Is President-Elect Obama Post Ideological? Are You?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

In his interview on 60 Minutes he said he would be a results oriented president and not be wed to any ideology.

I think that's a sound approach...I enjoyed reading Marx's 'Communist Manifesto' and Rousseau's 'Social Contract' as much as Burke's 'Letter to His Bristol Constituents' and Hayek's 'Road To Serfdom' and thought all these gentleman made some good points...

[genna]

1. Ideology means choosing a side. Bill Clinton tried to have a 3rd way so he wouldn't have to choose.

Obama, regardless of what most people have written, is not Bill Clinton nor is he a Clintonite.

I'm irritated with Obama so far as he thinks he is special enough to opt out of the current prevailing paradigm. Unless he produces carrots or sticks to make parisans stop fighting, he has to deal with the facts as they are. BC co-opted the right wing's talking points shifting us to the right and deregulation.

I think Obama is trying to charm his way into a new way. The biggest problems he is facing is: what are his carrots and what are his sticks?

Carrots
He has his own structure from the ground up. In some places, he completely bypassed the local officials who could force him to make promises. In other places, he was able to use his organizers alongside the existing structure. He did the same for fundraising. He used some bundlers for those big money donations. The internet allowed him to get 3 or 4 million individual donors who made under $200 contributions.

Sticks
Rahm Emanuel.
Other hard nosed politicians who may or may not overtly demonstrate the steel in their spines, but the deal is whether they will push left or right.


There are reams of paper worrying about whether Obama is going to disappoint us. I don't need to move 4 years in the future to know that he will. My concern for our country is that if he does not disappoint a few of us, our entire boat (economic position) will go under. When people propose cuts, they always think those cuts need to happen in someone else's back yard. Well, how about we all accept we all will have to struggle to move forward?


Think about your favorite things and imagine having to tighten your belt so that we all move forward. It might take more than taxes for the top $250K earners to get us out of this unbelievable ditch. It might be an apostasy to suggest this, but it will take more than those willing to volunteer for the armed forces to fulfill our current and future military obligations. It will also require a community wide effort to clean up, uplift (give a facelift) and police our cities and bring technology/professional competencies to our far flung rural sectors.



Why can't we have an honest, straight forward dialogue about how many things need to be reshuffled in order to get our economy moving again? How many families are we willing to sacrifice to homelessness (where do they go when they lose their houses?), being hungry (churches were already having a difficult time keeping their food kitchens stocked to meet demand), and despair (when those CHANGES Obama promised don't happen quickly enough to stem the bleeding)?


Sure, I could spend all my time reading why HRC is too much a drama queen to adequately suit an Obama administration. As long as Obama's discipline remains constant, I think he could work with anyone to get where he needs to go. Why don't we push the conversation in a different substantive direction? The Daily Kos guy was pretty good in explaining how it is possible to push the news cycle in our direction. Why don't we do that?

[Jennicut]

3. Then vote for a 3rd party next time. Sheesh. Obama will "disappoint"

Thanks Nostradamus. He has not even taken office yet. Obama and I are both Democrats but as someone who has Republican parents its important to try to get people on your side. He is not going to co-opt Rethug ideas when he does not believe in them to begin with! He simply means he will not cut off communication with those more conservative then him. If they want to come on board to help the country, so be it. If not, see ya later.

[CADEMOCRAT7]

2. Yes. And, yes. I am in favor of smart government, and strategic leadership. n/t

[PinkoDonkey]

4. Unsure, no

Obama might be "post-partisan", and certainly is pragmatic, but I don't think anyone is post-ideological. Everyone has a framework of some sort that they use to make sense of the world.

I'm just your standard partisan, ideological democrat who wants to destroy the current incarnation of the GOP and bring godless communism to america. :patriot:

[rug]

5. Capitalim is an ideology. When that goes I'll give up mine.

[PinkoDonkey]

6. You might like this article

"Use Your Illusions" by Slavoj Žižek (re Obama, wall st collapse, capitalism)

http://www.lrb.co.uk/web/14/11/2008/zize01_.html

[rug]

8. Very interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

This quote from Guy Sorman on the global financial meltdown is especially telling:

"Rarely was the function of ideology described in clearer terms: to defend the existing system against any serious critique, legitimising it as a direct expression of human nature."

I expect we will see in this administration the continuation of the existing capitalist ideology. All the talk of bipartisanship and change is addressed to the spectator aspects of electoral politics. There will be change but it wil be slight and superficial, not that the alternative of McCain was better.

[PinkoDonkey]

9. Capitalism with a human face?

This was the highlight for me:

"The panic was absolute. A transnational and non-partisan unity was immediately established, all grudges among world leaders momentarily forgotten in order to avert the catastrophe. (Incidentally, what the much-praised ‘bi-partisanship’ effectively means is that democratic procedures were de facto suspended.) The sublimely enormous sum of money was spent not for some clear ‘real’ task, but in order to ‘restore confidence’ in the markets – i.e. for reasons of belief. Do we need any more proof that Capital is the Real of our lives, the Real whose demands are more absolute than even the most pressing demands of our social and natural reality?"

[shrike]

7. Yes n/t