Prolonging our illusions

I've had plenty of differences with Justin Raimondo over the years, but I give him enormous credit for this:

I have to say I was wrong – dead wrong – about Obama. In my eagerness to find a bright spot in a rapidly darkening world, I grasped on to his alluring rhetoric and his at-times trenchant critique of the Bush foreign policy, like a sinking man holding on to a life-jacket. But looking for hope in all the wrong places doesn't create opportunities for peace – it only prolongs our illusions. We must face the prospect of a much more terrible conflict than we have ever known, and look it squarely in the face, without flinching or looking for false messiahs.

(I recommend you follow his "dead wrong" link to see just how far advanced his Obamamania was; I was going to post about it at the time, but where's the satisfaction in threshing self-satirizing phrases like "those golden words melted the very air"?)

I'm very glad to see that Raimondo has recovered, recanted, and is speaking such critical truths.  I couldn't agree with him more; in fact I wrote about the danger of prolonging our illusions a few months back.  But the fact remains: Barack Obama managed to snow someone who's been the editorial director of antiwar.com for over a decade, who had every possible resource available to see through the rhetoric, and whose armor should have been miles thick.  Just one of the many reasons there's no doubt in my mind that if Obama wins, we're in for a marathon bout of illusion-prolonging that'll make the Clinton years look like the golden age of liberal skepticism.

Comments

[cemmcs]

Does this make Obama more dangerous, less dangerous or just as dangerous as Hillary and McCain?

[Thomas Daulton]

I suspect Mr. Caruso will argue that it makes Obama the most dangerous of the three, because he will de-fuse opposition to bad American policies both at home and abroad -- whereas McCain will galvanize opposition both at home and abroad, and Hillary may well galvanize it abroad (and at home, to a shallow, hypocritical surface level, by the Republicans, who merely want to hamstring her at any cost).

Without opposition, the bad policies gain ground -- even if it's not so overt as during the Bush years -- and fritter away our time and resources that we might otherwise use to avoid a looming societal crash. For example, talking about trees as carbon sinks rather than developing actual renewable energy technology.

A much larger portion of the country (than the small number of Bush Dead-End'ers) will suddenly stop articulating and demanding better policies, and start assuming that the President knows what's best and is doing the best he can. Ask any U.S. nonprofit, such as environmental or womens'-rights organizations etc., whether they did better in terms of funding and membership during the Reagan or Bush I/II years, vs. the Clinton years. Virtually any of them will tell you that when a Democrat is in office, people assume that 'things are taken care of' and public support drops off or languishes. This would have happened with Hillary to some degree, but I bet the effect is larger with Obama as President. Because he talks such a good game, without specifically promising very much.

I'm not 100% sure I agree with that stance, which I ascribe to John... but the reasoning is clear, compelling, and consistent. As a minor example... just a few minutes ago, I was overjoyed to discover that a blog I'd loved to read in the past is back online after a two+ hear hiatus. This guy impressed me for years with his keen powers of analysis and his acerbic wit. The keen analysis and wit are still there with regards to McCain and Hillary, but looking at this guy's renewed posts, he talks about Obama as if Obama had already arranged to hand out free ponies to all U.S. citizens within his first hundred days.

[John Caruso]

Thomas gives a good summary of my general position, but without the most crucial element: that the policies will differ only marginally, and only within the narrow framework of the mainstream. Clinton and Bush both did everything they could to undermine any meaningful agreement on global warming and they both killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (Bush has probably taken the lead, though Clinton likely killed more civilians)—but how many people (and especially Democrats) recognize those facts? Most Democrats would go into a high dudgeon at the very suggestion, or explain to you why it was completely different when Clinton was murdering Iraqi children.

So the crux of my argument is that if the policies are only going to differ in relatively narrow, tactical ways, we're worse off with a president who anesthetizes the main source of positive opposition.

In 2004 there was no question in my mind that this should be the driving concern, but it's not quite as clear this time around (in part because as a result of 2004 we're likely screwed no matter what happens anyway, and in part because Obama isn't Kerry, who was probably the worst Democratic presidential candidate of my lifetime). But every time Obama opens his mouth these days he consciously moves closer to standard centrist/neoliberal policies, and convinces me just that much more of how dangerous he'll be.

[cemmcs]

I agree the policies will differ only marginally but I am still not convinced Obama is more dangerous. I think it's possible that his "golden words" could raise expectations and when he does not live up to the expectations, look out! The natives could get restless.

I am not saying that this will be the case or that J.C. is wrong. Maybe it makes no difference one way or the other but there is a new wrinkle in this election -- Obama is black!

Call me crazy but I think this a very racist country. Most people (on the left, on the right, etc...) are not going to cut President Obama as much slack as they did Presidents Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, etc...

