Quote:
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Originally Posted by !@#$%!
that ship has already sailed, the establishment is altered. this article reflects very closely my own opinions, only better-- see what you think:
http://www.alternet.org/election08/109436/clues_obama_won't_govern_center-right/?page=entire
let me highlight a coupl e of crucial paragraphs:
"Obama ran a campaign that clearly and unequivocally described priorities that will turn American in a fundamentally progressive direction. His cabinet picks indicate that he will surround himself with people who have experience and can competently manage the government. They also indicate his absolute commitment to unifying the country to make change. But they do not in any way diminish the fact that America is demanding -- and Obama intends to enact -- a sweeping progressive program the likes of which we have not seen since the New Deal."
and
"Finally, writers and pundits who focus on Obama's cabinet picks to show he will govern from the "center right" need to have a look at history. Like Obama, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln all installed people in their cabinets who they believed to be effective managers who could deliver. They all had their share of outsiders and progressives, but many were old Washington hands. Yet all of these Presidents faced historic challenges that demanded and enabled them to make fundamental change. And all of them were guided by progressive values that were sharply different from those of Bush, Cheney, and Delay. Obama shares and articulates those values more than any political leader since Robert Kennedy died forty years ago."
and a fragment:
"Barack Obama will not govern from the "center right", but he will govern from the "center". That's not because he is "moving to the center". It's because the center of American politics has changed. It has moved where the American people are."
the full argument, of course, reads better, as it explains the shift in what is this new "center".
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now, can anyone be 100% sure of anything? of course not. but by all reasonable expectations, this is not a return to the past. |
Thanks for the link. I read it with interest but have to take issue with certain sections. Obama is said to have fought a campaign based on moving the US in a 'fundamentally progressive direction'. This being the same campaign where the concerns of the middle class dominated all others, with (from memory) absolutely no mention whatsoever of a growing body of Americans living beneath the poverty line. It was also a campaign in which Obama asserted an
entirely dogmatic commitment to Israel and even out-Cheneyed the previous Bush administration with his all too comfortable talk of launching a nuclear strike on Pakistan. (A position even Sarah Palin was advised by her party to distance herself from) Obviously, none of these points suggest that Obama is merely an extension of the Bush (or even the Clinton) regime, but does a continuation (nee strengehtening even) of America's partisan backing of Israel, an incredibly hostile to Pakistan and an apparent blindness to its nation's poor really constitute a progressive move both for America's foreign and domestic policy? I'm prepared to agree with the article in so far as its pointing to a shift among the American people in favour of a fairer, less stratified and less bombastic society. However i see little so far either in Obama's rhetoric or his actions to suggest that he's particular committed to such a shift himself.