I've got to say up-front that I still believe the system of electoral politics in America is irrevocably corrupt - in essence, I think it has been made into a sham, an illusion of power & participation designed to fool people into thinking that they still have some role within the Military-Industrial Complex. That said, those who know me also know that I'm an unrepentant political junkie. Not just of theory and political science mind you, but crass electoral politics as well. As much as I know that's it's all rigged, I still watch the spectacle. Other people have American Idol auditions, NASCAR and horrible accidents caught on tape, I have federal elections.
So, why am I on about this and what does it have to do with Senator Obama? Well, here's the thing. As much as I believe the system requires radical alteration, I do still believe in the strength of the U.S. Constitution and the Republic, as designed. I have no hope that Democrats will transform the country, but at a minimum, I expect 'em to defend the Constitution and civil rights and they don't even do that. For me, Dems are more disappointing than the GOP - you know for certain you're facing a fascist when a Republican walks in the room, but with Democrats it's always a crap shoot. Is he Jimmy Carter or Zell Miller? Barbara Boxer or Dianne Feinstein? Paul Wellstone or Joe Lieberman? Ineffectual or malevolent, which will it be?
When Bill Clinton ran in 1992 I probably paid less attention than I have to any other election in my lifetime. I clearly remember the hope and optimism that some of the people around me had at the possibility that a Democrat might regain the White House. Me - not so much. First, it didn't seem likely that Poppy Bush would not win and second, I figured that Clinton was lying to the party base in order to get the nomination. There was just no way that guy could possibly govern as far to the Democratic left as the promises he was making, and all those Sister Souljah & Ricky Ray Rector moments... I didn't anticipate the impact that Ross Perot (also a Texan, but one who seems to despise Poppy Bush), would have on Bush's numbers, but I turned out to be right about Clinton's actual governance - that freakin' dude sold the left down the river (please ponder the etymology of that saying, and yes, the inference is intentional), any & every time doing so could benefit his personal political fortunes. By the time he got around to openly colluding with the Bush family after September 11, Clinton as Laurence Harvey almost started making sense to me.
The thing is, despite my usually reliable good sense, there is still a photon of hope within me that some genuine leftist will finally figure out the Quantum/Digital Age inverse of Clinton's short-sighted triangulation strategy. Now, I know full well that even if that happened, such a person would still be unable to instigate the necessary radical change, but they might be willing (and able, given a Democratic Congress), to reverse the worst of the Bush/Cheney assault on the Constitution. Plus, it's long past time to poke the oligarchs in the eye.
Obviously, Obama wouldn't have a multi-million dollar presidential campaign if he hadn't already been bought - every Republican is a pre-ghost Scrooge (Ebenezer, not McDuck), and every Democrat is Redford in The Candidate. None more so than Obama, really - he started out as a lawyer/community organizer just like the Redford character. Of course, Redford never made the sequel. What happens to the young organiser once he actually gains power? If the arc of his candidacy is followed, then the accumulation of compromises and concessions will render him incapable of being the sort of change agent he intended to be when he decided to run. The thing is, though, that if such a hypothetical stealth candidate got in, compromises and all, wouldn't such a person still be more likely to get something big done than someone who never had right intention?
Anyway, I could rant on endlessly about the failings of American faux-centrism, so I'll just give a mundane example of what I'm getting at. I think Bill and Hillary Clinton genuinely believed in universal health care back in 1992, but history demonstrates that he was willing to jettison the whole thing when he thought it might jeopardise his re-election chances. Not even craft some sort of half-assed compromise, but just toss the whole thing out and move on to the Republican-friendly eradication of Welfare. Once he was out of office, Clinton readily conceded that he got the whole thing ass-backwards - he should have started out by offering the GOP Welfare eradication in exchange for universal health care. As a radical, my first choice would be to throw the entire system out and start over. However, while we still live within this oppressive system, leftists with any sort of power have to do whatever possible to mitigate the harm done to those of us at the bottom. Self-serving triangulation fails the Hippocratic Oath - that's just not good enough.
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