Obamaism
.I think this Black Agenda Report article, “Where Obamaism Seems to be Going”, is a good summary of the some of problems with Obama’s policies.
It’s worth reading even if it’s stylistically a little off and definitely on the long side. This is a representative and also important excerpt:
In some ways Obama would be better for us in the short run, just as Clinton was better than the elder Bush. In some ways his presidency could be much worse in the longer term, again like Clinton. For one thing, the recent outpouring of enthusiastic support from all quarters – including on black academic and professional list serves and blogs and on op-ed pages – for his attacks on black poor people underscores the likelihood that Obama will be even more successful than Clinton at selling punitive, regressive and frankly racist social policies as humane anti-poverty initiatives. In a way, I suppose, there could be something useful about having a large strain of the black petite bourgeoisie come out as a militant racial class for itself. Maybe that could be a prelude to a good fight, but unfortunately there’s no counterweight. And the black professional-managerial strata, despite their ever more blatant expressions of contempt for black poor people, continue to insist on speaking for the race as a whole.
While racism is a serious problem in the US, class is always close to the surface, and probably closer to the core of the problem. Obama doesn’t seem likely to tackle either, and looks like he might make both worse—although possibly not as much worse as McCain.