During the 2008 presidential campaign I was lambasted by members of the progressive left for supporting Hillary Clinton. I was personally castigated as a racist for not supporting Barack Obama and dismissed out of hand for my contention that Obama was ordained by the ruling elite to defeat Mrs. Clinton and continue the policies of the Bush Administration. I called him a "Robot Maria," created to lead the people from class warfare and channel their revolutionary rage into self-destruction, like the android in Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
My contentions were not well received. Gay and lesbian friends deserted me, insisting Obama would lead us to the promised land. Union friends asked me to work on Obama's behalf after threatening members who openly supported Hillary. Hillary supporters themselves jumped ship, claiming that unity was paramount to petty differences. Media conglomerates Disney (ABC, CBS, MTV, ESPN, Miramax,etc), Time Warner (CNN, Time Magazine) and General Electric (NBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, Universal Studios), who together own over 90% of the media holdings in the United States, promoted Obama relentlessly, fanning the myth that his warchest was stocked with the pennies of paupers. A New Age had arrived. A clean break with the past. A new generation had risen to stake their claim. A colorblind generation that banished the entire political spectrum with their technological saavy. Left and right, liberal and conservative were now just quaint anachronisms. Political distinctions would melt like the snows in Iowa once the Chosen One was annointed.
The excitement bordered on hysteria.
In fact, the frenzy to elect Barack Obama was eerily similar to the frenzy that surrounded the runup in home and stock prices during the bubble. Then, too, we were told that the rules had changed. We were told the sky was the limit and economic fundamentals like LTV ratios and down payments were hopelessly out of date. Then too, I and others like me were castigated as fools for not jumping on the bandwagon, "gloom and doomers" who preferred to remain perennially pessimistic.
Yet now, only six months after Barack Obama's nomination, some are beginning to see their folly.
Like Bush 43, Barack Obama has reinstated controversial military tribunals. He continues to maintain he'll close Guantanamo Bay, but somehow the torture continues. He's proclaimed that Bush Administration officials, contractors and CIA operatives who engaged in torture overseas should be immune from prosecution. He took the additional step of quashing photos set to be released by the Pentagon that showed the extent of the horror. His Justice Department has come out fervently in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act and he's shown himself to be in favor of maintaining the military's failed Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy. He retained George Bush's Secretary of Defense, bypassing perfectly qualified left wing candidates for the job, and nominated two more Republicans to his cabinet. He's removing our troops slowly from Iraq and sending them to Afghanistan where they're being augmented with yet more troops, setting the stage for another quagmire. He increased the military budget by 4% ($6.7 billion more than the Bush Administration's projections) and thrown tens of billions at his Wall Street supporters, even as the nation grapples with a thirties-style Depression. He clamors for health care reform, but has rejected the single payer plan proposed by Hillary out of hand. He also insists now that money to pay for health care reform will have to come, in part, from Medicare and Social Security benefits. Indeed, slashing benefits from Medicare and Social Security is one of Barack Obama's mandates...a mandate given to him by the ruling elite.
Obama also took the opportunity to nominate a moderate-to-right leaning judge to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by a moderate-to-left leaning justice (though I realize we don't use those terms anymore), thus guaranteeing under his leadership the court will tip EVEN FARTHER to the right!
All this, of course, has The Left dismayed, disturbed, concerned, bothered, apprehensive or disquieted, depending on who you read. But they still haven't come to grips with the fact that they've been duped. According to OpenSecrets.org, Obama's top contributors during his presidential campaign were banks (Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JP Morgan, UBS, Morgan Stanley), media conglomerates Time Warner (CNN) and National Amusements (CBS, Viacom, Paramount Pictures), lawyers and lobbyists (WilmerHale, Skadden Arps, Latham & Watkins, Sidley Austin) and colleges (Harvard, Stanford, Columbia). Banks wanted a president who would cover their bad debts by stealing the public's money and giving it to them without oversight. Media conglomerates wanted to maintain their stranglehold on mass communication. Lawyers and lobbyists wanted someone who would talk reform but maintain the status quo. Colleges saw in Obama their chance to augment admissions by tapping into public funds.
As time goes by, I suspect my friends on the Left will become ever more disillusioned, especially if (as I expect) Justice Sotomayor casts the deciding vote to overturn Roe v Wade. By then, the bubble will have burst and the frenzy all but dissapated. Our passe political distinctions of right and left will have returned. And our Messiah d'Jour will have proven to be little more than Bush 44.
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