[Dan Coyle]

I must admit I was quite confounded about Raimondo's Obama love. There was nothing in Obama that didn't make me think he wouldn't eventually go and genuflect before AIPAC like everyone else.

[John Caruso]

Dan: But that's just it—there was no "eventually" about it. Obama had already made his loyalty to Israel crystal clear (along with other foreign policy foolishness) at the time of the love note. So Raimondo was mesmerized even though he must have known full well what Obama was about, which goes to show just how powerful a reality distortion field the guy casts.

cemmcs: The thing is, Clinton did live up to nearly all Democrats' expectations (which were sky high after twelve years of Reagan-Bush), for one simple reason: he was a Democrat, so they exercised their seemingly limitless power to ignore or rationalize every atrocity he committed. After eight years of Bush the Lesser, Obama could strangle cherubic infants on national television and Democrats would still say, hey, at least he's not Bush. And while it's true there's a lot of racism out there, I can't imagine that the people singing hosannas to Obama now are going to suddenly turn on him because of latent discomfort with his skin color. I'd guess that the people who'll oppose him for racist reasons are already busy doing it now.

Regardless of how that all plays out, with McCain the natives will not only be restless but on the highest possible alert from day one.

[Dan Coyle]

John: That's true. I myself am hoping he gets elected because it might finally kill David Horowitz. That's how his distortion field affects me.

[Thomas Daulton]

In that vein, Dan, I was almost ready to vote for Hillary because so many of my obnoxious conservative relatives have sworn up and down that they would leave the country and renounce their U.S. citizenship if she got elected. It would make my life soooooooooo much easier if even a fraction of them carried through with that threat. But in the end, I just couldn't bring myself to support her, after watching her become so much worse and worse an obnoxious hypocritical politician over the past decade-plus. I finally decided it wasn't worth the damage it would inflict on the world (the double whammy of Hillary as President with a chip on her shoulder, plus inflicting my obnoxious relatives upon innocent foreign countries).

[cemmcs]

Look at the 1960s. Early on, we had The Democrat, JFK, as President and then we had his successor, LBJ, a Democrat who elected to the Presidency by a landslide on a relatively progressive platform. There was a Democratic Congress for the entire decade and a Democratic President for most of the decade. The government gave us The Civil Rights Act, The Voters Rights Act, The Fair Housing Act, the Peace Corps, Federal Aid to Education, Head Start, Food Stamps, the Job Corps, etc... And yet The Natives were restless.

Look at the 1980s. God Damn, America. We had Reagan! Need I say more?!?!? And yet The Natives were not as restless.

What can I tell you? Life is complicated.

[cemmcs]

cemmcs: Vietnam?

[cemmcs]

"cemmcs"

Iraq?

[Dan Coyle]

Thomas: I'm so despaired of the current situation that sticking it to conservatives is the only thing that has meaning for me.

[ms_xeno]

The natives always claim to be "restless," if by "natives" we're talking about "progressives."

But they never seem to do much of anything with their supposed restlessness but cleave again and again to the same bunch of users, whom they vociferously defend en masse against a comparative handful of smelly, surly cranks like myself.

IOW, the proof of the pudding is what, or who, Raimondo ends up turning towards, not what/who he chooses to turn away from.

One thing's for sure, Obama is dangerous. He doesn't have to be more dangerous than McCain or Hillary or any other mainstream candidate. "As dangerous" is quite bad enough, thanks.

:(

[Brian]

Count me in the Smelly Surly Crank crowd, as well...Ms. Xeno.

I actually agree with Chalmers Johnston. I don't believe any more that "the system" CAN be reformed. Too much money, too much power in running the imperial machine. Sadly, I don't like the growing alternative powers (China, India, even modern Europe) any more or as much. Ugly times.

[cemmcs]

If Obama is less likely than McCain to attack Iran, If Obama is more likely than McCain to extricate us from Iraq, that makes Obama less dangerous than McCain to the lives of a great many human beings but since the occupation of Iraq and an attack on Iran might be the types things which stir up the progressives (natives), it might make Obama more dangerous to the progressive movement.

There is, however, a good possibility that Obama as President would pursue the same foreign policy that McCain would as President which means an interminable occupation of Iraq and an attack on Iran which would make him just as dangerous to lives of a great many human beings as McCain would be but we might discover that progressives don't really care so much about warmongering as they care about who does the warmongering.

Obvioulsy the latter scenario is a lot worse and Obama's recent speech to AIPAC makes it now seem a lot more likely (at least to Justin Raimondo) that President Obama would pursue the same forein policy as President McCain would.

BTW, who were Obama's contituents when he made his anti-Iraq War speech as a State Senator and how did most of them feel about attacking Iraq?