It’s structural but…

I believe it’s a well established truism that the Democratic Party’s always been just one face of a two party singularity that represents little more than the essential interests of wealth and corporate power.  It’s a deep structural fact and individual personalities therefore don’t mean very much.  It’s the system, stupid, and we therefore shouldn’t get too upset at the specific people who manage it.

But it’s easier said than done.  I don’t think anyone of a democratic bent (small d) can fail not to feel utter disgust with Barack Obama.  This man of hope and change, who so ably and cleverly pretended to be the progressive voice ready to lead the nation out of the dark neoliberal world into a bright sunshine of greater democracy, has instead brought it to right wing levels Reagan could barely have imagined.  Only a Democrat could have achieved it and it required great mastery in the arts of betrayal and hypocrisy.

He brags now that he’s succeeded in driving domestic discretionary spending to its lowest level since Eisenhower; and perhaps even that is just for starters, why should we think he’ll stop there?  Why not the lowest since Washington?  Or since the dawn of human civilization?

He proclaims his agreement is “balanced” between the military and non-military.  What fraud!  Military spending is at the highest inflation adjusted level since not only Eisenhower but World War II.  In regards to spending priorities and his desired ratio of military to non-military spending, Obama is turning out to be one of the most aggressive war president this country’s ever seen.  And his call for cuts in the military are ridiculously low compared to its gargantuan size – they will not remotely bring its cost below any point since World War II, not to even think of where they reasonably should be given actual defense needs.

To maintain his vision of American military dominance, Obama seeks not only to slash discretionary non-military spending but is on record wanting to cut medicare and social security. And we now have to put up with yet another “bipartisan” commission, a new gang this time of 12. And when you pierce his fraudulent rhetoric, you’ll find he’s fully supportive of plans which will actually reduce marginal income taxes even further.  Yes, yet again, to the lowest levels since before Eisenhower.

Meanwhile, the country’s in a near depression with U-6 unemployment stuck at 16.2%.  Where’s Obama?  He’s hiding in Hooverian seclusion amongst his banker and corporate friends.  Our first black president sits comfortably in his cozy confines of bipartisan wealth while black unemployment and poverty is at stratospheric levels.  On the ideological spectrum between Martin Luther King and the first black supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, it’s pretty damn clear brother Obama is far closer to brother Clarence.  That’s not very likely to be a coincidence but the damage is very great since Obama just happens to be the leader of the Democratic Party.

It may all be structural but that doesn’t diminish the outright disgust I have for Barack Obama.