TRUMPET - September 9, 2010

It is possible that Obama has issued forth the trumpet that will never call retreat, though in any case, it is an uncertain trumpet, and late at that. In any case, there is the hope that it will not be like W’s trumpets. That one was full of promise after promise and those were all that we were offered, while his owners in the proprietor class were satisfied aplenty, due to the ministrations of Cheney. Still, it was a lesson in how easily the US people could be satisfied by talk, if it seemed full enough. But if one is going to play very hard ball, there are positions that Obama has the power to take and which would confirm his alleged concern with the vast majority of the people at the center of the income pyramid. It has been abundantly obvious from Election Day 08 that the GOP strategy was one of total obstruction, aimed at delivering a record of uselessness for the Dems. And once that was seen, the strategy of seeking to seduce them with sweetness and compromise was as dead as it could be. If the Dems could not be rallied to confront venom with anger, then that has given us the impasse we confront today. And if they will not take advantage of the fact that they have a lot of power left, in both the veto and the power of appointment, then they become the owners of the impotent mess that half-measures and failed compromise cannot cure. If that is their destiny, then it is possible to commit themselves to battle, sound the trumpet and let slip the dogs of war, to mix the metaphor. It is better to go down fighting for a worthy cause than to allow the hirelings of the plutocracy to bring a decent offer of participation to degenerate into a policy that will allow one’s self to be nibbled into impotence. There are still troops ready to fight the good fight, if one can believe the leader’s devotion. But the promise of compromise has proven to be a door to failure in this case, and we should not see Obama beaten by relying on a dream of decency from GOP.