Heuvel on Bill Moyers about President Obama who was then a candidate. Reed did not have any illisions that Obama would be "progressive president."

Paul Street's analysis of Obama from the start has been spot-on. One may not like Street for pointing out that Obama is really a corporate president, but, this speaks more to reality than Steet being "nasty."

Paul Street is not "nasty" but well thought out who does great research.

[struggle4progress]

25. I'll add, I'm not much impressed by what I've read at Black Agenda Report

[sabrina 1]

74. No, I get the feeling that after watching this president for two

years, he has come to the same conclusions as so many others. And when that many people come to the same conclusions you have to admit, they are right.

I think it's been obvious since his COS, Rahm and Axelrod made it clear that they despised the left of the party and Obama did nothing to correct their statements and attitude towards the left, that they were speaking for him.

He's a rightwing, Reagan Democrat who would have been a Republican when that party still had a semblance of sanity.

We were fooled, although there were plenty of signs. But after eight years of Bush, people were willing to overlook them.

[polichick]

4. Wow, I didn't know this about Bobby Kennedy...

"paranoid anti-Communist Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy was the Godfather of his first child."

Oh, ick!

As for the rest of the article, it was pretty clear that candidate Obama had disdain for the movements of the 60s - even though he wouldn't be where he was without them. In addition to "hating" liberals, he seems to dislike the middle class, grassroots democracy and the Constitution.

[Art_from_Ark]

41. I think that was his father's doing

Joe Kennedy practically forced John and Bobby to embrace McCarthyism in the '50s, setting Bobby up on McCarthy's staff. But Bobby had a falling out with McCarthy in 1954.

[liberation]

55. I believe when Joe Kennedy when he was an Ambassador in Europe...

... he got into some hot water because he gushed in public over the virtues of fascism.

Most Americans live in denial regarding the incestuous relationship of the power brokers in this country, and how they play and speak with both sides of their mouth.

[Art_from_Ark]

69. To their credit, though

I think John and Bobby were a little repulsed by their father's attitude and tried to move away from it. I also think they were sincere about wanting to fight poverty and create a better life for the average citizen. And they actually had a good chance of achieving, or at least approaching, those goals. Having lived during those days, the cynic in me says that is one reason why they were gunned down.

[whathehell]

7. Check out this interesting passage from the article...

“Too Far From the Center”

Obama’s mean-spirited actions and attitude toward ‘the left’ are hardly just a product of his period in the White House. Obama first achieved notoriety during the late 1980s by doing an end run around progressive law students and forming an alliance with far right members of the Federalist Society to become the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review. As a U.S. Senator, Obama worked with Emmanuel and other big political forces to promote “realistic” (centrist and pro-war) over “unrealistic” (“progressive” and antiwar) Democratic candidates in the 2006 congressional primaries – a sign of things to come. U.S. Senator Obama once dismissed the former progressive U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone as “a gadfly” in what interviewer and essayist David Sirota called “a tone laced with contempt.” As Sirota observed, “this clarified Obama’s support for the Hamilton Project, an organization formed by Citigroup chair Robert Rubin and other Wall Street Democrats to fight back against growing populist outrage within the party. And I understood why Beltway publications and think tanks have heaped praise on Obama and want him to run for President. It’s because he has shown a rare ability to mix charisma and deference to the establishment.”24

[polichick]

10. Pretty sickening stuff. nt

[whathehell]

18. Isn't it?.....We should have looked closer...

Not that the choice of Hillary or Him was a great one..I was ready to vote for Edwards before he dropped out.;(

Primary Challenge or Third Party in 2012.

Let's not get fooled again.

[polichick]

20. I'm with you - it freaks me out that my whole family (3 generations)...

...were fooled by this guy. Hillary was too hawkish for me, so, even though I was upset by Obama's comments about the 60s movements and about Reagan, I worked for him and registered a lot of voters who were also fooled.

Yeah, primary challenge or third party!

[whathehell]

22. Absolutely!

This crap has to end, because at this point, if we don't move away from BHO (assuming he stays the same) there really IS no "democratic party" anymore....I'd LOVE to see Howard Dean go at him, but I'm probably dreaming.

[polichick]

27. Dean has said he won't primary Obama, but who knows - maybe he'll...

...start a new populist party!

[whathehell]

31. That would be wonderful!...I'd be his the first to volunteer for his campaign. n/t

[martymar64]

62. One might want to look at Brian Schweitzer

I like him quite a bit.

[Martin Eden]

81. Third Party option would ensure a Republican president in 2012

The only way Sarah Palin could win the general election for president in 2012 would be for the left to split its vote.

