Stop Me Before I Vote Again

I posted this without typing 'Hillary'. Reposting now:

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"The Obama regime remains on track to be more destructive and mindlessly vicious than the Bush regime."

That is exactly what I thought when I read this. It is hard to believe, but in policy terms he is every bit Bush's equal. He is continuing his work on all fronts and the worst part is he is the smoothest pitchman ever to occupy the White House. He makes slick Willie look rough around the edges. I mean he's on the ropes right now, but if it were anyone else, they'd be in far worse shape politically than he is.

I just honestly don't get why these people behave this way so consistently. Obama has been handed an opportunity to go down as one of the country's greatest presidents ever: the country is ready for radical change, there is a filibuster-proof majority in Congress, and, until recently, huge amounts of support at the grass roots, especially with young people. Maybe this is a naive question, but don't these people ever really want to use power for good if only to serve the narcissistic goal of being revered forever? He's rich, he's powerful and would remain so no matter what he did now. Why do these weasels serve the oligarchs so devotedly. Are they afraid of being killed if they don't?

Great comment. I'm a bit puzzled too, for whatever it's worth. He's actually exceeding what he would be expected to do as a bought and paid for president. Garden variety oligarch-coddling, with a bit of pork barrel largesse for the plebes would have allowed him to bask in adulation, but he looks to me as though he's acting in anticipation of major power realignments, and making sure to completely bust out the country before catastrophe makes that impossible. As far as I can tell, there's no major realignment on the horizon, nor anything that would do more than create the usual jockeying, grasping, bickering and rent seeking. Taking things by comparison, Papa Doc Bush was more liberal.

FWIW, i have the mild guess that one "stimulus" is the need to blow new bubbles with much-diluted soap.

To put in my own take: I'd say that MJS and OP-san or on the leading edge of analyzing this particular question, and I think it has to do with "merit" socialization. That's code for middle-class fear and desperation, of course, and that's a mega-powerful reality. If you live your whole middle-schlub life to worm your way into Harvard, and then it happens, you're in lifelong gratitude. And that's just the psychology, to say nothing of the extremely woeful mis-education you actually get at elite schools.

Superblackjesusreagin is all that, plus a cynical, extra-endowed social climber's multiplier effect. Plus I also think he's almost certainly chosen Steppin Fetchit over MLK and X, despite the play he's run on those he walked on to rise.

He has to prove he's extra-trustworthy, otherwise all will be bad.

That last thing, sick as it is, is the only thing that makes me have a gram of sympathy for this ongoing disaster...That and the basic sociology of late empires...

That makes sense, MD.

Hapa, yeah. Do you recall James Baker's op ed of a few months back? That was when the grown-up oligarchs wanted to stabilize things a little between bubbles. At the time, I though there was a slim chance Obama was going to take up the implicit offer of support and follow through. That he didn't lends support to MD's thesis. He's got the corporate compromiser's adept and smooth solicitude, to the point of reflexive groveling, and grovels on cue to loudest of the "merit" class. In this case, to the shrill screeching of the super-asshole yuppie psycho banksters.

Why do these weasels serve the oligarchs so devotedly. Are they afraid of being killed if they don't?

Oh they don't kill people anymore.

Why do these weasels serve the oligarchs so devotedly. Are they afraid of being killed if they don't?

They serve the oligarchs because, if they aren't already within their ranks, they want to be. They serve because it is in their self-interest to do so. They serve because the reward -- in power, in perquisites, in wealth -- are orgasmically great. There's no real threat of assassination originating from the oligarchy as a whole (inter-factional struggle and ideological outliers are another issue) because no one gets anywhere near an office like the Presidency without the support of at least a significant fraction of the oligarchy. You can be damn sure they vet the contenders for any remote potential that a candidate, once elected, might go rogue and act against their interests.

