Yes, you read that right. I mean it. Presidential timidity in the face of an arrogant plutocracy convinces me that the only way to bring "change you can believe in" to capitalism is to destroy it. The Grand Old Party, not the Democratic Party, is the last best hope to achieve that goal, given that revolution has never happened in the United States and never will.
To be sure, Obama had many golden opportunities to show he meant his promises.
One handed to him on a silver platter was the collapse of the auto industry, the very emblem of U.S. capitalism's so-called "American Way." He was effectively asked to nationalize the industry -- everything but Ford. Indeed, the entire industry had behaved no better than a heroin dealer, addicting Americans to the car, its pollution, the garbage-producing waste of "planned obsolescence" and dependence on foreign oil.
In the name of capitalism, Obama decided to make government a silent partner.
Next came the much awaited health care reform. Yet universal health care was never even the avowed goal of Obama. Sure enough, the mafia of the American Medical Association, Big Pharmas and Slick Insurance -- everybody who wants to get their hands in the pockets of healthy and wealthy people in the name of "health care" -- made Swiss cheese of Obama's proposals.
They essentially won a continuation of the status quo, or even its worsening, for Citizen Average -- that's you and me.
Financial reform was the obvious next move, right? Anyone who watched policy from Reagan-era deregulation to the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, knows that what happened in 2008 was a planned heist by the titans of the financial industry. So far, they've resisted any significant change.
Then let's not forget never ending, always expanding war and Guantanamo. All of which Obama vowed to end.
Now I can hear Obama and his surrogates whining that none of this is this administration's fault and change just can't be done because of the present political circumstances. That's precisely my point.
The Democratic Party saved capitalism in the 1930s and saved it again and again, all the way to 2009 and beyond. Even the union hacks have woken up and are withholding their money at long last.
The Democrats are just not up to do the job. Next post: why the GOP is.
