is the empty inkblot really empty?

I still can't figure out what is happening to the Democratic party. There is secrecy and bullying, so it's probably not a good change coming over the party. Obviously the new real Democratic party (whatever that means) views Clinton, her voters, and the things she stands for as the enemy - "they" keep emphasizing that she and Obama are virtually identical on the issues, but it is obvious that this same "they" will do anything to keep her from having the power to push the issues she cares about.

There just isn't enough information for me - or anyone else who isn't privy to reliable inside information - to know just who Obama is and what he wants.

Those who think they know might just be projecting. Or responding selectively. And I think that is deliberate.

Steve Chapman writes,

I was just getting used to the idea that Barack Obama is an America-hating left-winger bent on socialism and surrender. Then along comes Ralph Nader, who says the problem with Obama is that he's an obedient steward of the status quo, doing the bidding of greedy corporations. Naderites, conservatives and many others agree he's a menace. They just can't agree on why.

Obama has said, in reference to his broad appeal, "I am like a Rorschach test" -- meaning that his admirers have a knack for seeing in him exactly what they want to find.

I spent a lot of time worrying about this (as I wrote about in earlier posts). Who is this guy? What does he represent, really? Why won't he take a real position on anything and stand by it? Why does this guy preaching hope and change and unity rely so heavily on attacks against Clinton? Why does he say so little of substance?

I have written about his "Kos Libertarian" leanings - "I've got mine, who cares about you" isn't just for right wingers any more.

Steve Diamond has written very interesting things about Obama's ties with the "authoritarian left", the false consciousness of Marxism that combines so nicely and so easily with Libertarian selfishness. Think of his "beautiful" speech, where he takes it upon himself to redefine what white working class types really need, for instance. Marxist false consciousness gives him the presumptuous arrogance - the chutzpah - to speak on behalf of people he neither knows nor likes, while Libertarianism justifies the selfishness needed to abandon any lingering conscience he might have had (we are all free to do whatever we like - well, except for the things Libertarians don't like, of course).

Steve Diamond also writes about the relationship between Obama and his terrorist buddy Ayers (as I have said before, Ayers is not going to go away) which is a big part of Obama's "authoritarian left" problem:

...my hypothesis is that Ayers and Obama had an older relationship and a deeper political affinity than has been made clear until now. The attempts by so many around Obama, and by Obama himself, to portray this as an arms length relationship simply do not fit the facts that are available.

The Ayers and Dohrn connection is linked to what the right wing calls "liberal fascism" (for those of us who were confused at what seemed like a contradiction in terms - it isn't).

It is, in short, the belief that the few who are privileged to be just plain betterer than everyone else can see what the world needs, and have the right to do anything to anyone in order to realize this gorgeous vision. It is utopianism at its bomb-throwing worst.

Of course, Ayers and Dohrn blew stuff up decades ago. But, oh, it doesn't matter, says Obama - the blowing-up part was years and years ago. I was just a kid.

A more recent interview:

Dohrn:

I don’t look to the Democratic Party. I don’t have hope for the Democratic Party. I think the Democratic Party is bankrupt. And I think the only answer is for us to build an independent, radical movement, and, I mean, the big ‘us.’

Ayers:

That’s how you use electoral politics. Not as an end in itself, but as an organizing mechanism. Our deepest belief, I think, is that we need to connect all these good projects and build the movement. …we should always be positioning ourselves, thinking, okay, if I’m involved in this next election, how am I positioned to help contribute to building a movement, raising consciousness, making the connections, and that’s a real tricky business.

An organizing mechanism.

Change.

New politics.

UGH!

This by way of Steve Diamond Of Guns and Bitterness: Obama and the Authoritarian Left

However, it is important to note that to the extent that this new authoritarian left, formed in the late 60s and early 70s, is still in existence – and it is, though also on a smaller scale – it has no central organization or structure and it is hard to conclude that even if Ayers and Dohrn and others are influencing Obama that Obama belongs to any such movement or organization, because there is no such organization to belong to.

Instead, I believe that on particular issues the authoritarian left has been able to influence the thinking of the Obama campaign. I have pointed to the one clear example of this: education, where a leading education advisor to Obama is pushing a policy (repayment of “education debt”) that is also the policy of Ayers. I also think there may be other areas where this milieu is having some influence on the thinking of Obama, perhaps including the the idea of “dialogue with dictators” - such as Chavez and Ahmadinejad.

In addition, the authoritarian left milieu – and this is one area where they differ from the American Communist Party – has always been hostile to American workers, in particular to their unions. The Weather Underground argued that unions were part of a “labor aristocracy” that fed off the backs of the third world. The comments by Obama about the guns and bitterness of the working class and his inability to demonstrate sympathy with workers in states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Kentucky, suggest that that hostility to such voters from the authoritarian left may be carrying over to the Obama campaign.

Sean Wilentz in the Huffington Post:

Culturally as well as politically, Obama's dismissal of white working people represents a sea-change in the Democrats' basic identity as the workingman's party - one that has been coming since the late 1960s, when large portions of the Left began regarding white workers as hopeless and hateful reactionaries. Faced with the revolt of the "Reagan Democrats" - whose politics they interpreted in the narrowest of racial terms - "new politics" Democrats dreamed of a coalition built around an alliance of right-thinking affluent liberals and downtrodden minorities, especially African-Americans. It all came to nothing. But after Bill Clinton failed to consolidate a new version of the old Democratic coalition in the 1990s, the dreaming began again - first, with disastrous results, in the schismatic Ralph Nader campaign of 2000 and now (with the support of vehement ex-Naderites including Barbara Ehrenreich and Cornel West) in the Obama campaign.

Personally, I don't think he ought to be President whether he is right or left or in fact some exciting new hybrid. His real position is unpopular and unwanted. We know this because otherwise, he would stand by it - he wouldn't hide it. People wouldn't be attempting to figure it out, translate - and accuse each other of conspiracy theories because "obviously" the other guy has got it all wrong.

But even if it were a great philosophy? What then? We know he's a liar, and that he picks very nasty people to be friends with - and then either disowns them or pretends to. He has a serious attitude problem, speaking to those with less power than himself in ways that are condescending, insulting, and rude. Like Bush, he rejects the notion of the public servant. He does not even pay lip service to the idea that he is our servant. He's quite clear on who owes what to whom. We're the servants in his world, and we already owe him - he isn't even in office yet and already his minions are making demands.

But perhaps the most important thing is this: I know what I believe in, what I want - and what most Democrats agree the Democratic party stands for (past and present). Obama offers us nothing.

So who cares what he does want? I want a candidate who doesn't make us guess. One who can say out loud who he is, what he wants, and what he stands for.

Or even better yet: a candidate who cares about what I want.