Whatever the workings inside their heads, and souls if they have them, the effect is almost invariable. No custodian of a consolidation of power is willing to yield an inch if that involves loosening the screws on the populace and there's usually no way for any one of them to reverse the elite consensus on that. They're more intractable than mobsters, and they dehumanize the people in their control the same way mobsters do.

ob
is surrounded by a merit bubble

he tries to be lincoln like

he wants greatness but by fabian tactics
ala lincoln

lanky link had the propulsion of civil war
and the grace of timely assasination

ob has .....

as to this SSI biz
a one time pay out will happen
its too cheap and too easy not to happen

tactic driven by strategic sconsideration:
don't waste it now

wait and wait and make it appear to be
either a profile in courage act
at the eleventh hour
or hold off till u need a white hat moment

the greater siege of the SS
is awaiting next years congo session
when house elections require senior moments of all sorts

"loosening the screws on the populace "

merit elites
share
our hegemonic exploitation elite's
definition of responsible
pro social solidarity
leadership

in this area it means

either more bondage if less discipline
or more discipline if less bondage

we got discipline down
since by way of job and credit scarcity
mchouseholds are in increased bondage

system hazard:
the lighter whip hand could lead to
traffic stopping
low lower lowest order rambunction

"they don't kill people anymore"
really??

one name

mlk

failures of sufficient protection
are instances of
unindictable co conspiracy

--------------------
okay i agree
" the state " is feared
by ........... our dear blanc-plebs
as tax enforcer
drinks sniffing road blocker
and the ever present
judge dread
etc

not feared however
as super snooper
torture-suarus rex
or off duty
death squadristi

Obama does not have the political character of Lanky Linc (the blessings of the gods of hoodoo upon Lord Buckley's sweet soul), who, though slow on the uptake, went as far as he could go when the need for a massive reshaping of the country's sensibilities made itself clear through the experience of civil war. Obama does not have it in him. It's one thing to say, as H. Zinn does, that Lincoln wasn't more than a masterful politician. It isn't that simple. No, more than that, Lincoln was an educable and tough party boss among the early republicans who knew how to shake up his contingency, drive competing factions within his cabinet to the side, and in time, defend the key task of abolition, which was the arming of black people with rifles as well as ideology, which black people already had. No other white politician of his era had the same kind of courage. For Obama to do anything similar, he would have to lend critical support to the working class as political subject, and lend credibility to labor leaders who display the same gutsiness Frederick Douglass and Martin DeLaney displayed during the days of civil war. And where are those labor leaders? Yet to emerge, and now later then ever thanks to the Obama cult in labor. Obama is more like Franklin Pierce than Lincoln.

james baker means "snake" in every language on earth. but maybe there was an opening there, without a planned trap, or exposure to ambush, for the fait accompli, if anybody in the office wanted the books exposed to the light of day. that's sort of still where i'm at -- dems' own involvement in the fraudery guarantees ongoing muddle that might not have been.

"james baker means "snake" in every language on earth."

Well said. It does indeed, but he's also the fixer for oligarchs who want to extricate themselves -- individually, or as a class -- from a difficult situation. He sweet-talks the tantrum and panic people and tries to give them an easy out; no loss of face, no loss of power, no squirming nasties exposed to the light of day. He has a real sense of class interest and little partisan concern. This is the second time, to my knowledge, that he's been given short shrift. The first being the attempt to give Baby Doc Bush a graceful exit from Iraq.

ha! justice! look who got the kids in the messy noonan v palin divorce, or who got whacked last by the mujahedin. honest patrician malintentions torched by their own robot pitchfork armies and suddenly the long term is today and even your second-hand smokers think dope is a plan. but he DID go on the daily show. i saw it myself! him talking up the greatness of an aircraft carrier like a parody remake of a navy sitcom. maybe if a believable quorum of pinstripes and pearls had accompanied him on sax....

thought of him and his when i saw the queen, i did. "in the land of the truth, the man with one fact is king" replied in the loop.

but you know though it's all over the discovery channel how wildfires are a critical part of forest ecology. the old trees must give way. if we don't have hundred-millions years of charcoal-fed old money biota to replace it that's because it's redundant -- all roads lead to western/human destiny -- except the ones on television.

"For Obama to do anything similar, he would have to lend critical support to the working class as political subject"

exactly right !!!!

and his entire context
his bildung at its rad-est
identity / community politics
with a super structure of merit elite
good guy
non value inertia-ed
management
know what and technique

and yet still....

u never never know

saul had his road to damascus

perhaps the mcjob class
after enough job doldrums
will stage
a series of anti corporate
anti mistah misatah
job site
struggle tableaux
that catch the conscience
of the cool coal king

hapa

" wildfires are a critical part of forest ecology. the old trees must give way..."

yes but we need the social equivalent
of an asteroid

the workings of mother nature
and HER HIGHNESS CLIO
ever the analogy
ever the difference

"asteroid"

feh, the asteroid will hit, the fed will create new temporary planet facilities until the old one's less murky and the dead will rejuvenate the blasted soil