Of course they do. Are you willing to do things that a traditionally powerful Bush family has done so you can have greater ability to manifest your imagining for action? I don’t know about you, but I do not want to do the same. This is the difference between conscientious people who are not willing to see the destruction of humanity in order to have that kind of power. The elite has created billions of hungry people with disintegrated societies through manufactured crisis, campaign of disinformation and deception, wars and terrorism in regions abundant with natural resources including Africa and Asia. Obama has given many signals that he is willing to do the same to become a MEMBER of the corrupt elite. His first new conference looked very much like Clinton administration responsible for human tragedy in Afghanistan, Sudan and Iraq, prerequisite for invasion of Iraq by the neocon.
Your hopefulness is very amusing when you write:
“When I sort through the answers to the above questions a most likely image forms: A new president with a willingness to listen to well presented argument and responsive to pressure from all sources ….but he will not forget that when he was of the multitude he could get things done.”
He has shown that he is willing to listen to power but he is not going to be responsive to pressure from all sources since our concern is opposite to elite concern and he can not satisfy both at the same time to remain a MEMBER.
He needed ears of everyone to present himself as a ‘leader’ who can be trusted. In return, he needed supporters to convince the elite that he can deliver. Obama cleverly has not given his supporters much in terms of explaining his policies regarding number of issues but whatever he has put forward is not attractive. My concern most likely is different from yours. My concern is his foreign policy regarding the Middle East, North Africa and the Central Asia. He has assured elites to expand US hegemony in these regions, using all available options on the table. Thus, he is not going to be that much different from either Bush or Clinton regarding Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq and other places.
He has asked the world to accept “American Leadership” where the US has NO CREDIBILITY in the world. How do you want to expand your hegemony with no credibility? The only tool you need is the Weapon of Mass Destruction. Thus, I do not imagine the kind of hope you have imagined from Obama’s administration.

Are you suggesting that the wealthy and traditionally powerful do not have greater ability to manifest their imaginings for action than the multitude? As I pointed out earlier, imaginings and consequences are different things. If you read the essay of which the quote is a part, you would know that I have presented a very mild proposal: There may be a small window of opportunity to influence Obama that should be taken advantage of. If you are saying that an Obama administration may go terribly wrong, then I could not disagree. But your very strange interpretation that my piece is some how driven by aspirations of lackihood is amusing.

The “masses” are use to celebrating celebrities. The marketing machine gave them a celebrity – Obama. He was packaged, learned to play his role, stayed on script and the crowds got ever larger. The young girls cried with tears of pent up adulation – much like a Michael Jackson or Beatles concert of years past.

Rosemarie stated elsewhere that there is a direct correlation between number of votes a candidate got (including 3rd Party) and the money in their coffers that went out to spend on marketing.

Enough money will buy you just about anything in the “land of the brave, home of the free”. You can scale it from municipal elections right through to the top tier. Add to that a dose of oratory excellence and a party machine that’s been doing this for 2 centuries – and voila!!

This is not a beginning point for change. It’s a deadend.

(James, you are right, this has gone far afield of you post.)

“Apparently Suthiano is upset that I focused on his Hitler remark and it is clear that Suthiano doesn’t get it. He clearly doesn’t understand how Obama and his campaign alters the rhetoric that the Left has to use in order to win converts. Associating “Hitler” with Obama regardless of how you may fell about Obama will only alienate you from the MASSES who will be needed in order to really alter the course of this nation.”

The masses don’t need to join the left – they need to realize their own power. There is no conversion, there’s only organizing and directing populist power.

The people should not be organized under a leftist banner, they should be organized under *their own* banner.

