Obama likes to waffle on hope and change

If you really want change, then look to John Edwards

But our politics have been subsumed

by the values of television

and so we continue to look for

an American Idol instead of an American President

PCP: Pop Culture Politics [Original]

This country badly needs a decent president but Iowa voters went to their caucuses and selected instead two preachers, one ordained, the other self-anointed and both successful manipulators of cheap cliches purportedly leading us, in one case, to Christ and, in the other, to hope and change.

How Huckabee, a cruel purveyor of Christian heresies about women and gays, would bring us closer to the Lord is anyone's guess.

As for Obama, we noted some time back that "he's taken the easy way out and applied the marketing principles of Tony Robbins and Marianne Williamson to a political campaign.

Having gone through eight years of EST with Bill Clinton and almost that much of AA with George Bush, we should be burned out on psycho-therapeutics as opposed to physical reality but sadly many are taken in by Obama's covert message that if you trust in hope you don't have to worry about the details like pensions and health care."

Obama might turn out to be a decent president - he certainly would be better than Huckabee - but at the moment the evidence provides little support beyond factors that matter inordinately these days, such as that he is young, good-looking and half black.

This is the sort of thing music producers look for in boy bands. Choosing a president is supposed to involve some deeper concerns.

Besides, there is nothing about Obama that gives him a copyright on hope and, if you really want change, then logic would point you to John Edwards.

But our politics have been subsumed by the values of television and so we continue to look for an American Idol instead of an American President.

Watch Video: Barack Obama won the Democratic Iowa caucus with an inspirational message of hope and change. But US pundit Ken Silverstein says he doesn't hold out much hope that President Obama would be a change at all.

Obama Speaks: "Oh Great White Masters, Help Me to Help America"

I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation.

I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.

- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of “American” finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007

“STANDING UP” AND KNEELING DOWN

Maybe it’s because Barack Obama and his handlers are sensitive to the need to reassure ruling forces that the “first black United States president” will not challenge existing hierarchies. Maybe it’s because he’s bought and paid for by big money.

Or maybe it’s because he believes in his “deeply conservative” heart that good Americans show deep respect for their socioeconomic masters.

Whatever the explanation, I’ve never seen an avowedly “progressive” political candidate more eager than Obama to display his deep willingness to obsequiously kiss the ring of dominant political and economic authority.

For someone who is marching across Iowa and New Hampshire calling working- and middle-class American to “get fired up” and “stand up” for democracy (and for him), Obama sure likes to spend a lot of time groveling before supposed white and upper-class superiors.