Well I am resisting the "Itoldyousomoment". It seems to me that all this is another instance of something that I heard the Irish revolutionary Gerry Lawless say at Essex Uni long years ago. In a talk he touched up on the so-called Curragh Mutiny when British officers refused to obey the orders of the Liberal English Govt to confront the far right Northern Irish unionists. Lawless's comment was as I remember that the British Govt climbed down and that was why he was not a liberal for "liberals always back down in the face of an armed threat from the Right".
So that is what we are seeing with "the man from yes we can". Obama has never been any thing other than a liberal. That in itself is quite remarkable in mainstream American politics and indeed enough to sow illusions and hopes everywhere. However the Right know their liberals quite well and know that they will always back down. But let us be quite clear here. It is not a question as Fred says of the Right trying to destroy Obama's administration. It is merely the Right flexing its muscle and the liberal Obama doing what he was always going to do - retreat while muttering "Yes we can but perhaps not just right now". But all that is really pointless compared with the reactions of all those who invested their hopes in Obama. What will they do now that the dialectics of disillusionment have begun? Impossible to say but let me be frank that that I think it is most important that we do not fall into the trap of defending Obama. True he is being attacked by the Right. But our task as revolutionaries is to defend the people not some smooth phony. comradely gary ________________________________________________ YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
