Were We Duped?

To finish up the comment on Eric's question, I will say I feel duped by Obama's economic policy, in spite of the changed circumstances I'd cited earlier. The disappointment was not just mine. Most progressive Democrats, from Paul Krugman to Robert Kuttner, have written about Obama's appointments of Larry Summers and Tim Geithner as key economic advisers as terribly "Rubinesque" (after Bob Rubin, the Clinton Democrat guru of Wall Street that championed the scuttling of the Glass-Steagle separation of commercial and investment banks in 1999). The President had different economic campaign advisers, including Paul Volcker, the former Chair of the Fed before Greenspan, a huge critic of Rubin's policies. So I and others have a deep sense of being sold a bill of goods, that Obama ran as a populist and has governed as a Eisenhower Republican or a Rubin Democrat, bowing to the wishes of his biggest campaign contributors, namely the wizards of Wall St. who sent us into this never-ending recession.

But there is another side even to this story. The Court ruled on Citizens United and, like it or not, Obama has calculated that he needs to raise $1 billion for 2012 to be reelected. He will not get that kind of money from people like you and me. Here, the 2010 spending records are instructive: 7 of the 10 biggest spenders for the midterm election were rightwing corporations. The only pro-Democratic contributors in the top ten were unions, AFSCME especially. That's why what's happening today in the streets --actually on State Street -- in Madison, WI is so important. What happens or not with the proposed budget-balancing bill in Wisconsin is the most important political outcome in our history in decades. If the Governor wins, public-worker unions will be busted and, in a post-Citizens United world, the dominoes will fall in those states with Republican governors and legislatures were elected. As Wisconsin goes, so goes the country. That is the world we are facing now as voters, or non-voters. So were we duped? We frankly don't have many choices before us until corporate money is re-regulated and that won't happen with this Supreme Court and this House of Representatives without massive efforts from the grassroots demanding that Congress fix this. For suggestions how, check out FixCongressFirst.Org and write your congressperson.