Not even a human

My maker has promised me

He will make me a new man

And though I am a robot

Without even a proper head

I have me an afro wig

That's color is bright red

Malkatraz, on England's Labour Party:

And how disappointed we've been over the last 11 years by everything that has been perpetrated by this sham of a government - the corruption, the sleaze, the broken promises, the lies, not to mention the damn incompetence. So disappointed in fact, that the country has almost gone full circle, volte-face and the Tories are now significantly ahead in the polls.

Comparing the Labour Party to our own Democratic Party is apt. History is our laboratory. Want to know how something will turn out? We've probably tried it before!

The Labour Party of England chose a very similar route to the one the Democrats are now taking: centrist, with emphasis on "non-ideological" pragmatism and a rejection of their core base and values. Now look were they stand. They stand for nothing except their own perpetuation. They have no vision. They have no guiding ideology. They have accomplished nothing positive worthy of note. Their legacy is an unpopular war and a massive surveillance state. The remnants of the party that still cling to it's founding principles (guys like Tony Benn) are relegated to the fringe. The unfortunate English voters have some choice, don't they? Dumb and Dumber. They are now poised to choose Dumber once again because Dumb didn't work out.

who gush over and defend The One's every move and attack anyone who dares to criticize or merely question HIM, as well as by the "He's a RW shill who's pulled the wool over your eyes you morons!" types who, in their clear-eyed perception of The One True Truth, just KNOW what Obama's all about, and what an utter fraud he supposedly is (and how both parties are identical, it's all a con, people need to wake up and revolt, blah blah blah).

Both are engaged in simplistic binary thinking that allows for only an all or nothing scenario.

One can be an Obama supporter and criticize his moves. In fact, if one is an Obama supporter (and, more to the point, a member of the left), then one really has to criticize his moves, when it's warranted. And one can criticize his moves without believing that he's a right-wing sellout or shill. I don't understand the need by some to reject the vast grey area between full embrace and full rejection. I suppose that it makes life easier to just stay wedded to a fixed ideological point (he can do no wrong/he can do no right), but that's lazy and idiotic and quite useless.

I think that there are more than the two possible explanations for his post-election moves that are being offered by both types, that are more reflective of both Obama's MO and of current political reality (you know, the kind that he had to deal with in order to get elected, and which he's going to have to deal with as president, since, thankfully, we're not quite yet a full-blown dictatorship), and not nearly as simplistic. I.e. that he's either a brilliant political genius who knows exactly what he's doing and we need to just STFU and stop second-guessing him, or is a RW sellout or shill who's smarter but otherwise no different than Bush in his obvious desire to consolidate power around the power and money elites (of which he's now a central part) as he completes the American Tyrannical Imperialist Project, blah blah blah.

I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with such alternative explanations for his moves, if in fact they're correct, just that they do exist, and, I think, far better explain why he's doing what he's doing than either of these unoriginal and brain-dead formulaic ones (that we've been hearing from the diehard supporters and detractors of every US president since at least LBJ).

There are variations to each, but the gist of it is that, while he's going to be the next president, which grants him great powers, he will (thankfully) not be omnipotent, and will still have to contend with the existing and prevailing political, military, corporate, special interest, think tank and media establishment, that is still very much in place and powerful, and which still very much tilts in a right-wing direction (e.g. pro-war, pro-military expansion, pro-empire, pro-torture, pro-warrantless wiretaps, pro-corporate power, etc.). And if he goes against this establishment too radically and quickly, he will not only fail, but be destroyed by it, as have previous presidents who tried to go against it, to one extent or another.

He knows this, and has decided that it's best to not rock the boat too much, too soon, by going up against this establishment, and is instead trying to co-opt it, by appearing to accomodate it, and in some cases actually accomodating it, while at the same time slowly neutralizing it, or nudging it in the direction he wants to take it, and the country. Which, I think, would explain all the center-right cabinet picks. These people are all high-ranking members of this center-right power establishment, and are precisely the kinds of people you'd pick, if you were persuing such an approach. Plus, they also happen to be responsible for many of the disasters that we find ourselves in, and there's something to be said for making THEM fix it, and for their expertise, twisted as it may be, being necessary for this to happen.

I am, of course, just speculating, and could be dead wrong. But I imagine that this is just the sort of approach that a really smart and disciplined new president would take under the present circumstances. And obama is clearly smart and disciplined. A more openly progressive approach at this point, while more pleasing to the left, would, I suspect, be far more likely to fail, than this sort of oblique approach, because while the public might have shifted leftward, the power establishment has not, to my view. And successful presidents have to contend with not only the public, but the power establishment as well, and likely more so.

Of course, even if this is what he's trying to do, there's always the danger that it'll either fail, in that by giving the establishment too much power at the start, he'll trap himself within its grasp, or that he'll decide that he's ok with this establishment, remain in the center-right, and abandon whatever progressive goal he might once have had. (Bill Clinton's presidency is a case study in both phenomena.) But a more openly and aggressively progressive approach would, I suspect, be as, if not more likely, to fail, as would such a more stealthy approach. They all have their perils and pluses, which I think need to be acknowledged.

And, yes, there's also the possibility that he never was a progressive, and that this isn't a stealthy approach at all, but actually indicative of the center-right presidency that he had in mind all along. Again, I don't know, nor does anyone at this point--including, I believe, Obama himself, who is and always has been a cipher. But anyone who insists that this or that IS what Obama is doing, and that it's either 100% good, or 100% bad, is just fooling themselves. Which is why I think that it's necessary to both tentatively support AND criticize him at the same time.