The writer makes a mistake when writes an opportunist statement:
”A major difference between the elite and the rest of humanity is that they are able to actually do what they imagine. Mr. Obama is now a member.”
If the author describes elite as ‘successful’ in implementing policies design to direct human actions to serve this small community’s interest in preservation of their hegemony over the rest of the population, he may be right. However, the opposition groups and those who are interested in human dignity do not accept this narrow definition. We have many figures around the world who have sacrificed their position as elite to serve the interest of their nation and humanity not their enemies. Mossadegh, prime minster of Iran in 1940s and beginning of 1950s is an example of someone who was toppled, almost killed, tried and exiled to a village in Iran until his death but people still remember him and respect him as an elite and a leader – not only in Iran, the Middle East, the Central Asia and Africa and among older generation in western countries – as symbol of resistance against the British empire and its financial backers but also a good model to follow. Dr. Mossadeq was coming from an aristocrat family who let the Iranian Oil nationalization movement against British empire but his democratic government was toppled by British, backed by Rothschild family, and American administration, the rising power in 1953. Dr. Mossadeq, who had the IMAGINATION to serve his community and humanity, was toppled by those who Obama has given his pledge of allegiance to serve. This means that Obama is going to serve those who are willing to crash democratically elected government if that government does not serve the interest of war criminals. We already have seen Obama’s vicious gesture towards Hamas, democratically elected by Palestinian people because Israel and Zionist lobby wants to ignore. Mossadeq wanted to implement his policy based on his IMAGINATION to serve HUMANITY. Obama’s decision to invite Clinton administration’s staff back into his administration, starting with Rahm Emmanuel, shows us what Obama HAS CHOSEN TO DO. Bill Clinton, the most pro Zionist administration ever, smoothen the path for the invasion of Iraq by the neocon through his policy. The Invasion of Iraq was impossible without Clinton administration’s policy of ‘Dual containment’ designed by Martin Indyke from The Washington Institute for Near East policy, an Israeli think tank and off shoot of AIPAC, where this policy killed more than 650,000 Iraqi people, many children, and ended with soft partition of Iraq, desired by “the Greater Israel” project through NO FLY ZONE.
This policy let to a weak and fragmented Iraq before the invasion, a policy that is playing again against Iran with full support of Obama who wants to be a puppet of the ruling elite. The worsen Situation of Palestinian through phony ‘peace process’ and building of more settlements and changing the language of occupied land into ‘disputed land’ , all are the result of Clinton administration’s policies led by Dennis Ross. Now, Dennis Ross is Obama’s advisor on Iran who advices him to say lies such as ‘nuclear Iran is unacceptable’ discarding NIE reports where they have announced: “Iran does not have a nuclear weapon program’ to please AIPAC, his backer, while he is ignoring Israel’s illegal nuclear weapon, more than 300 bombs ready to go, shows that Obama is more puppet than a white president because Obama is determined to show his loyalty to white power where regarded blacks as ‘inferior’ so he can be protected and accepted. Thus, Obama felt he had to take more steps to prove his loyalty to serve white power by offering ‘undivided Jerusalem’ as capital of Israel where white faces such as Clinton, Bush and McCain, could afford not to make. Obama as a black candidate was not trusted in the beginning and he felt has to expand his IMAGINATION by offering ‘undivided Jerusalem’ as capital of Israel which IS NOT HIS PROPERTY to give to an apartheid state, Israel, where has stolen Palestinian land against oppressed people of Palestine, with the support of black community who have presented white power as responsible party for their misery in the past but ignoring Obama’s exploitation of Palestinian and other groups in the Middle East and Africa including Sudan to put a black face in the White house.

Just look at who Obama appointed to his “Transition Economic Advisory Board”, names that mean change:

“First, there’s former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Not only was he chairman of Citigroup Inc.’s executive committee when the bank pushed bogus analyst research, helped Enron Corp. cook its books, and got caught baking its own. He was a director from 2000 to 2006 at Ford Motor Co., which also committed accounting fouls and now is begging Uncle Sam for Citigroup- style bailout cash.

Two other Citigroup directors received spots on the Obama board: Xerox Corp. Chief Executive Officer Anne Mulcahy and Time Warner Inc. Chairman Richard Parsons. Xerox and Time Warner got pinched years ago by the Securities and Exchange Commission for accounting frauds that occurred while Mulcahy and Parsons held lesser executive posts at their respective companies.

