The Politics of Self-Humiliation
Class War Indeed!
by ANDREW LEVINE
September 22, 2011
The Republicans’ hypocrisy is staggering, as is almost everything that emanates from their quarters these days. After all, this is the first time since the beginning of the Thatcher-Reagan era that capitalists have gone so boldly on the offensive. And why not — they smell blood. Obama’s relentless and unrequited efforts to accommodate Tea Party obstinacy inspires them. They may come to regret the Frankenstein they concocted if it veers too far out of control. But because they pay the piper, the pillars of our capitalism seem to think they can continue to call the tune.
With electoral defeat in 2012 staring them in the face, Obama Democrats seem finally to be turning a new leaf. If they stop capitulating for a while, it may even do some good. But don’t count on a real and lasting change of course. Obama fooled the Democratic base once; shame on those who are fooled again.
Now that Obama has taken a small step back from unmitigated awfulness, I must say that I feel a little sorry for him. It’s not just that his strategy of appeasement at home and aggression abroad is in shambles. The poor man had to stand before the world’s leaders at the General Assembly of the United Nations and reveal how utterly his administration and, worse still, the American Congress, fears the Israel lobby; how the American government is willing to go manifestly against American interests to do its (and the Israeli right’s) bidding. And, in the same speech, he had to mouth on about American support for human rights and the rule of law on a day when it seemed certain that retrograde penal authorities in Georgia would go forward with the judicial murder of Troy Davis – not just in defiance of internationally accepted levels of political morality but even contrary to the judgment of many death penalty advocates in the United States who have the decency to want the state to kill only those who are incontestably guilty.
To represent the United States before the world on these matters is to bring shame upon oneself. Obama surely deserves to be shamed, but no one – not even a hurler of drones and promoter of smog, not even a defender of war criminals and predatory banksters and a continuator and enabler of their malfeasances – should have to humiliate himself to that extent.
Read the full article at:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/22/class-war-indeed/
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