tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13622622.post5500511185238460090..comments2023-12-22T08:44:24.389-05:00Comments on threewayfight: Discussion on, A Call: Build Popular Power Bloc at Obama InaugurationMatthew N Lyonshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15664330735255207352noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13622622.post-22180191013661339532008-11-28T10:23:00.000-05:002008-11-28T10:23:00.000-05:00I see the main advantage of the Obama presidency c...I see the main advantage of the Obama presidency consisting in the fact that the more regressive/reactionary sectors of the left have been robbed of their favorite bogeyman, George W. Bush.<BR/><BR/>Having an intelligent, charming, and sympathetic individual like Barack Obama at the head of the world's most powerful capitalist nation-state will force the few remaining intelligent people on the left to reconsider their understanding of how capitalism functions and force them to grapple with the nature of capitalism as a form of impersonal mediation of social activity through abstract social forms (the value-form, the state, the nation, gender, race) rather than simply a conspiracy of capitalists.<BR/><BR/>In the North American left, you have a spectrum that seems to range from critically intelligent but ultimately abstentionist tendencies like the people around Platypus, and then utterly idiotic, regressive, anti-theoretical professional activists like the Left Turn collective. An Obama presidency might force the great "middle" to sit back, actually do something advisable like set up _Capital_ study groups, and ruminate a bit about why the shitty state of the world cannot be attributed to the character flaws of the individuals populating Washington and Wall Street.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com