Mulcahy and Parsons also once were directors at Fannie Mae when that company was breaking accounting rules. So was another member of Obama’s new economic board, former Commerce Secretary William Daley. He’s now a member of the executive committee at JPMorgan Chase & Co., which, like Citigroup, is among the nine large banks that just got $125 billion of Treasury’s bailout budget.

Another slot went to former White House economic adviser Laura Tyson. She’s been a director for about a decade at Morgan Stanley, which in 2004 got slapped for accounting violations by the SEC and a month ago got $10 billion from Treasury.

That’s not all. There’s Penny Pritzker, the Obama campaign’s national finance chairwoman. She was on the board of the holding company for subprime lender Superior Bank FSB. The Chicago-area thrift, in which her family held a 50 percent stake, was seized by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2001. The thrift’s owners agreed to pay the government $460 million over 15 years to help cover the FDIC’s losses.

Even some of the brighter lights on Obama’s board, like Warren Buffett and former SEC Chairman William Donaldson, come with asterisks. Buffett was on the audit committee of Coca-Cola Co.’s board when the SEC found the soft-drink maker had misled investors about its earnings. Donaldson was on the audit committee from 1998 to 2001 at a provider of free e-mail services called Mail.com Inc. Just before he left the SEC, in 2005, the agency disciplined the company over accounting violations that had occurred on his watch.

… Donaldson, for one, was chairman when the SEC voted in 2004 to let the big Wall Street banks, including Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Bear Stearns Cos., lever up their balance sheets like drunks. Talk about blowing it.

And whom did Obama tap for White House chief of staff? Rahm Emanuel, the Illinois congressman who was a director at Freddie Mac in 2000 and 2001 while it was committing accounting fraud” (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aNCFKvAMUQ6w&refer=home).

Even journalists at boomberg.com see through Obama’s rhetoric… it’s a terrible sign when the “intellectuals” on the left cannot.

We are on the same “page”.

Incremental change, itself is flawed. It is a lazy way of saying, not now later, but bit by bit we’ll become…or get…

That’s just not the way the real world works – certainly not the paradigm which powers the empire. Which half of the baby to we split to make everyone happy?

There is, in this case, a zero-sum at work. The System is X; not Y. If you want Y, get a new system. There is no inch by inch.

Take health care. Obama’s “plan” – so we keep a privatized system with its convoluted rules tied to employment and broaden it to make it “affordable” to more through some gov’t subsidies. First, that’s what gave us our pathological monocultural food system that produces non-food for human consumption. Subsidizing megafarms NOT to plant or only plant millions of acres of corn and soy. But in this case, it’s a subsidization of private insurance and pharma!!! Madness.

It is STILL a profit driven system which is by its very nature a monopoly – Why? Because health care satifies a basic human need. To privatize human needs is to create a monopoly that at very best creates poverty and at its all too frequent worst creates death.

This is just one example of an Obama incremental approach. Great on paper…doesn’t step on the power elites toes and leaves us without f&ckn health care. What a f&ckn genius this Obama cat is!!

“Obama whether you like it or not represents the struggle of African American against racism and discrimination in the United States. Pissing on Obama by associating his rhetoric with Hilter will not bring these folks in your direction.”

While I appreciate your attempt to get through to a member of the “lunatic fringe” such as myself, it won’t be accomplished with more declarations like the ones made above. Is Obama a symbol with a static, defined meaning? Like the cross? Did the cross represent the same thing to 12th century Muslims as it did to 12th century Christians? For me, Obama is a symbol of how easy it is to get swept up in “mass movements”, particularly ones that have the full support of most of the mainstream media (a traditional ally of the left?), and in doing so forget the real issues, and the real work, which is the same today as it was on Novemeber 1st, 2nd or 3rd.

