POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

The SOTU Fallout: Rage Against “False Consciousness”

I didn't listen to the whole thing, because I had to help my daughter with some geometry, but I heard a lot of it, and hung out on the comments thread at Stop the ACLU (who weigh in on the absurd hypocrisy of denouncing the perpetual campaign), hosted by Jay.

As I mentioned in Twitter last night, perhaps the most surreal moment of the SOTU was Obama telling Congress that he'd veto their spending bills if they were pork-enlarded---with Congresscritters responding with applause. He reiterated the promise that he'd made on the campaign trail to go through spending legislation line by line, which should have gotten bigger laughs after the so-called Stimulus package, aka Recovery Act.

He did manage to avoid some of the familiar formulas, such as "inherited" troubles, but the ideas were the same. He just used other circumlocutions and passive constructions to blame Bush, which was fine by most in Congress, who have yet to be held account by the MSM for their fiscal insanity, but whom we hope will be held accountable by voters nonetheless in the next few elections, no matter what party they represent. As was anticipated, Obama claimed to acknowledge the anger of the electorate, without, however, acknowledging that any of it was legitimately directed at him (outside of a cryptic reference to deserved setbacks he'd suffered). He did say that he'd made mistakes, that his ambition to make government more transparent and accountable hadn't materialized, but didn't specifically acknowledge that he really had done very little to uphold that campaign pledge, beyond making available the names of people visiting the White House, without indicating which people going by those names actually had visited, except for denying in certain instances that the names weren't attached to the people some assumed that they were. So even that undertaking has been of minimal value, although he can claim that he is keeping his promise in a lawyerly fashion. He reiterated his bullshit about posting bills online, without owning that so far he has done so only when it suited his purposes. He noted that people were upset about the way in which Health Care Reform negotiations had been conducted, whilst nevertheless suggesting that they mustn't go back to the drawing board.

And here is where things got really interesting. Because if you read between the lines, what he's saying in effect is that the American people elected him to enact measures they oppose for their own good, as they are incapable of identifying what is good for them. This is the same idea as was forcibly and repugnantly articulated by Joe Klein in his last Time column. The lecturing---for that is what it amounted to and how it was instantly recognized by many online commenters---of our Schoolmarm Sociologist-in-Chief, was the most thinly veiled statist justification possibly imaginable. If Obama was becoming unpopular, it was only because he was trying to do what was right for people who are, to revert to Jeff Goldstein's formulation, too blinded by false consciousness to know any better. And that observation extended to the Supreme Court, at whom he lashed out for their decision in Citizens United v. FEC, despite his own abuse of campaign collections, his self-reversal on public funding, and all the rest of the electoral shenanigans that he had secured to his cause through organizations such as ACORN, whom he wishes now to deploy in the appalling fashion outlined by Pamela Geller:

Citizen spies?

"At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector. InfraGard is an association of businesses, academic institutions, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other participants dedicated to sharing information and intelligence to prevent hostile acts against the United States. InfraGard Chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories."

Among the groups reporting to the DOJ, DHS, FEMA and FBI are: ACORN; The ADL; Thousands of Community Organizations; Americorps; Citizen Corps; Militias; Your neighbor; Your family.

Obama's private army. N'est-ce pas?

I wish I could say it is a joke, but if it is, the humor is extremely dark. It's a giant neighborhood watch for those not burdened by "false consciousness," who are coincidentally those who agree with Obama and his policies.

Here's a link to an AP fact-checking article on the SOTU. The Hostages have their say, and recount the spending of Stimulus funds in non-existent congressional districts, among other things. At PJM, Andy Wickersham considers how far left the Democrats have become. Blackfive underscores that DADT could be overturned with the stroke of a pen by an Executive Order by Captain Courageous.

Yid with Lid has, in my opinion, the best overview, including a nice dissection of Obama's claims regarding a "freeze" on discretionary spending. It's pretty similar to those tax cuts that he claimed to have created for 95% of Americans by cutting payroll deductions . . . which will be taxed next year. ABC needs to clean up the typos, but gets the salient facts right.

Augustine, somewhat famously, prayed for conversion from youthful sinfulness . . . but not yet. Obama's reliance on beginning the hard steps in the future (such as the delay in HCR provisions kicking in until his presumed second term and renewal of pay-as-you-go in 2011) has become another not particularly funny joke. Obama's forever making hard decisions to make hard decisions later on. I'm not naive, but perhaps it's time to put aside putting aside.

Part of the statist assault on our institutions has to do with trying to justify eliminating them, wherever they interfere with the agenda. Should the Republicans return to power in the House and/or Senate later this year, you can be certain that the outrage about obstructionist mechanisms such as the filibuster will evaporate suddenly; it's important to have those instruments to fight the populist danger of "false consciousness"---unless it benefits One. In bailing out the auto industry and some financial institutions, Obama's bully boys reversed centuries of contract law, but when the Supreme Court finds a seven-year-old piece of legislation unconstitutional, they are undermining the foundations of our democracy, the radical lunatics!

Perhaps the speech will be seen in retrospect as a high-water mark for a certain strain in American historicism.

UPDATE: Sister Toldjah does a wonderful job of boiling it all down.

I listen to SOTU and chat. Kitteh is bored.

Kitteh has more common sense than I do, so this is for the left:

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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