A serious question about President Barack Obama?

[kentuck]

Is he an agent of real change or is he an agent to preserve the status quo?

No doubt, he is a huge change from George W Bush and the policies of the last Republican Administration, but looking at the bigger picture, is he for change in our institutions and the policies that affect our lives every day?

For example, he could have chosen to nationalize the banks and spend the money on other programs to help the people, but he chose to save the big banks. Those that have controlled our country since its inception will continue to control everything. When we had a chance to start over, we chose to keep the status quo.

[el_bryanto]

1. He is and always was a moderate Democrat in the Clinton Model

Did Clinton really change much? Nope. Will Obama change much fundamental? Nope!

Bryant

[Robb]

2. He is a step in the right direction on many things.

He will stand still on many others.

And take a big leap forward on just a few.

[noamnety]

21. He is a step in the right direction on many things.

laughing here - yes, that is the problem.

[Annces]

3. Kind of conservative

but his mind is his own and he is not held back at all by pettiness. A creative person, but not making something completely new.

[kentuck]

4. But do we need "something completely new"?

at this time?

[Annces]

8. Corporations are in charge

and they will be until people reorganize things, like stop shopping at Wal-Mart or aspiring to the comfort of yuppie-dum. I don't know what is going to happen or how. But I am happy Obama is President. It is affirmation that the people's will is stronger than anything else, because they could see Obama was a good person, world-wide.

[superduperfarleft]

5. He's really hot with his shirt off, and his dog is cute. n/t

[kentuck]

6. Thank you very much for your serious comment.

Much appreciated.

(edit - and thank you for your Unrec)

[Proud Liberal Dem]

7. I don't think he's going to fundamentally change the way our society and economy operates

I see signs that he is working to make some of the more pernicious aspects of our society and economy much less so. I think that even if he, in his heart of hearts, really wanted to upend everything as you suggest, I don't think it would be politically possible right now. Maybe eventually we'll get there but I'd be cautious (and Obama is probably the same) about making such dramatic and severe changes in the structure of our economy overnight.

What's most important to me, at least for starters, is getting corporations on a MUCH tighter leash and seeing more of a shift to domestic priorities (i.e. ensuring that people are being taken care of). To these ends, I've mostly been encouraged, particularly with his efforts to reform health care in this country-which has been a festering sore on our country for years- but a lot of work remains to be done and TPTB will doggedly fight him and any changes he wants to make to the status quo and will require a lot of work on our end to make sure we come out on the winning side in the end.

[kentuck]

10. I agree with you on this point.

"I think that even if he, in his heart of hearts, really wanted to upend everything as you suggest, I don't think it would be politically possible right now."

Basically, we are screwed. There will be no health-care reform. The banks will have all the money. The people will have no jobs. We will continue the slide into Third Worldness.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

11. I wouldn't say I'm quite that pessimistic

I just don't think that the kind of proposed changes made by several people here at DU are going to be implemented anytime in the near future. However, I don't believe that things are as bad (or will get as bad) as you are suggesting. I could be wrong, naive, foolishly idealistic, of course, but, with somebody like Obama as POTUS, I feel that there's a MUCH better chance of moving in the right direction, however incremental, than there would have been under, say, a McPalin/Palin administration (I get chills just even writing that!). I'd be pretty damned gloomy myself if they were in office but whatever Obama is, he is NOT a Bush nor is he a McCain (thank the great maker!).

[scheming daemons]

9. The nature of the electoral system is that whichever candidate is "most centrist" usually wins

20% are far left
20% are far right
60% are between

It's a bell curve. Oh, sure, sometimes the "bubble" of the bell curve goes a little right of center or left of center.... but a candidate that represents either of the 20%-er sections will never win a national election.

Dennis Kucinich, nor anybody like him, will ever be President.

Gary Bauer, nor anybody like him, will ever be President.

If you don't appeal to a majority of the "mushy middle", it just won't happen.

Obama is about as much "change" as we can ever get at the top from a left perspective.

Similarly, the right will never get their wacko fringe candidates (Keyes, Bauer, etc.) anywhere NEAR the Presidency.

And I would argue that... in general... that's a good thing.

[leftofthedial]

12. Well, he represents a major style change from bush, but then any human would.

Substantively, on the economy, Obama is a rabid champion of the status quo. He's even more of a corporatist than Clinton, which is saying something. With the exception of about a third of the stimulus package, everything his administration done has been geared toward further rewarding the banks and will only make things worse--much worse--in the medium to long term. Without substantially more real stimulus soon, it will be too late. As an economically viable first-world power, America is finished. (Actually capitalism is dead, and we're being dragged into the grave with it.)

On health care he represents the smallest possible tweak to the status quo that can reasonably be called "reform." His main approach is to ensure that more people will participate in a fundamentally dysfunctional system. He proposes nothing that will fix the system.

On the environment, he is Clintonian, talking in grandiose tree-hugger terms and slapping the "green" label on everything in sight, all while assiduously protecting corporate access to our air, water and other resources. It's a shame. We could seize the opportunity--probably the last opportunity our species will get--to end the rippling 18th Century cycles of Imperial militarism, drive a stake in the heart of the faux-capitalist kleptocracy before it rises once again, zombie-like, to munch what little is left of our brains, and commit to a new, truly green rebirth of our civilization. Obama seems to believe the words, but has no interest at all in actually doing it. His rhetoric is correct. His actions are pitiful.

On education, so far, he has been more style than substance. He has done nothing and proposes nothing that would fundamentally change a dysfunctional system. His greatest "idea" is to let more people participate in the broken system.

