Obamatopia

 "We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense"

Ohio (R) John Boehner & Kentucky (R) Mitch McConnell pushing the obstructionist Republican agenda

Part I

"We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense." Barack Obama also said as much. The battle is on. Hope creates its own death. Effervescent, ever re-creating and re-writing its situational definition, hope is ultimately the most powerful of deceptions. Hope is also the catalyst of change and change is not a passive spectator sport. Hard hitting, sacrificial change is the guts of revolution----the true parent of American democracy. Hope is Bunker Hill, The Battle of Bennington, Appomattox, Gettysburg and real life, real people, real time battle. Freedom is not a half-off sale at the Mall.

The feel-good party is over. Obama is elected and the show has begun. Voting and wishful thinking is not enough. Its time to scrap the fluffy hope crap and kick some ass, give payback, demand justice, threaten congress with some backbone and serious intervention, and hold our new dear leader’s highest claims to accountability. Did you seriously think Obama was going to get a free ride on the reality express just because his promises and graceful intelligence are the sugar of an attractive, more dignified form of power? We must ask ourselves repeatedly, from now on, whether we have just dumped ‘dumb nuts’ for Elmer Gantry. It doesn’t look that way, but if you’ve been around a while, you know that caution is the first target of corruption.

After nearly a decade of the darkest most incompetent and criminal administration in American history, we collectively ‘hoped’ for hero savior Obama to rescue and restore our nation’s tattered myth of ‘We the People.’ What choice was there? Can you imagine our current situation in the hands of tacky hero John McCain, a deceitful opportunist of the lowest order? Or for that matter, consider that hayseed Barbie, mean-girl Palin would be 'hee-ha’un', you 'bettcha’n' all over the airwaves like Limbaugh’s version of Waylan Flowers' Madame?

We narrowly escaped. Obama only won by a three percent majority. That, my friends, is not hopeful. Nearly half of the nation’s morons are looking for, praying for failure in a nightmare of their own making. The Palin Durga is already recruiting. Neanderthal is cornered and ready for attack. He looks pretty and talks purdy, just like John Boehner, the new face of obstructionist Republican’s who hate ‘We the People’, view America as their personal savings account, and like Rush Windbag, hope Obama fails. Our ‘hope’ is that Obama continues to move like a true gentleman, speaks eloquently with truth of intention, then jabs right and brings up an undercut left with iron knuckles in a velvet glove. Oh it’s not nice, but some bloody Republican lip would make a good day better.

But, “"We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense."

So dazzled were we, are we, that from the mouth of arguably the best orator of a generation, we did not,  do not,  discern the steely lie entwined in the golden rope of Spectacle that has left the world’s greatest democracy swinging in the wind. America is perishing. It will take no less a genius than Obama to even begin the reorganization of our failed state, and quite frankly, when abandoning the holographs of reality for truth from a purely historical perspective, he may will fail upwards in the attempt, because in the most centric meaning of ‘tragic’, he may achieve genuine greatness in the transforming effort.

It will take leadership of extraordinary quality to make firm the vision of civic healing beyond the compromises of stasis and bi-partisanship, beyond the lure of power and bedazzlement of wealth, beyond the bubble of privilege that makes alien the raw humanity of suffering and loss.

We are not naïve enough to believe for one second that some ‘post-ideological’ or ‘post-partisan’ age has dawned. What rubbish! The rot is firmly established in the foundation and no decorative paint job will deny its destiny. Neocon ideology must not be given a golden parachute and a luxurious retirement. It must be utterly destroyed, its adherents branded as traitors and imprisoned where ever prosecuted and found guilty under just law. Worse, Obama’s own Democratic party corrupt to the core, will prove to be even more obstructionist than the typical deadwood Republican animus. Obama’s vision is far greater than the entirety of the Donks parts, and with leaders like Reid and Pelosi, he starts with a major handicap.

After Clinton, we are not naïve enough to believe hopeful lies as the spoiled fruit of failed ambition. History is still kissing Clinton’s ass, but will eventually relegate him to the dust bin of ’lucky’ presidents like Gerald Ford. Clinton, in his day, was every bit as charismatic as Obama. He was a failure because, at the center of his politician’s heart, was a moral vacuity incapable of transcendental greatness. In a continuing time of abject corruption when both sides of the isle serve corporate masters over the best interests of their constituents, it will be our complex examinations that figure out what the real truth is behind the propaganda of ‘post-partisanship‘. Just as we did with Bush Co. That may require some painful reassessment of Obama and the actual paradigm he is following. It does not augur well that Obama has embraced the essential talent of the Clinton administration, its pro-corporate/banking paradigm, its never ending ‘growth’ consumerism, its war-hawk assertiveness, and its failed civic policies.

