Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Obama: Conservative or “Progressive Realist?”

By Sam
Published Monday, June 30th, 2008, 9:11 pm
Filed under: Videos: Political, US Politics

WPvideo 1.10

What is Eric Alterman’s breaking point?  What conservative position would Obama have to take up before Alterman would reconsider his support for him?  Last month, Alterman seemed to have little patience for Hillary Clinton’s willingness to win at any cost.  When Clinton was still in the race, Alterman denounced her “right-wing run,” lamenting that “once the nomination began to go Obama’s way, the Clintons pivoted right,” and that he just wants to say “Good night and good luck” to the Clintons, whom he once “liked and admired” and “hoped to do so again.”  Yet now that Obama is the presumptive nominee, any right wing turn by Obama is rationalized in the context of doing “what it takes to win” and by pathetic deference to elites who are “smarter” than us and know better than us what they have to do to win.

The idea that Obama is “broadly progressive” flatly contradicts the facts.  As Paul Street notes, Obama’s much touted shift to the center is an illusion.  “Obama was already positioned well to the corporate-and Empire-friendly ‘middle’ well before all of these recent developments.” Street, anticipating the onslaught of criticisms from Obama supporters, goes on to point that these critiques are “not an effort to help elect the arch-authoritarian messianic militarist John McCain. It is designed to help progressive and other citizens distinguish myth from reality in understanding the meaning of Obama.” If you support Obama, fine, but let’s at least stop pretending he’s not what the evidence clearly shows he is.

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6 Responses to “Obama: Conservative or “Progressive Realist?””

  1. I’m confused. How can obama be “black” when he is half white (white mother) and half black (black father)?

    Doesn’t this make him as much white as black. Shouldn’t we all protest until all media agree to refer to him as “white’ at least 50 percent of the time?

    Yeah…he is definitely not black. Maybe charcoal or cremey brown delight, but he is not black. Robert Mugabe of Rhodesia is black. Black, black.

    white bread
    06/30/08 at 9:41 pm

  2. @ white bread

    How do you think Obama would have been treated in the Jim Crow south, where one drop of African-American blood in your ancestry was enough to warrant your exclusion from the white power system? Do you think the KKK would have looked at Obama as half-white or just plain black?

    Despite being of mixed racial background, Obama looks black to most white people and is subject to the same institutional and systemic bias that all non-whites in this country are. His half-whiteness affords him zero privileges that a fully white person receives automatically. Plus, he identifies himself as black and has chosen to associate himself with self-identifying black groups and communities.

    What does this have to do with this article?

    Sam
    06/30/08 at 10:23 pm

  3. Back on point. Eric Alterman is an idiot. It is amazing to watch him wrap himself in some many contradictions and hypocrisies as to make the formulation of a complete sentence impossible. Pablo Escobar lets Alterman self implode, winning the debate by default.

    Duder
    07/1/08 at 12:06 am

  4. @Duder
    True. Alterman provides us with a treasure trove of stupidity in that interview.

    “I want to win.” Okay, but win after your candidate adopts the same positions as the other guy? What kind of victory is that?

    Obama is a “broadly progressive candidate.” Lol?

    In response to Pepe’s assertion that Obama is not a progressive, Alterman responds “compared to what?” Using subjective/relative arguments over objective analysis is not conducive to sound judgement. You can objectively juxtapose Obama’s platform and rhetoric to that of classical liberalism or the basic definition of liberalism.
    (He’s a prick for continuously bashing Nader for being a spoiler despite all the empirical and logical evidence to the contrary, but that another argument for another day.)

    freethinker
    07/1/08 at 1:13 am

  5. How many sheeple will fall for the Obama bullshit?

    It should piss each and every progressive off, but some are more in to winning, at any cost, even when that cost is electing McCain’s evil (but darker) twin.

    Alter-idiot is just that. An idiot.

    BuelahMan
    07/1/08 at 5:23 am

  6. Not ! ” Compared to what ?” is a good question . If you go to Obama’s web-sight and spend some time with his Ideas and arguments you’ll find he’s one of the most progressive candidates we’ve ever had this close to the Presidency . He definitely creeps me out with the Pro death penalty, Tough Guy talk and the Sugared Pro Jerusalem rhetoric . But he’s putting out a lot of good sound and Progressive ideas I’m starting to realize things change gradually . Push to hard and it gets messy . At this stage in the game , if we get Obama in the White House We are Lucky fucks .

    Relax the truth will set u free
    07/1/08 at 3:48 pm

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