Beyond Blithering Nonsensical Neoliberals

Okay I'm blowing the whistle. Time out. This opportunistic Errol Louis-style neoliberal "sack of dog mess" (to quote Whoopi on Glen Beck) ill-logic must end. Can we put a lid on the post-racial obfuscation parade? I'm pretty sure even Colson Whitehead doesn't appreciate it; all he did was write a novel about a black teenager who spent a summer in the Hamptons.

Today's Daily News column by Errant Errol, referenced above, entitled "Beyond Black and White: Obama Signals a Less Tribal Time in City Politics" is a piece of apologist anti-politics political commentary as disheartening as has been produced in a local tabloid for some time. Under the guise of announcing a new era where "tribal" politics is being replaced by "a referendum on the economic plight of the middle class," Louis seems unfazed that the Obama administration's tacit endorsement of Michael Bloomberg's re-election run is a complete abandonment of the majority of New Yorkers, who can only dream of being middle class.

Here is the crux of Louis's logic (and it's frighteningly similar to the weakest part of Obama's worldview): ethnic and racial politics have failed, left us with nothing but a legacy of corruption and inefficiency; the new politics is bipartisan, unencumbered by racial "special interests," and petty corruption.

So, the Obama administration, unwilling to investigate the illegal activities of the previous administration, helping to engineer the Wall Street takeover of the economy during a time of crisis, even siding with the Bush administration by denying Valerie Plame's rights to sue over being outed as a CIA agent by Dick Cheney's office, is more interested in alliances with Michael Bloomberg, one of the world's richest men, because of their common desire to save the middle class.

Bloomberg, who is only in the position to run because he pressured his own City Council to overturn a law that prevented a New York mayor to run for a third term, and who is an unabashed champion of the same corporate swill that drove the country into financial ruin, is then an example of a new politics that is not bogged down by the tired old issues of the '60s. And that's why Obama won't support Comptroller Bill Thompson, the likely Democratic challenger, an African-American, even though even Bill Clinton supported Dinkins over Giuliani in 1993.

Hey, it's post-racial. The same kind of post-racial politics that results in record-breaking stop and frisk operations by the NYPD, 90% of which were of blacks and Latinos.

Send 'Em On Over!

The Democratic Senate, which led the call to close the human-rights violating Guantánamo base in U.S.-occupied Cuba, is now too worried about NIMBY issues to support its closing. Keith Olberman's Countdown on MSNBC has a great interview with the Economic Development Director of Hardin Montana, in which the guy practically begs the administration to send the inmates there, saying that the locals prefer them to sex offenders. But, hey, why not send them to Puerto Rico? It would be a big boost to the economy there, and the inmates are already used to the tropical climate!

Last but not least, here's a classic Chomsky leftier-than-thou piece on why all of the liberal handwringing over the war crimes committed by the Bush administration isn't seeing that this is just business as usual. The set-up of his invocation of the "original 9-11" Chile CIA coup is brilliant.