Our great expectations of Obama seem justified. His first few weeks in office have been extraordinary by any standard. Instead of hope we have action! We have change! We have leadership! However limited may be his compromises, he is the last hope between the future and the end of the old Republic as we have always known it. We must support him and let our clamor be heard loud and clear as it was on the inaugural day. We must sustain our enthusiasm even in the face of occasional failure, disillusionment, and strong disagreement. If we do not demand justice now, it will be forever lost. Obama knows the violence lined against us. Against him. They are the terrorists of Congress. If he fails, we fail. If Obama is lying to us, there will be no other chance. We must raise our voices from now on and remind him he is us. We are a revolution of one.

As Bush was the avatar of failure, incompetence, ruin and death, Obama would be our hero. If he fails to stir the inertia of America; if we fail to respond and act, we deserve to lose our democracy. The stakes are that high. For now think peaceful but firm revolution. Demand accountability, and justice.

*****

As a start, payback will do nicely: all Neocon Republicans should be rounded up in the middle of the night along with traitorous congressional Democrats, hooded and transported to Manzanar-like concentration camps in New Orleans‘ Ninth Ward for the next four years. Collaborators will be imprisoned in Disneyland for shorter terms, wear Dumbo costumes and serve as ‘assistants’ scraping off chewing gum deposited under tables and toilet seats. They should be deprived of sleep and forced to listen to George Bush speeches until they pass out. The men should be forced to wear girly garb designed by Carson Kressley (admittedly, in that crowd many will consider it a secret turn-on ). Lynndie England will be Matron of Honor, Fundi Bibles will be dropped in the toilets, and God called ‘She.’

Women such as Lynn Cheney and The Coultergist will be appointed capos to oversee industry where neo-con ladies are forced to make hook rugs in the image of the Obama family. All will be forced to wear diapers, have bad hair, and present clown makeup. The unrepentant will be forced to live under viaducts and clean the houses of migrant workers. Opps, sorry----slipped into a fantasy! Never mind….forgot: we must be a gentler, kinder, more progressive society. All the above will instead be sent to Iraq or Gaza with one way tickets to tend the graves of collateral damage, rebuild the country, and install democracy in every home.

*****

Obama’s veiled diplomacy and slippery bi-partisan rubbish stands clearly false in the view of the neo-con vanguard redoubts , who will wield no compromise in their anti-American desire for the perfect fascist Republican state, even though it is an abject failure. Why should they worry? The Democratic congress has just turned over a trillion dollars to the few who have designed and instituted our ruin. These people know the secret of alchemy. They can turn shit into gold and do not want interference.

Obama is not naive in these matters and his perceived ‘centrist’ stance is purely political and on the surface, threatens the integrity of vision he promises us. His strength of character and keen intelligence must prevail or “The change we can all believe’ will be just another manipulative jingo and join its cousin “A thousand points of light” in the ongoing betrayal of American citizens by the devouring appetite of corporate governance.

Nor, do we need another jiving Clinton taking wealth with one hand and spinning lying democratic fantasies with the other. Clinton was just a Reagan populist serving the same corporate masters. His spawns in Liberman and the likes of Feinstein still pollute congress with unimpeachable zesto. Hillary, for all her virtues, was no better. She was on the board of Wal*Mart for Christ’s sake.

It is not ‘negativism’ or ‘cynicism’ that informs this view. The recent collective past and the advent of blogging has raised the level of informative research to a mass audience unparalleled in recorded history. In that advent the truth in all its aspects revealed, repeatedly, the intricate details of the Bush/Cheney’s criminal junta and enterprise. Absolutely no justice, or law, or change occurred to halt the ruin of our nation.

The so-called Democratic congress under Pelosi and Reid were no better. The inevitable conclusion: the American people have lost control of their democracy; have no guaranteed due process, justice, or the ancient right of habeas corpus. Congress, both Democrat and Republican were running a separate government independent of ‘We the People” destroying the rule of law in all its diverse complexity and rewriting it to the will of corporate interests, supporting war crimes and crimes against the Constitution. The momentum is to continue that pattern: once elected and in place---unaccountable except for pork feeds. If the Nuremberg Trials demonstrated anything it was that criminality cannot be legalized and justice will be due.