I'm all for defeating Obama in the Dem primary, but I'll still take Obama over ANY repuke in the White House.

[Crazy Dave]

11. Well, by all the numbers and stats Obama has been a great capitalist

Most major corporations reported historic profits last quarter without creating any jobs and we're being told that's a great thing and soon all that wealth will start to "trickle down".

[whathehell]

15. I hate that we've been so "had"...

I've never felt so betrayed by a politician.

[MissDeeds]

33. Ditto

I had doubts and misgivings about him, but in no way was I prepared for such a let down.

[Crazy Dave]

47. Hell, Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton even warned us that we'd be sorry

During the primaries but we (including myself) didn't listen.

[whathehell]

72. Did they do so in any particular way?...I'm just curious

I mean, did they hint at his (at best) Blue Dog-ism?

I don't remember that, but your memory may be better than mine.

[Radical Activist]

39. Obama is a capitalist!!!

[DimplesinMI]

45. Well, color me not surprised....at this point

Do you have a link to the article?

[whathehell]

50. Yes...It's in the OP. n/t

[elzenmahn]

48. He's never hidden his true colors...

...they would have been unearthed had this type of research been done years ago, like when his book Audacity of Hope came out...

He never was a true progressive. Our political system can't handle a true progressive in the WH - the corporations and wealthy elites see to that. Unfortunately, for now, he's the best we can hope for.

I don't know about you, but I'm thinking either primary challenger (Feingold, anyone) in 2012, or a third party (Greens, perhaps?)

[whathehell]

49. Primary Challenger (Fenigold is good) or Third Party in '12...That's exactly what I'm thinking..n/t

[Hawkowl]

54. Leopards don't change spots

This has been his method ever since then. He talks a good game so as to deceive progressives, all the while thinking he's going to garner the support of the powerful, wealthy, center-right and then tell the left to STFU!

[whathehell]

66. Thorougly disgusting.......Primary challenge or Third Pary in '12. n/t

[flyarm]

17. Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political

Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership
Noam Chomsky on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman from November 30, 2010

Leaders.


November 30, 2010

Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership"

In a national broadcast exclusive interview, we speak with world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky about the release of more than 250,000 secret U.S. State Department cables by WikiLeaks. In 1971, Chomsky helped government whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg release the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret internal U.S. account of the Vietnam War. Commenting on the revelations that several Arab leaders are urging the United States to attack Iran, Chomsky says, "Latest polls show] Arab opinion holds that the major threat in the region is Israel, that’s 80 percent; the second threat is the United States, that’s 77 percent. Iran is listed as a threat by 10 percent," Chomsky says. "This may not be reported in the newspapers, but it’s certainly familiar to the Israeli and U.S. governments and the ambassadors. What this reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership."

Listen to the Interview with Noam Chomsky at:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/11/30/noam_chomsky_wik...

[awoke_in_2003]

38. Noam's new address?...

Under the bus.

[martymar64]

64. To the ConservaDems, Chomsky has always been under the bus.

[jaxx]

21. For your reading pleasure.

Political beliefs

Street is a left Marxist whose leading influences beyond Marx include Gerrard Winstanley, Edward Palmer Thompson, Eric Hobsbawm, Rosa Luxembourg, Noam Chomsky, and John Pilger. Street is an outspoken critic of pseudo-populism, which is usually engineered with the help of mass media, especially as it perpetuates corporatism and imperialism. Street is also an expert analyst and commentator on contemporary racism in the "post Civil Rights era."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Street_%28journalist%29


What is a left marxist doing running down a Democratic President?

[WizardLeft62]

24. The Sit-Down with Paul Street

Adam Burke Interview with Paul Street from October 9, 2008

Excerpt Here:

Q: Your preferred caucus candidate was Dennis Kucinich but some might accuse you of drinking Edwards Kool-Aid (TM) before the caucuses. Does every voter put blinders on and drink candidate Kool-Aid (TM) to some degree?

PS: I’m personally left of Kucinich. I published pieces critical of Edwards on foreign policy prior to the Caucus. I agreed with Noam Chomsky that Edwards was “the least objectionable” of the “viable” contenders. If Kucinich had made any considerable effort in Iowa, I would have worked for him. Edwards ran a semi-progressive, heavily issue-based campaign that said more about labor rights and class inequality (and against “corporate Democrats”) than anything I’ve seen from a “mainstream” candidate. But candidate-centered politics is a problem: you live and die by the candidate’s image and “qualities,” not by the issues that should matter most. We can all see what would have happened with an Edwards nomination.

Q: Many people will close their minds to the possibility that this candidate is not everything they imagine. How should people view a politician like Obama?

