Obama has punished Iranians with sanctions while threatening war.
Obama has expanded nuclear weapons spending.
Obama has worked largely against the interests of organized labor.
Obama has sabotaged efforts to protect the earth's climate.
Obama has thrown Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block.
Obama has extended the worst parts of the PATRIOT Act, plus secret parts we haven't seen yet but which are somehow nonetheless "law."
Obama has militarized police forces, expanded wiretaps, prosecuted Muslims for speech, raided activists' homes, preemptively detained journalists, and supported the prison industrial complex and the widespread use of solitary confinement.
Obama has launched a fraudulent war on Libya as a "humanitarian" effort, while aiding human rights abuses in Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
Obama has abandoned his effort to close Guantanamo, which was only ever -- in reality -- an effort to move one of the United States' lawless concentration camps to Illinois from Cuba.
Obama chose to pursue an insufficient economic stimulus bill, not to mention increasing economically damaging military spending each year thus far.
Obama has continued the "war on drugs."
And Obama has shut down activism in this country by appearing to be what he is not and by virtue of the malady that causes millions of people to believe that self-governance consists of cheering for one team in a sporting competition.
St. Clair and Frank describe Obama as "so innately conflict-averse that even when pummeled with racist slurs he wouldn't punch back." But Obama does not appear to try to minimize conflict across the board. He avoids conflict with those on the right -- and often there is little basis for, or value in, supposing that his mental state is one of surrender as opposed to agreement.
There are two things that Obama is able to count on. First, no matter how seriously he attacks the interests of ordinary people, major liberal groups will support him. Second, no matter how much he supports the agenda of the right, major rightwing groups will attack him while demanding more. These two states of affairs feed each other. Attacks on Obama from the right are absolutely essential to generating his liberal support. Obama is the Not-Romney candidate. And that liberal support helps produce attacks from the right. Hopeless could help some to break out of this cycle of guilt or innocence by association.
I'll leave you with a slightly modified verse from Paul Simon:
Hopeless, hopeless
Moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake
We are hopeless, we are hopeless
The moonlight sleeping on a midnight lake
Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih
Somebody sing hello, hello, hello
Somebody say ih hih ih hih ih
Somebody cry why, why, why?
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