The question remains: Will Obama really subvert and overturn this ‘status quo,’ return to rule of law and Constitutional principles, or compromise democracy once again, demanding that American victim citizens ‘sacrifice’ everything as the criminals regroup and obstruct true restoration and progress? Will accountability be swept under the rug and justice denied for a sweeping false vision of ‘moving forward’?"

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord." Well, Mr. President----listen to the mood of the people: we want accountability; we want our money back; our homes back; real, living wage jobs; affordable or universal health insurance; we want prison sentences and frog marches for the former highest in the land; we want justice and if you don’t bring the truth to light then we promise “conflict, discord.” There is a will in the American zeitgeist that remembers revolution. It can be harnessed for the well being of all, as you promise, or turn on its oppressors as it did in 1776.

Voice of the people:“President Obama warned Republicans on Capitol Hill today that they need to quit listening to radio king Rush Limbaugh if they want to get along with Democrats and the new administration.

Good shot, Mr. Prez, but they don't want to get along with Dems and the new administration. They want to rule and don't quite understand yet that they're toast. They have to listen to that fat gasbag to stay as misinformed as the morons who elected them. It's always worked for them, but luckily for the rest of us there ain't quite as many of them as there used to be.” “Sic em Barry!”

Virtually everyone in the nation, except for traitors like Rush Limbaugh, want the new President to succeed. We have chosen intelligent leadership and a return to the basic fundamentals of opportunity in our diverse society and its principle ideals. Isn’t it an incredible pleasure to watch Obama speak and formulate coherent explanations? What a quantum difference from the rambling, moronic nonsense of Bush, probably one of the most destructive embarrassments in American history.

Probably the first and most noticeable ‘change’ is in executive communication. Whereas Bush lied with every breath, either consciously or as a reflex of pathology, Obama is compelling, convincing, through the increments of piecemeal reality, constructing a massive vision of repair. One gets the feeling he is kite skiing on fragile ice over an abyss, and trained like an Olympian for the task ahead.

Watching Obama dance the Machiavellian tango with dead wood obstructionists brings dithyrambic praise for the skill of it. By reaching across the aisle in graceful bi-partisan theater, Obama is setting up the Republicans for the anti American elitists they are. Republicans are digging their own grave. What could be more sad than public opinion placing drug addict, comedienne Rush Limbaugh as the new head of the Republican Party. What’s next?---digging up Ronald Regan’s mummified body and running it next to Sarah Palin in 2012?

What a task ahead! Many of us ---a slim majority, chose Obama early in the game, if for no other reason than his history, education, brilliance and fundamental espousing of progressive democratic positions convinced us of institutional restoration on every level. But even acknowledging with acceptance, vacillations that come with compromise, arbitration, and political reality we grow increasingly uneasy. We feel a nagging disturbance and against the tide of adulation and hope, and rumble silently about the future of Obama‘s ‘change.’ The real enemy of Obama’s great vision is the democrats. That partly explains the strategy of bringing former Clinton loyalists on board as ballast. Although, it was clever of them to insert gross pork in the stimulus bill to offend the Republicans and draw out their poison in public view, discrediting them and getting passed the true meat of the effort. When the rubber hits the road, Republicans crash and burn---delicious!

The ease with which Obama threw over the friendship of a lifetime in the slandering of Reverend Wright and the deeply wounding insult to GLBT American communities for the uplifting embrace of crackpot preacher, Rick Warren, signifies a very steely opportunism that could be deadly in presidential power, increasingly distanced from public opinion or too finely willed to manipulate the most hateful elements of it. It had the whiff of Rahm Emmanuel all over it. We don’t need another Rove or Bolton to poison the waters, or disenfranchise any group of citizens.

Obama is a brilliant strategist, and his patient creation of the new vision is as methodical as knowing the whole puzzle, while putting in place piece by piece the integrated picture. This is where true leaders fail or succeed by virtue of inner character. Obama, we are to intuit, will make the hard decisions, those that demand greatness- even go against the tide of his party’s consensus if need be. However, judging by the Clinton retreads which comprise the majority of his advisers, or the unabashed Neocon hawks he embraces, changes that are demanded by the American electorate are simply not going to happen as hoped for. If Obama creates a Clinton redo, we will surly fail.

The most telling truth in Obama’s otherwise paean to American mythology is this chilling invocation: "We will not apologize for our way of life nor will we waver in its defense." If by that he means:

Then, hope will be a revolution, a change in which we can truly believe. If not, we are marching to the drumbeat of 'exceptionalism' right into the graveyard of history's former empires.