PS: They should see him as just that – a politician, not some kind of transformational, quasi-millennial savior or other such nonsense. This guy has wanted to be president since a young age. He came up through the world of Chicago and Illinois politics. He hired David Axlerod to put him over the top. The Dr. Martin Luther King analogies should stop. This doesn’t mean don’t vote for him. It just means “buyer beware” and get ready to fight and protest, guilt-free, once we remove the Republicans (if we can) from the White House.

Q: Do you feel Obama has become a vessel for people to pour their own ideologies into, and if so, how has he done this?

PS: Sure. It’s what presidential candidates do in a big-money “winner-take-all” system that leaves no room for the full diversity of the real ideological spectrum, where most people are actually to the left (on basic policy issues) of both dominant political parties and of the business sector that tends to control the action behind the scenes. They do it with market research, advertising, micro-targeting, and image-building, emphasizing each candidate as a “man for all seasons.” McCain is doing it. Bill Clinton did it. It’s nothing new. American presidential politics has involved mass-marketing candidate imagery and cross-ideological voter-cooptation since the 1830s. Astute commentators since the Progressive Age have noted that campaigns market U.S. candidates like cars, candy, and toothpaste.

[Radical Activist]

34. Oh he's one of those.

Obama's career record and platform was clearly to the left of Edwards. I always wonder what was at the root of informed progressives who knew that fact and still backed Edwards. There were a number of them, like Sirota. hmmm...

[liberation]

56. LOL...

... btw, technically when you're projecting your "left" is actually the "right"

[martymar64]

65. In what respect Charlie?

Please cite Obama Administration positions and policies today that are to the left of Edward's positions during the campaign.

Can't wait to hear these . . .

[chervilant]

71. Sad

that so few of the hoi polloi are aware of wee Eddie Bernays, esteemed nephew of Siggie Freud, and progenitor of the mass manipulation strategies broadcast into our collective psyches by the magic boxes that beam pretty pictures into our living rooms.

Sad, too, that so few of the hoi polloi are aware that the 'Captains of Industry' long ago decided that they are the only ones among us erudite enough to decide the fate of the nation, ergo they must be the ones who make all the really important decisions.

Sad that so few of the hoi polloi are aware that our species tends to identify with our oppressors, both on the micro (think relationship violence) and the macro (consider the 'wealth carrot' meme) levels.

Those of us who've 'stepped outside the box' and developed a clear perspective of our nation's dire straits represent our best hope to evolve our damaged democracy beyond the corrosive control of the hedonistic corporatists. I remain hopeful that we can effect such change: if our forebears could risk life and liberty to create this democracy, we can risk life and liberty to defend it.

[Yeahyeah]

26. Obama's a Democratic President?

[jaxx]

28. Look, that kind of crap doesn't fly.

He's not a socialist and that seems to be the problem here.

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Yeahyeah]

32. Too true for you.

[FiveGoodMen]

30. Only for very small values of Democratic

[Radical Activist]

35. In other words, it doesn't matter what Obama does.

Street will claim it isn't good enough and that Obama is too corporate regardless of his record. It's the disingenuousness of it that's annoying.

[Dr.Phool]

36. Well, so far he hasn't done much of anything of substance for anyone other than corporations.

Doesn't appear that he's ever going to.

I'm done with him too.

[Radical Activist]

37. Have you been in a coma for the past two years?

Otherwise, your statement is baffling.

[Dr.Phool]

52. I wasn't baffled. I was bull-shitted.

And I don't like it.

[flyarm]

40. ++++!!!!!!!!!!!!

[liberation]

57. But "corporations" are "people" now...

... so technically he has done a lot for the "people."

Also stop believing your own lying eyes, and take the official narrative at face value. There is nothing more "radical" than that.

LOL.

[ProudDad]

73. "What is a left marxist doing running down a Democratic President? "

Telling the Truth...

[Cobalt-60]

42. We needed FDR. We didn't get him.

Naturally the puke candidate would have been far worse.
And I think we would have gotten essentially the same result with Clinton.
He needs a primary challenger and we need that challenge to start today.
If Obama ends up the candidate in 2012 I'll vote for him.
If he manages to hand the presidency back to fascists that will be all for the Democrats.
I didn't vote for Republican Lite. But I seem to have gotten it.
I'm monumentally unhappy with President Obama's performance.
He's facilitating the imposition of a Corporate Police state.
His only concerns seem to be for corporations and banksters.
And he's making excuses to extend the Bush* wars.
I don't give a god d*mn how cool he looks.
He needs t o get on the stick or get the f*ck out of town.