The difference between me (who, will drive away any potential ally, with my nonstop references to Hitler), and you is that I can handle the fact that Obama might represent something different to someone other than me, wheras you can’t. You seek to silence the debate by relegating dissidents to the fringe. The voice of the dissident is thus the voice of the lunatic. Consequently you’ve managed to alienate yourself from someone who is a member of the “tiny” left. You didn’t do so with any Hitler rhetoric, but by being a jackass.

“But go ahead and compare Obama to Hitler and when Obama fails to keep his promises you’ll notice that his massive support base especially African Americans won’t be heading in your direction.”

I must be speaking a different dialect of English than deadbeat. Where was this comparison? Is it possible the comparison had something to do with the shortcomings of the “rhetoric of hope”, and very little to do with Obama as being an individual who is similar to Hitler? Did the rest of the paragraph directly following the one sentence in which Hitler is mentioned seek to accomplish this? Was I attacking Obama as a Hitler figure or was I making a nuanced argument against the limits and dangers of “hope”? You could always return to the source and see for yourself. Or, I suppose, I could use your tactics and declare exactly what my words represent, and then there would be no debate.

What is particularly interesting is that deadbeat claims to be concerned with “converting” souls to the “TINY” left. He provides a few suggestions on how to go about doing so: by using the “altered rhetoric” supplied by the Obama campaign (put together by those strategists of the left), or by using a nuanced and empathetic approach. He provides nothing else. What is this altered rhetoric? Does it have anything to do with hope? Can you please re-read my original post and see if you understand its nuances, ignoring the one time usage of Hitler’s name? Would you show me a little bit of empathy in your responses, rather than seeking to relegate me to a lunatic fringe? Would you mock and degrade existing leftists in your quest not to “alienate the MASSES”?

Be wary of whom you make bedfellows with. I have no desire to align myself with the elitists on the “left” who would make such ridiculous assertions as: “You are obviously among the educated and literate 25% of the adults of this nation — probably even among the thoughtfully literate 10%”. Where are you getting these figures? What crystal ball do you possess that allows you to so classify people? I suppose you would place yourself in amongst the “thoughtfully literate”?

“Thinking without study and care, especially in support of long held and comfortable beliefs, is a luxury of times and circumstances with less drastic consequences than we face at present”.

What is not “long held” about the belief that change comes from elections? This is the most comfortable belief I can think of. It allows us to think that we can go on living our lives the same as before, so long as we make the right decision every four years. What have I been “shouting” from the “fringe” since I entered this debate? Must I be a broken record and repost my comments again, or will those who so adamantly disagree read what I write before responding? Take it in, now think about it with study and care.

“There are times when “correct” action in Reality is the only option left available that can have a positive outcome. The greatest knowledge, the most efficient and rigorous logic, the most insightful intuition and the most general wisdom all need to be combined into the actions that we take as nations and as a species”.

James, “Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of our language” (Wittgenstein, PI, 109).

My thinking did not spring forth untutored or without rigor and certainly not without substantial action.

When I spoke of localism, I was not speaking from a text book or a theory. I take quite serious the consequence of actions and words. I also know that our human capacity and energies are not endless and they must focus on a clear understanding of the underlying issues, the most basic principles before embarking on wild notions of converting the system of elite power through the auspicous of a new President.

You may see what I’ve posted as simple idle play. I may see the same in what you’ve posted. I don’t think either of us believe we are being playful here. But I do see flaws with your thinking (and apparently you do with mine, though you haven’t been clear on exactly what that is.)

Ah well, James, wish you the best. I thought you had more of an interest in the biological underpinning of our dilemma given your background. Organized complexity may be a place we can find common ground and move from there…who knows?

Is this, as I suspect, easier said than explained? If you can provide clarity would be much appreciated.

You are conflating one idea with another: that one has to be accepted by a system to become its leader is generally true, but that the rest of your assertions naturally follow is not clear at all. You are obviously among the educated and literate 25% of the adults of this nation — probably even among the thoughtfully
literate 10% — it is frightening when some many of such clear talent have allowed themselves to think so sloppily. It is a luxury, like so many others, that we can no longer afford.