Clinton and Obama: The Worst and Best Thing to Happen to the Democratic Party in Years

Mon, 08/17/2009 - 17:13 — dlindorff

Bill Clinton was the worst thing to happen to the Democratic Party and to progressives since that racist warmonger Woodrow Wilson won the presidency and dragged the US into the utterly pointless and incredibly bloody First World War.

Clinton, by posing as a progressive, confused and undermined, and ultimately betrayed the liberal/progressive wing of the party, shattering what was left of the New Deal coalition and leaving the American left adrift and riven by the conflict between those who thought the Democratic Party was the only viable vehicle for progressive reform and those who thought it was hopelessly in the grip of corporate interests.

Barack Obama offers the hope of bringing that era of debilitating confusion to an end.

Not because he is the Great Black Hope of progressives, but because he has taken the concept of selling out to corporate interests and compromising with Republicans to such remarkable heights that progressives hopefully can no longer be confused about the irretrievably corrupted nature of the Democratic Party.

On virtually every issue of importance, President Obama has sided with corporate interests and the wealthy.

On the issue of war and peace, he has sided with the military-industrial complex, with a policy of permanent occupation of Iraq and endless war in Afghanistan, as well as continued funding of the country’s colossal armory of death, from strategic missiles and submarines to aircraft-carrier-group armadas to high-tech fighter squadrons and space weaponry.

On civil liberties, he has sided with the police state, supporting continuation of the Bush/Cheney administration’s insidious National Security Agency spying program, defended military spying within the US, and refused to prosecute obvious abuses by the prior administration.

On torture, the Obama administration is continuing the imprisonment and torture of captives in Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world at Bagram Air Base and, probably, at other secret sites, and instead of closing Guantanamo as promised, is looking into transferring that hellhole of torture and abuse to one or several sites in the mainland US.

Health care reform has become a sad joke, with the emerging “reformâ€