“He has spent trillions of dollars to rescue the moneyed interests and left workers and homeowners to their own devices.
“He has delivered the politics of democracy to the rule of money.
“He has disguised his surrender with an empty appeal to tax justice.
“He has reduced justice to charity.
“He has evoked a politics of hand holding, but no one changes the world without a struggle.”
These are some of the things Roberto Unger has said about the Obama Administration. There’s a lot to digest here, but it’s essentially the argument I have been making for several years now.
Unger is correct that Obama must be defeated in November. If Obama is re-elected it will send a signal to the ruling class that enough of the left has moved to the right to justify pushing aggressively forward the corporatist agenda and enlarging US imperialism. It will send a signal to the Democrat Party leadership that right wing neoliberalism is the winning politics for them.
This would be disastrous. The leadership will see constituents who will not hold Obama accountable for warmongering and the expansion of the police state and complete subservience to banks and corporations.
Unger is right that US military adventurism will not be greater under Romney (I fear it will become worse under Obama). There is too much at stake to vote for Obama.
Of the two mainstream candidates, Obama is the greater evil. His first four years have accomplished much more of what the ruling class wanted than a McCain presidency could have.
Had McCain been elected in 2008, the protests would be larger and more radical, and the Democratic Party would be rethinking itself. Beyond recognizing that the pro-corporate centrism of its candidate was rejected by a population struggling to make ends meet, they would have had to contend with a demand for candidates with left-wing populist solutions. It would have been just as bad as it is now, but the left would see it for what it is because it would be McCain as president, not Obama.
It’s not too late to walk back the terrible decision to put Barack Obama in the White House. Throwing him out of office will allow the left to build a mass movement that represents a genuine alternative to the pro-corporate party that now runs our government for the benefit of the rich and powerful few.
freedom and reason 