Lemme lay some quotulation down upon yinz.
Kuttner's critique of Obama is on the money --- in my view, if there was ever a president who had the economic circumstances and political mandate to challenge the prevailing wisdom, it was him. But for reasons about which we can only speculate, he didn't do it.For reasons about which we can only speculate . . . how do we explain . . . I have often felt that so-called progressives approach politics with the dull, explicatory minds of an eleventh-grade English class charged 1,000 words on "A Rose for Miss Emily" or "Barn Burning," which begins with some crackpot Freudian speculation and goes on to summarize the plot for the final 700 words. Obviously, to the question of why Barack Obama did not attempt to transform American into a peaceable kingdom, the answer is that he did not intend to attempt it. Well, you can speculate on all the ways that this traduces his various heartfelt expressions of brotherhood and fellowfeeling through the bleating of what Digby calls his "reputation for rhetorical brilliance," or you can take the more pedestrian path of concluding that his character and his intentions are not contained within the wordfog of a Presidential campaign but are in full evidence in his behavior and his actions. Why has the President governed like a neoliberal coporatist? Because he is a neoliberal corporatist. Why do his pedantic, proceduralist utterances and didactic vocal cadences fall so short of his reputation for rhetorical brilliance? Because he is a pedant. Why has he failed to combat the systemic imperatives of war and business and the business of war? Because he is the system.
-La Digs
How do we explain President Barack Obama's failure to rise to the challenge that history dealt him, and the inversion of a Franklin D. Roosevelt moment into a new period dominated by the corporate elite and the far right?
-Kuttner
27 comments:
I love this idea of history "dealing challenges" to someone. Sure, the felt says the house has to stand on 17, but you've got a good feeling about this one.
The more I think about it, the more fucked up this metaphor is.
Okay, so I guess history isn't "the past" any more; it's something we're living in right now. Whatever, cool, I guess. But now history has "dealt [a] challenge" to Obama? A challenge implies an expectation of a future outcome. So now history - which is the present in the process of becoming the past - is also dictating the future? And if you fail to live up to the challenges of history, you'll ... be written out of history? Lose the future in the battle over the past? Self-terminate?
How exactly does history challenge somebody? Especially a President? History is a warm and nubby blanket for Presidents. It's comfort in a crisis. It's the last refuge of the incompetent. Breaking from tradition is, almost by definition, ahistorical.
Do they speak English in What?
At this point Kuttner, Digs, et al must be dialing it in. "Why does he act like a corporate hack? It is a mystery!" is just polite pwogwessive-speak for "We fucked up - we trusted him." Better to be thought a high-minded-though-naive idealist than a dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks true-believer fanboi/fangrrll who never questioned why the stuff on the open-face that was advertised as hot beef smelled and tasted like...well, something else.
Digby is indeed a gullible idiot who may or may not mean well, but if she didn't exist, we'd have to invent her. The nearest pretenders, the gang at Shakesville -- they just don't provide the same kind of bland befuddlement that Digglewiggles offers.
What, you mean our exotically named, former community organizer, merit-stuffed-CV-toting child of university professor parents, former US Senator ...is a corporate stooge? But his resume, his life trajectory, they spell Selfless, Humane Leader... don't they?
"Plasticine porters with looking glass ties..."
History dealt the hand, but Obama won the future.
I was genuinely amazed to learn that Digby is over fifty. She writes like a twentysomething from the suburbs who paid no attention to politics until the Bush Administration, then learned everything she knows from Olbermann and Air America. Or... maybe she just understands her demographic? Could she be smarter than we think?
On a positive note, now that they've realized that their savior was just another whore, they will have raised their guard. They won't fall for another Obama type until...well, until the next election. And the one after that. And then the rest of the elections for the rest of their lives.
...why Barack Obama did not attempt to transform American into a peaceable kingdom...
in answer, here's some magical thinking:
The hypothesis that forced itself to the forefront of my consciousness goes like this: Obama knows that the GOP can win by playing the soft-on-terrorism card, and is virtually guaranteed a win in '12 if there's another attack; he's waiting until after '12 to start cleaning up this mess.
Damn, Digby is still stuck in her impossibly long road to Damascus moment.
Oh god, whatever, who cares.
Digby knows full well what's she's doing. My best guess is that she, like the other A-list "progressive" bloggers, know this is the way to make money from blogging. The Democratic party needs to allow some criticism and the fact Digby and her ilk never take their criticism to the obvious conclusion and become oppositional to the Democrats is exactly what endears her to the Democrat partisans and presumably her money source.
