The Democratic Party just betrayed the best of its heritage

Journalist Chris Hedges, drawing upon his recent phone interview with Dennis Kucinich, discusses the treachery of the Democratic Party as it promotes the interests of its paymasters, Wall Street. He pulls no punches when listing some of the Party's many betrayals of the common folk. But he is especially scathing in his depiction of Barak Obama and the role Obama played during to get the Paulson Plan through Congress. Hedges on Obama

Obama arrived on the Senate floor Brutus-like to thrust a knife into the back of the working and middle class. He lobbied hard for the bill. He did so, according to some who met with him on Capitol Hill, because he feared that if he opposed the bailout and it triggered a market collapse it could cost him the election. Better to placate the thieves on Wall Street than stand up for the masses of enraged and swindled citizens.

Obama's betrayal is the betrayal of the Democratic Party.

And

Obama's support for the bailout…is his most egregious betrayal. He had a brief, shining moment to prove he could lead, to capitalize on a popular revolt that cut across the political spectrum. He never attempted to address or mobilize the aspirations and passions of the vast majority of Americans. He was as craven, servile and cowardly as the party he represents. He returned to the campaign trail after Friday's vote as a slick and polished sales representative for our corporate state, telling us to calm down and accept the inevitable.

The last passage quoted depicts with some clarity the impulse which makes the Democratic Party a dead end for movements struggling to achieve a program of radical reform. The Democratic Party works only for those organizations and interests that pay for the services rendered by the Party. Wall Street pays well, of course. Its members are highly organized, politically effective. The rest of America? Not much money or organization may be found there. Most citizens individually and collectively lack the capacity to buy a Congress or a President. Therefore I would say that it was not that Obama failed to lead America's frightened and disenchanted citizens in their struggle with the plutocrats; rather, I believe Obama led them to the land of political insignificance and, in the end, personal despair. That is, after all, a key part of his task as a major party presidential candidate: To lead the defeated to new defeats. That is the intrinsic betrayal of this kind of politics. It kills hope.