I did a piece on ZNet two days after Keynote address: "Keynote Reflections" (late July 2004) taking that speech apart as deeply conservative in numerous ways. I ot 100+ e-mails (most approving) the day after. They were muzzling antiwar delegates on the floor and Obama was giving interview to the NYT and Chi Trib deeply qualiying his 'antiwar' position. Even then I thouht it all smelled "next president" and from the speech I assumed he would keep the imperial machine set on kill.

Not that I know of Montanamaven I haven't seen that in depth study yet. I was in Iowa City in 2007-08 and did help Edwards somewhat. The Johnson County Dems were deeply in thrall to the Obama machine on the whole. Still, we had a whole bunch of labbor progressive Edwards types and they had a very advanced critique of Obama as a conciliator, neo corporatist fake-progressive imperial half Republican and of how identity politics was seducing a lot of the academic sorts at U Iowa. Hillary was pretty unpopular in Iowa City. She did not run a good Caucus-specific campaign...lotsa money but not spent as wisely as the Obama people spent theirs, what withh their slick micro-targeting and niche-martketing. The Obama campaign here was slick, slick,....very sharp. The Obama staffers were vapid, not especially progressives. The Edwards staffers were more out of labor and other social movements; the Obama staffers were goofy but at the top level and out of Chicago slick. And they had the kids, the college students all locked up at U Iowa.

I don't think its spineless. He's not nice on a personal level - not afraid to alienate and tell you to go eff yourself. I remember from Chicago. Not like he was some kind of guy you could bully. I don't really get into the spinleless narrative. I think he's really conservative. And I think he's very narcissistic, which is of course a common trait among politicians. He wanted and got the presidency and was more than willing to cut deals with the people who could make that possible...with the plutocracy. They vetted him carefully and well. Ken Silverstein wrote about some of this in a 2006 essay at Harper's: "Obama Inc." It started in 2003, when Obama got the nod to go for U.S. Senate seat. Well, indoctrination in ruling class and imperial ideology started earlier. Not so much spineles on progressive issues as not commitment to those issues. In my days in Chicago he was this operator who would come into the middle of some issue and craft some sort of half-measure that seemed like a progressive reform but really wasn't, put it on his resume and move forward with his career. Started at Harvard Law...

...will not leave without a rank and file rebellion and completely new leadership. I used to naively think I could do real work for the American labor movement and just kept running into this iron law of oligarchy ahd sheer conservative stupidity. Quite horrifying.

Well it will be a great sign of how completely and finally dead the Dems are as any kind of agent of any half progressive vision of a good society that Obama's cringing corporatism and aggressive miltiarism and police-statism etc. does not yield a significant progressive primary challenge. I tend to protest/left vote but without illusion. We would have to fundamentally overhaul the existing dominant big money mib media candidate centered electoral/party system for third/fourth party electoralism to make much difference right now.

Well his progressive supporters were often very childish in projecting their own values and identity on him but they were encouraged to do so in the primary campaign and to some extent in the general election. I saw the Obama campaign work to create a progressive imagery about Obama in campus towns in 2007 and 2008. They knew what they were doing. But of course they also said other things to other constituents and made all kinds of nice promises of safety and allegiance to the power/business elite....to the unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money and empire. I was very irritated at his intellectual supporters who claimed to be left but would't go do any basic due diligence research on his statements to the elite and who wouldn't do any serious content analysis looking for the many conservative signs in his campaign rhetoric and writing etc.

The capitalists and big shot politcos/election investors interviewed by Silverstein for his 2006 essay had no illusions: "What's the dollar value of a starry-eyed idealist" one big lobbyist told KS. "We wouldn't be investing in Brand Obama if we didn't know he was safe to wall Street." well...more than safe: he offered them a fake progrerssive multicultural re-branding (same for the Empire abroad). Now Katrina Vanden Heuevel at al,,,,had no need to be reality based on His Holiness the Dalai Obama and really debased themselves. Michael Moore liberal man crush was disgusting to behold. I wanted to tell him to go get a room with his Obama poster!

I have friends who are very into this - the democracy amendment --- but my God that would be difficult to bring about. The hurldes are very high and the notion of existin authorities lettin us re-write elections laws along left progressive-friendly lines is pretty fantastic.

I almost never hear this. I heard it once.

Not one apology. Never.

Still on

Yes, we're still on the air!

I am not monitoring this - the progressive silence but yes that's what I would expect. Glen Greenwald has some very good writings on the role that journalists are playing in the assault on Assagne and WikiLeaks. Sad. The sorry surrender of the of the so-called radical left continues.

Thank you VL and Paul!

In the UK's Telegraph, appeared this article: "Is this the Keystone Kops presidency? Barack Obama needs to get serious about WikiLeaks" which noted:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilega...

"OBAMA hasn’t even commented publicly on the release of over a
quarter of a million US diplomatic cables, despite the immense damage
the leak is doing to American diplomacy and US strategic interests on
the world stage. He is giving all the appearance of a commander-in-chief
who is not in control, with an inept administration that seems to
blunder from one crisis to another, at times with no-one at the helm."

Paul, what do you make about Obama's silence and lack of commentary regarding WikiLeaks? Thanks.

Oh there's a lot do at the local level. Support local foods and sustainable agriculture over suburban sprawl and mass retailing. Eco building standards. the list goes on. If the national political culture is just on lock down because of the aforementioned de facto dictatorships by all means think about doing stuff at local level.

...oh it would guarantee a Republican victory in 2012. Right now I think BO is even money to come back. With a crash he's toast.