On war and Imperial issues--the"national security" kleptocracy--he has shuffled a few deck chairs, but he's actually been every bit as aggressively militaristic in the Middle East and dedicated to the well-being of the MIC as king george ever was.

On civil liberties, he's made a couple of high-falutin' Jeffersonian sounding speeches, but in practice he's been even more authoritarian than bush. He will not be a champion of restoring our rights. In fact, he is now the enemy on this front.

At its core, his administration represents the banks. Obama's job is to look good, talk pretty and give warm fuzzies to the shallow-thinking center without really changing anything. He's the "good cop" to cheney's bad cop.

Enjoy your cup of coffee and candy bar. The rubber hoses are still there, just the other side of the one-way mirror. They will be back.

[Echo In Light]

13. A candidate deemed "electable" by corporate America means he/she is a moderate Repub

The Right is so far right now that it's very easy for our system/mass media to package moderate Repubs and sell them as "liberal" precisely because so few have an accurate grasp of political philosophies/ideologies ... so, it's easy to sell people on an idea/image when the makority of them haven't/don't spend any time researching such things ... and this entire process occurs of course within a social climate of opinion shaped entirely by corporate/empire friendly views/propaganda.

The unreality is akin to the air we breathe which is why so many will vehemently denounce this view since it challenges the prevailing perceptions.

[timeforpeace]

14. Yeah, but think how bad it would be with McCain as president.

[H2O Man]

15. Fair question.

I believe that Obama is sincere in his feeling that he is an agent of change. But the system can only be changed from the grass rots up. The machine is using him to stifle change, and without a grass roots movement on a greater level than the 1960s provided, the machine wins.

[kentuck]

16. It is up to us, the grassroots, to change the system...

Only then will it be possible for President Obama to lead. Otherwise, the inertia is too great for any one leader.

[Echo In Light]

19. It's deeper than that. No one who would possibly try to impose change would be deemed "electable"...

...to begin with, and instead would be shut out at the onset, but kept 'in the game' just enough to afford the illusion of the overall system not being unfair in helping to more or less disqualify them in the public mind. Any candidate the establishment really gets behind is someone whose life has been tailored to 'play ball' w/the corporate paymasters who run the show for the fans who enjoy playing this particular game.

[H2O Man]

20. Exactly.

Educate. Organize. And exercise Amendment #1 -- daily.

There needs to be a confederacy of liberal and progressive groups and individuals. As the Iroquois know, alone we are like fingers that our common enemy can easily break; together, we form a powerful fist that can protect all of us.

Sadly, too often -- even on DU -- we witness those individual fingers quarreling over complete nonsense. We need to harness the energy that is being wasted. Then we will have the power to begin to make the change needed to reach our goals.

[kentuck]

24. But, in the example of health care reform...

It isn't the Republicans, per se, that are holding up passage, it is so-called "centrist" Democrats. If we truly want change, are these not the folks that we need to change? Do we not need to clean our own house if we want the change we say? The "big tent" theory is preventing the change that the people need in this instance. If the Democratic platform calls for reform, then those so-called "centrists" are betraying the wishes of the Democratic Party. They are not for the people. That is what we need to change to begin with, in my humble opinion.

[H2O Man]

25. Sure.

I think that it is fair to say that this same dynamic held true in the 1960s, and in every other time that there were efforts to make meaningful change. We have a far better chance of being able to influence the moderate-to-conservative democrats, who are almost always the dead weight that keeps positive change from taking place, than a significant number of republicans.

[PufPuf23]

28. Yeah sadly

There are deeply entrenched agendas not visible.

The problem is too many rots from greed, ideology, entitlement, socially re-enforced stupid, fear (often deserved from blowback), race and class-isms, and lack of honest information regardless of modern communication technology. We systematically destroy abundance and I do mean not materially but what really matters.

[Spider Jerusalem]

17. Incremental change is better than none at all.

You may as well ask whether FDR wasn't an agent of change, because he didn't nationalise industry and because the actions of his administration very probably averted revolution and preserved American capitalism.

[Romulox]

18. Wars continue apace, corporate welfare hits new highs, globalization marches on.

The Status Quo has a new champion in President Obama.

[Taverner]

22. There's nothing wrong with globalization

Corporate Welfare - yes

But anytime I hear people railing against globalization - its comes across as xenophobic...

[Romulox]

23. That's nothing more than your opinion.

(which is not bolstered with a lazy ad hom.)

"but anytime I hear people railing against globalization - its comes across as xenophobic..."

anytime I hear people railing for globalization - its (sic) comes across as corporate shilling... See how that namecalling thing works? :hi:

[leftofthedial]

26. He's WAY more of a status quo champion than Clinton

and I thought Clinton was a terrific repuke.

[WI_DEM]

27. if he passes health care reform with a govt plan, a good climate bill and

other things that progressives have been calling for then he will be an agent of real change.

[FrenchieCat]

29. He didn't "choose" to run as a socialist, and therefore he chose not to

"nationalize the banks and spend the money on other programs to help the people"

nor did he choose to "start over".....

That's not what he ran on doing.....so I'm not sure why some are acting surprised that he
chose not to be a radical.
Had he done that, he would not have been elected....because it would mean that the
Republicans would have been telling the truth about him to begin with,
and of course, Republicans don't tell the truth.

[CakeGrrl]

30. Is this rhetorical? You seem to have answered your own question to your liking.

I'll have to consult my Magic 8 ball, however.