snjoseph's Journal: DNC: Exit Right

Well, the Democratic National Convention is all wound up. Whoop-ee. The coronation of the most reactionary Democratic presidential candidate since the Great Depression has come to basically nothing in the polls, a result greeted with much hooting by Fox News and desperate spinning by the ABB crowd. Big Ketchup's Clintonismo sin Charismo remains as limp and unappealing as ever, despite the manly braggadocio over the criminal slaughter of innocent Vietnamese. (Let history record that it fell to a Democrat to rehabilitate the Vietnam War in American political discourse.)

Even beyond the abysmal politics, in my view the Democrats made a series of political errors in their approach to the Convention. They allowed Homeland Security to run stupidly amok, instituting no end of useless security theatre and culminating in the scandalous free speech zone ; the GOP, by contrast, is already handling a much larger protest at the RNC more deftly (while still repressing it). Out-of-control corporate sponsorship combined with hysterical conformism in the name of "unity" to produce an atmosphere that was both decadent and Stalinoid. An openly bored celebrity press corps squirmed in discomfort until it landed on something that was, in its estimation, of superior interest: itself.

Al Sharpton, unique among the speakers in that he possesses the ability to speak, threw some meaty hunks onto the Convention floor; but the Black Democrat of the future is Barack Obama. His softened-up Cosbyism--in addition to his apparently uniform ignorance of the great Black rhetorical tradition--was universally hailed by the commentariat, especially its prized Negro flunkies. Peggy Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal that Jesse Jackson looked distinctly nonplussed during Obama's speech. As well he might--the era of his kind of Black establishment politician, who maintained at least nominal contact with the popular movements, is over.

The trotting out of the candidate's family was superbly banal. I have no idea what this sort of idiot spectacle is designed to prove. It is no great achievment to have a family; indeed, every American is born with one.

Will the RNC be much, or even any, better? Not likely. But the RNC will be less important for Bush than the DNC was for Kerry. In politics, inertia is a not insigificant factor. If the electorate can't tell the difference between Bush and Kerry, Bush will surely win by the simple principle of conservation of energy.

"Anybody But Bush" derives its entire strategic heft from the general crisis in US capitalism, which is mainly manifest as the crisis of US imperialism in Iraq but also along other axes (Afghanistan, Latin America, energy economics, finance, etc). It seeks to associate the crisis with a particular individual--George W. Bush--while leaving the framework--the twins neoliberalism and neoconservativism--intact. It is the strategy of despair.

But despair, the Democrats may discover, is an ill motivator.

more to Bush

[js7a]

"Anybody But Bush" derives its entire strategic heft from the general crisis in US capitalism, which is mainly manifest as the crisis of US imperialism in Iraq but also along other axes (Afghanistan, Latin America, energy economics, finance, etc).

It's not that simple. [wage-slave.org]

Re:more to Bush

[snjoseph]

That's a cool site, thanks for posting it.

The site list things that are primarily of interest to ordinary working people. As an ordinary working person, that's of course very relevant to me, but it doesn't explain why the Democrats are pursuing ABB as a strategy from the top. You'll recall that in the 2002 midterm elections, when the reactionary nature of both the domestic and international programs of Bush were well-known to all politically-conscious observers, the Democrats intentionally blurred the dif

Black tradition

[turg]

in addition to his apparently uniform ignorance of the great Black rhetorical tradition

What is the Black (rhetorical) tradition? Is it something that all persons of African ethnic origin are a part of?

AFAICT you are referring to a tradition that originates in American churches in centuries past. BA's parents immigrated from Kenya AFAIK -- is he part of the tradition you are refering to?

Re:Black tradition

[turg]

Okay, I've just looked up the text of the speech and see that his mother was from Kansas while his dad was from Kenya (though I guess I don't know for sure that his mother was black -- excuse an ignorant Canadian :-)

Re:Black tradition

[snjoseph]

AFAICT you are referring to a tradition that originates in American churches in centuries past.

Correct, although it permeates American Black culture, and especially Black political culture (which was, and partially still is, rooted in the Black church). I wouldn't expect an African immigrant to be immersed in it, naturally, but a native-born Black politician I definitely would.

In any event, Obama can speak however he likes. My point was that Obama is feted as the new Black Democratic superstar by the (