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"The problem with negative criticism of Obama, is that the alternative is
worse In that sense I agree with US Communist Party assessment
FDR, was a reactionary but had a mass movement pushing him
Obama hasn't" - George Anthony
Thanks Ralph. The reply above is not only formally logically incoherent -
is Mitt Romney really "worse" than Obama? - but is incoherent, as a case of
historical material cognitive dissonance, in that doesn't take into account
the vastly changed circumstances of the U.S. ruling class over the last 80
years since FDR's time. The CP's assessment was formally "objectively
correct" in its time - certain sectors of that ruling class did have some
space for reform, though it still required timely intervention in a bloody
world war to realize this "space" - but even more importantly these same
sectors had their own self interest in enacting "reform" whose side benefits
could be considered "progressive" - lowering the cost of housing for
privileged workers for example. The grand example was the vast expansion of
infrastructure into the West and South of the U.S. launched in the 1930's
and I say this was the essence of New Deal reform (See The New Dealers,
Jordan A. Schwartz, for evidence) - and who would say that the low cost
electrification of working class neighborhoods is not progressive? On this
basis New Deal reform could emerge and advance *independently*, whether mass
pressure existed or not - and that pressure really didn't begin to make
itself felt until midway into FDR's first term, and was met with repression
and austerity in his second.
It was the then "objective correctness" of the CP analysis that of course
lent real traction to their policy up till the 1970's. But note from the
above that the policy was *not* to pressure the bourgeoisie into "liberal
reform" with independant mass mobilization, but to hand one's hat - to tail
- the independent reform movement of a "liberal" bourgeois sector, and in
this connection, to work against independent mass mobilization as a harmful
impediment that would deny this "liberal bourgeoisie" the political power -
through splitting the electoral vote - to implement "reform".
That is the exact opposite of George Anthony's analysis. No Pushing
Allowed. If someone starts pushing, jump in from of them "as a friend" and
get them to stop (i.e. channel into the DP).
But today, as Obama so nakedly makes clear, there is no significant sector
interested in "reform" addressing the profound structural problems of
capitalism in the USA. A high speed rail project "to nowhere" running
between San Francisco and LA ("nowhere" in that there are few places to go
by rail at the termini - get a car! But why not just drive down there by
car?) is no more intended to address these problem as are US invasions of
Iraq and Afghanistan intended to address the "spatial manuver" problems of
U.S. imperialism.
The Less Evil has done up and died.
-Matt
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