Doublethink

youngmanhattanite:

johncarney:

I’ve been saying for quite some time that one of the most entertaining results of Obama’s election would be the inevitable heartbreak of his true believers. Politics is mostly useful to crush dreams.

Thanks to Ian I know the moment has come.

Don’t look at us, we only voted for him because he’s black.

Carney’s observation sort of misses the point about the backlash against Obama from progressives. It’s not Obama the man who has been such a disappointment per se; it’s that all of us young’uns have realized that our grand dreams of reform just won’t happen without some literal or metaphorical bloodshed. Look at all of the bought-and-paid for industry cronies Obama has, perhaps out of necessity, surrounded himself with. The disappointment isn’t because “true believers” dislike the man (although he’s a figurehead for it) but because they dislike the system and the fact that even he of such great charisma has, thus far, been unable or unwilling to transcend it. The health care reform debacle, continuing Bush administration military and anti-terror policies, kowtowing to entrenched business interests in finance, media, telecommunications, and basically every other area where the reforms and/or proposals have been pathetically weak, at best, just reinforce the sad truth that our government is impossible to reform.

The great disappointment for me, personally, is that, as much as I have faith in technocratic government to do good, and do good for everyone, ours will probably never get there without some WWII level catastrophe to force it.