Many on the left, have embraced the flowery rhetoric, and vague notions of hope and change, pedaled by an undistinguished, inexperienced Senator from Mayor Daley’s Chicago. To me he seems like a DLC candidate, who simply hasn’t made it official (I don’t think he’s a card carrying member but he has those type of views). The current president has, of course, brought the country to one of its lowest points in history, and many are looking for Obama to take us out of the pits of hell, to a new promised land. I even recently happened across an article that made Obama sound like a great mystic.
Barack Obama is not a panacea, he is not omniscient, he is not some sort of deity. Anyone at all buying into this illusion will be thoroughly disappointed in the days after Barack Obama is sworn in to the presidency. I’ve already been through over and over again, proposals and policies of Barack Obama’s that are not progressive or liberal in any way, that he will be enacting once he assumes office (so I’m not going to go through any of that here). I look forward to the dillusionment with Barack Obama that will come in the days ahead, and maybe then a real social justice movement can emerge that will put pressure on Obama, and other elected officials (and perhaps, although I’m not betting on it, give rise to a much needed progressive third party) to make the necessary changes that are so desperately needed in this county. Even if this movement doesn’t emerge, surely the idea that the Democratic Party is for the most part bankrupt, will gain more fluency; and progressives will respond to this reality, by taking up what is needed to move this country forward towards a progressive future.
