Overly Ideological

I guess some might use the title to describe me. These would be the so-called and usually self-proclaimed "realists" or "pragmatists." They seem to be coming out of the woodwork now that Obama has waffled and crawfished his way out of so many of the progressive positions he took when he was contesting for the nomination. The basic thrust of the argument can be found in pieces like this. When you boil it all down, it's a pretty simple argument: if you're a liberal, you cannot possibly support McCain, so you must vote for Obama.

One of the remarks made in the article referenced above is this: "there’s scant basis for denying the reality that [Obama's] campaign and his positions are way too cozy with corporate power. Meanwhile, his embrace of escalating the war in Afghanistan reflects acceptance rather than rejection of what Martin Luther King Jr. called 'the madness of militarism.'" OK, fine. If there's scant basis to deny this reality, then why should I be overly concerned about which corporate-controlled Tweedledum or Tweedledee gets elected?

In point of fact, I shouldn't care . . . and I don't. It's really been out of character for me over the past few months wringing my hands about Obama's slide from grace. I should not have been surprised. Why did I expect anything different? I guess you can blame that on my being overly ideological. For expecting that we could actually elect somebody that would make serious efforts to restore our lost civil liberties, to rein in the insane war machine, to reinstitute a progressive taxation system in this country. I don't think Obama intends to do any of these things. Despite all the hullabaloo about his being financed by millions of small contributors, he's already owned by the plutocrats, and he'll do their bidding even if he does get elected, which is beginning to appear doubtful.

So write me off as a hopeless ideologue, a crazy leftist radical. That's what I am. The problem with all those pragmatists out there is they can rationalize their support for a different species of wolf that, despite appearances, is still intent on devouring the sheep.