reality check

Millions of Americans are convinced that government is their enemy. How ironic that it is now the right taking up that mantle. In the sixties things were very different. The left believed that the government, the agency of domination for monopoly capitalism, was inherently repressive and imperialistic. Armed struggle, revolution, resistance were all on the table. Forty years later, the left seems to be hoping that the government, in the person of Barak Obama, and a majority of Democrats in the house and senate, is going to act in the interest of working people, poor people, world peace, a healthy environment, and take on corporate interests seriously and decisively. And as the limits of the Democratic Party to do just that are glaringly revealed, all the hand wringing is silly in the broader historical context. We need to be honest. The Democratic Party, while more progressive in important ways than the Republican Party, takes major contributions from all the corporate interests involved in both the health care debate, and the banking rescue debate, and is beholden to those interests. To be surprised is naive, to struggle and advocate for true reform is certainly legitimate and to be encouraged.