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So, Barack Obama has been elected president by a hefty margin. Liberals and Progressives are overjoyed and are vociferating as if (a mere eight years late) the New Millenium has indeed arrived.
I
am sorry to rain on the party, but Obama is not going to introduce any
fundamental change to the neo-liberal regime which has gotten us to
where we are. Nor is he going to reverse the irreversible course of
history, which is that all empires have to rise and fall.
A
neo-con is simply a neo liberal gone punk. Domestically and
diplomatically Obama will provide some emollients and better manners,
but I doubt little else. He may take a few paltry steps towards
realizing Bismarckian social benefits and he may go back to an
Eisenhower-esque diplomacy of working "through" allies and international
institutions. Otherwise the Flush Democrats are already "warning" us
not to expect a new New Deal (i.e. a new faux social democracy) and the New York Times is
peddling its usual demented ravings telling us it's time to leave off
the "folly" of Iraq and focus on the "necessary" war in Afghanistan. No you dimits!!!! I am not Jove, I am Neputne!!!!!!
I
admire Obama. He is likely the most intelligent president we've had
since that racist bastard, Woodrow Wilson. Obama is engaging, informed
and in control. I am glad most Americans showed that they could
overcome their obsessive compulsive disorder over skin hue. But, to
paraphrase Tolstoy, politics is something more than personality.
Americans' disastrous propensity for exceptionalism has blinded them
both to understanding the true nature of the country and to thinking
that historical laws do not apply to us.
Like
all leaders, Obama is constrained by his context and the material he
has to work with. It may be that, far from being a creature of his
time, he stands outside it at some Archimedean Point and understands
that neither the actual nor the merely possible reflect the ideal. But
assuming that to be the case, he is still constrained by the calculus of
history. I fear his options are limited. I wish I were wrong.
©WCG, 2008
