Obama is a Conservative

[CartCollector]

I was surprised to find this argument from a liberal, but a lot of what he says is right on the mark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AevdKGAkwuE

[GPDP]

It's actually not that surprising. Check this Democratic Underground thread (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7315665), for instance. In it a lot of posters agree with the article (written by Paul Street, most likely Obama's most consistent critic from the left) posted on the OP. Some even say he's to the right of Clinton.

It's a sentiment that's becoming more and more acceptable within liberal circles.

Hell, even many mainstream commentators and even some conservatives have called it. Street often refers to one particular journalist's conclusions on Obama after a series of interviews with him:


"In his view of history, in his respect for tradition, in his skepticism that the world can be changed any way but very, very slowly, Obama is deeply conservative. There are moments when he sounds almost Burkean. He distrusts abstractions, generalizations, extrapolations, projections. It's not just that he thinks revolutions are unlikely: he values continuity and stability for their own sake, sometimes even more than he values change for the good. Take health care, for example. ‘If you're starting from scratch,' he says, ‘then a single-payer system'—a government-managed system like Canada's, which disconnects health insurance from employment— ‘would probably make sense. But we've got all these legacy systems in place, and managing the transition, as well as adjusting the culture to a different system, would be difficult to pull off. So we may need a system that's not so disruptive that people feel like suddenly what they've known for most of their lives is thrown by the wayside'...Asked whether he has changed his mind about anything in the past twenty years, he says, ‘I'm probably more humble now about the speed with which government programs can solve every problem. For example, I think the impact of parents and communities is at least as significant as the amount of money that's put into education.'"

Note the words "deeply conservative" and "almost Burkean."

It's why I get kind of frustrated when some on the Left, even socialists, refer to him as a "centrist." I'd say he's well to the right of center. Obviously not to loony wingnut levels, but still pretty right-wing. He's only a centrist if you take the extremely right-skewed spectrum of U.S. political debate as given. In such a spectrum, yes, he'd be on the center. And Dennis Kucinich would be so left-wing he wouldn't even register. His position would be officially "unthinkable."

So what do we make of this increasing acceptance of Obama's conservatism? I say it's a wonderful opportunity to show the bankruptcy of bourgeois politics, whether left-liberal, "centrist," or proto-fascist.

[RadioRaheem84]

God, and Obama is hailed as the most liberal president ever in the media! Has the right wing hasn't won total control over the nation or what?

The man is to the freaking right of Clinton, now. That's fucking scary and we have a tea party/Fox/right wing blather movement that is saying he is a commie?

We are beyond left vs right, we're at right vs. bat shit crazy as can be with a baseball bat right wing.

[Buffalo Souljah]

We are beyond left vs right, we're at right vs. bat shit crazy as can be with a baseball bat right wing.

:confused:

[GPDP]

:confused:

What's not to understand? The Democrats, or at least those wielding the most power, are well to the right of center, and currently the most visible wing of the Republican party is the batshit crazy, racist far-right. That's the spectrum of visible and officially-meaningful debate in this country today. The left, even the reformist left, has little to no voice here in the mainstream.