Obama promises the USA Rawlsian balls
Obama will be cowed into compromising over any plans to tax and spend on the poor unless that spending is merely strategic, focused and highly limited - and he suggested as much in his speech.
I had an hour long conversation with my brother on the phone who had flown over to be at the inauguration. He thinks I am being offensively ungenerous. Isn’t Obama better than Bush, Phil? Obama is such a well meaning sincere chap. A gent. A sincere man who deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I’m sorry, but the right way to see Obama, Chris, is as the face of a massively expensive marketing exercise on behalf of US corporate capitalism. You’ve heard of “greenwash” well isn’t Obama a kind of “blackwash”.
My brother described the inauguration as an African American’s day out. A day when the dreams for African American equality came much closer. Point taken. And what a salutory effect the Obama must have on a racially divided country and a traumatised African American community.
But come on. I said. Get real bro’ It’s not all about the man Obama, is it?
It is all about the government, and the country he represents. Obama is the front man for the same country that invaded Vietnam and Iraq. The motive force that drives the USA to invade and pollute and manipulate will still be there. Obama fronts an empire. He is not going to change the essential nature of the US economic system. He’s not going to radically change the configuration of forces in that society is he?
What if Obama did try to make his society more equal and socialise it a little. What if he did intend to put a muzzle on US corporates who are on the rampage through the world. If he were really going to do this he would have to be divisive. There would have to be a little of the Chavez in Obama. But plainly and clearly that there is nothing of the Chavez in Obama. Unlike Chavez he will not take the bull by the horns.
To prove to people all across the spectrum of the right to centre right that he has “his heart in the right place” Obama has brought the market fundementalists right into the heart of his government and economic policymaking. And to prove to the corporates that he will work just as hard as Bush to guarantee markets, investment oportunities and raw materials Obama has set the hawks out to determine future US foreign policy.
Ridiculously, Obama believes that by the exercise of his personal charisma alone, and without challenging American corporate capitalism he will be permitted to tax the rich and redistribute to the poor.
That’s rubbish. In fact that is a precise definition of the Third Way. The Rawlsian way. Whereby, so long as you look after the most desperate, the single mothers, handicapped, vulnerable children, the sick, the deprived, the aged and the poorest 10%+ of society, that 10%+ ruling class can enrich itself until it explodes and do so guilt free. We’ve seen it in Britain.
The remaining 70 -80 percent of the population, the rest of us, are capitalism’s “bitch”.
Now perhaps Obama is considering extending the Rawlsian approach outside the USA’s borders (something Rawls himself did not do.) Well perhaps he will, but the same holds true. While 10% of the world may benefit in future from Obama based benificence,
Nevertheless, the remaining 70% to 80% of the developed world will always be capitalism’s “bitch.”
Obama will be cowed into compromising over any plans to tax and spend on the poor unless that spending is merely strategic, focused and highly limited - and he suggested as much in his speech.
I had an hour long conversation with my brother on the phone who had flown over to be at the inauguration. He thinks I am being offensively ungenerous. Isn’t Obama better than Bush, Phil? Obama is such a well meaning sincere chap. A gent. A sincere man who deserves the benefit of the doubt.
I’m sorry, but the right way to see Obama, Chris, is as the face of a massively expensive marketing exercise on behalf of US corporate capitalism. You’ve heard of “greenwash” well isn’t Obama a kind of “blackwash”.
My brother described the inauguration as an African American’s day out. A day when the dreams for African American equality came much closer. Point taken. And what a salutory effect the Obama must have on a racially divided country and a traumatised African American community.
But come on. I said. Get real bro’ It’s not all about the man Obama, is it?
It is all about the government, and the country he represents. Obama is the front man for the same country that invaded Vietnam and Iraq. The motive force that drives the USA to invade and pollute and manipulate will still be there. Obama fronts an empire. He is not going to change the essential nature of the US economic system. He’s not going to radically change the configuration of forces in that society is he?
What if Obama did try to make his society more equal and socialise it a little. What if he did intend to put a muzzle on US corporates who are on the rampage through the world. If he were really going to do this he would have to be divisive. There would have to be a little of the Chavez in Obama. But plainly and clearly that there is nothing of the Chavez in Obama. Unlike Chavez he will not take the bull by the horns.
To prove to people all across the spectrum of the right to centre right that he has “his heart in the right place” Obama has brought the market fundementalists right into the heart of his government and economic policymaking. And to prove to the corporates that he will work just as hard as Bush to guarantee markets, investment oportunities and raw materials Obama has set the hawks out to determine future US foreign policy.
Ridiculously, Obama believes that by the exercise of his personal charisma alone, and without challenging American corporate capitalism he will be permitted to tax the rich and redistribute to the poor.
That’s rubbish. In fact that is a precise definition of the Third Way. The Rawlsian way. Whereby, so long as you look after the most desperate, the single mothers, handicapped, vulnerable children, the sick, the deprived, the aged and the poorest 10%+ of society, that 10%+ ruling class can enrich itself until it explodes and do so guilt free. We’ve seen it in Britain.
The remaining 70 -80 percent of the population, the rest of us, are capitalism’s “bitch”.
Now perhaps Obama is considering extending the Rawlsian approach outside the USA’s borders (something Rawls himself did not do.) Well perhaps he will, but the same holds true. While 10% of the world may benefit in future from Obama based benificence,
Nevertheless, the remaining 70% to 80% of the developed world will always be capitalism’s “bitch.”
Well said, matey!
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