Or there is more sinister thought in the back of my mind--that she's being directly paid or working on behalf of some corporate/government initiative to infiltrate and neuter any leftist movement.
At first, I thought she was sincere in her lessor evil rationale--after all, she appears perceptive enough to see that Obama and the Democrats are betraying important liberal principles but simply can't quit them because they are the only viable counter force against the evil teabaggers, as her argument goes.
But now I simply can't accept that she is acting in good faith. How can someone be perceptive enough to see one's own party actively working against all the important policies one purports to believe in, but yet keeps making excuses and keeps enabling these same abusers? It can't be real. I don't think denial can run this deep. And for such a mass of people ("progressives") to be afflicted with the same psychological infirmity tells me that it must be orchestrated by more powerful interests.
“So it’s shrinking. Where’s my suitcase?”
“I told you. In the future. Deductive reasoning showed that. It’s beautifully simple and logical. And it’s quite impossible of proof, too. A hundred, a thousand, a million years ago the Earth – the universe – was larger than it is now. Only we won’t notice it because the universe will be proportionally smaller.”
Gallegher went on dreamily. “We put a workbench into the locker, so it emerged sometime in the future. The locker’s an open window into a different time, as I told you. Well, the bench was affected by the conditions of that period. It shrank, after we gave it a few seconds to soak up the entropy or something. Do I mean entropy? Allah knows. Oh, well.”
“It turned into a pyramid.”
Damn, Digby is still stuck in her impossibly long road to Damascus moment.
It's a long road and a little wheel and it takes a lot of turns to get there.
But, Rothbard, they are not realizing their hero is a whore. Just the opposite. That's the purpose of the willful stupidity -- to keep the act from closing down on itself.
History dealt it, but Obama has not smelt it.
I is in your future, getting my face stomped in.
To Walter Wit Man, I have to disagree and apply Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Methinks you have applied Clark's Law: "Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indisguishable from malice."
Ersatz Henry Kuttner wins today's Internet.
And for such a mass of people ("progressives") to be afflicted with the same psychological infirmity tells me that it must be orchestrated by more powerful interests.
Herrn Wit Man,
Weren't you paying attention during middle and high school? You know, the mechanics of "popularity"?
That's the "more powerful interest" you suspect: tribal identity, personal insecurity, vicarious success.
You've got to figure any asshole can win the past. The past is a used up whore, she'll spread her legs for half a fix and a kind word. The future on the other hand-- the future is untouchable. No one can win the future. It's philosophically impossible. As soon as you think you've won-- fuck, she's out of reach!
So the trick, the real magic trick -- what Yeshu HaChoklati be tryin to sell us -- is to make the future EXACTLY LIKE THE PAST! Presto no-change-o! Immediately exploitable! Like a 14 year old runaway!
It's a brilliant formula, just ask Hosni Mubarak. And then while you're at it, ask him what he uses on his hair.
Once upon a time - years, years ago - I sent Digby a check in the snailmail. This was quite a while ago - she had not even revealed her gender yet.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Wow. You guys are smart and funny! I'll come back to this blog to learn about current events.
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I was genuinely amazed to learn that Digby is over fifty. She writes like a twentysomething from the suburbs who paid no attention to politics until the Bush Administration, then learned everything she knows from Olbermann and Air America.
I was surprised to see her admit a few years ago that she had never heard of Chomsky until her lefty commenters kept mentioning him. I mean, regardless of what you think of him, how the fuck does anyone from the last couple generations with an above-average interest in politics not even hear of the guy?
Damn, Digby is still stuck in her impossibly long road to Damascus moment.
Oh well, to be charitable, at least she's having one. A lot of liberal bloggers are just ignoring the disparity between Obama the myth and Obama the war-mongering whore. Like the asshole Roy Edroso at Alicublog, for instance, who hosts circle jerks around wingnuts and various libertarian ghouls and has a fan base consisting of Obamabot trolls.
Or there's Atrios, who makes smart observations on how shitty things are, but generally refuses to name any names that aren't teabaggers or right-wing pundits and will no doubt get happily on board the train for Obama's second term when the time comes. He's also just a lazy ass who phones in with an 'Open Thread. Enjoy!' post about 3 times a week, which is no less a head-in-the-sand than anything Digby does, except her denial takes actual effort.
To be honest, I don't know why anyone cares what these conformist shills think most of the time. Digby will be on the road to Damascus next week and the week after. Why do anarchists give a shit?
wordfog
Awesome.
Attention Deficit.
Awesome.
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