[elzenmahn]

79. Our system won't tolerate an FDR....

...and remember back in those days, there was a plot to overthrow him (remember Smedley D. Butler?), so their power elites didn't tolerate him, either. But at least FDR had a stronger labor movement and left wing to backstop him.

These days, our labor movement has been decimated, and our left wing is disorganized and almost non-existent, so there is no back-stop in this case. Our unions, media, and education systems will need to be rebuilt in order to have a chance. Until then, the Dems will continue to try to feed at the same trough as the Repiglicans.

[yurbud]

43. what's ironic is Obama identifies the GOP as the problem during the election then goes right back to

begging and pre-surrendering to get their support (that will never come).

[fasttense]

46. Barack Obama is a sheep in wolf's clothing.

Or a conservative pretending to be a progressive.

On the campaign trail he talked like a real progressive but in action he is a corporatist.

And he really is not into us liberals all that much.

"Austerity" here we come - which means we will have a protracted severe recession or it might even turn into a real bad Depression.

[TBF]

53. I believe he's a con - he had to run in the dem party to get the nomination

so he did. Late in the campaign when he started talking about his admiration for Ronald Reagan more of us should've listened.

[katty]

58. Glen Ford fr Black Agenda Report from the start said

and wrote Obama is not progressive and is a corp conservative, beware voter.

[TBF]

59. Yes, I worked hard on the campaign during the primary here in TX (March) -

but by summer I had found on-line political discussions and Glen Ford was one source I started reading. He's been right on the money.

[Mosaic]

68. That's when I started to get suspicious

And I decided not to vote for him early on. I still feel he was the lesser of two evils though.

[TBF]

70. Lesser of two evils -

I guess we can still make a case that supreme court picks and right to choose are still worth protecting - but when you look at all the people out of work, losing their unemployment with no job in site, foreclosures, gap between rich and poor wider than it's been since the 1920's - it's really hard to find an economic reason to pick one "team" over the other.

[Demeter]

51. Thank you, I noticed

[sulphurdunn]

60. The irony is that despite Obama's

conservative and corporatist resume, he will always be that socialist, black Nazi, Muslim foreigner, leftist fifth columnist to the very American right he ceaselessly panders to.

[Vitruvius]

78. And serves him right.

.

[DeSwiss]

61. Kick

"There is truth in the one-liner that Democrats bandy: Anyone from the working or middle class who votes Republican is suffering from Battered Wife Syndrome. Although one is tempted to retort, anyone who votes for either one of the corporate/National Security State parties is closer to a half-senile spinster who still believes her prince will come." http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/111110a.html">~Phil Rockstroh, Angry Voters of a Decaying Empire

[Myrina]

63. K&R.

sigh :(

[99th_Monkey]

67. I see no reason to besmirch the memory of RFK to make the point

Bobby never got his chance, but was murdered preemptively by the very people Obama seems to now pretty much in bed with, so please ..can we leave Bobby out of it?

[WizardLeft62]

75. Paul Street's Analysis of Obama's Center-Right Presidency

Paul Street's Analysis becomes more and more credible by the day in regard to the Obama administration.

Obama claimed he was against the Iraq War by one little speech while in the Illinois State Senate. Upon arrival to the U.S. Senate, Obama voted for every war spending bill and supplemental.

As president, Obama signed into law the biggest spending bill ever. Obama's connections with the nuclear industry might not be well-known to many people, but, that entiy contributed mightily to Obama's campaign as did Goldman Sachs.

If Obama is intelligent, which I believe he is and knows what he is doing which he does, one thing that is also outstandingly clear is the following:

Obama acts more like a Corporatist-Militarist Republican than a Socially-Economic consciously aware Democrat. And if he does act on behalf of liberals or the left it is certainly not on their behalf.

The second half of Obama's center-right presidency is just beginning. There will be no vestiges of liberals or signs of the left by the time Obama finishes his first and perhaps only term as president.

[pscot]

76. Joe? Joe Liebermann? Is that you?

You sly old shit disturber you. You just hate him because he trusted you. It made you feel small when you sold him out, and now you hate him. You really know how to nurse a grudge Joe. It's what makes you such a complete asshole. And if the OP isn't by Joe Lieberman, well, never mind.

[Vitruvius]

77. Kick

.

[creeksneakers2]

80. Obama doesn't hate you. He didn't fool you.

Obama talked quite a bit about his willingness to compromise and work with others for consensus toward solutions. That's what he's done.

One can't go to DU without reading this same whine that's here again. The votes aren't there to get the far left agenda through. Its never going to happen.

[displacedvermoter]

82. always use "Poutrage" instead of whine.

It shows you loathe people who disagree with you more than "whine" does.