Its all just Theater. Obama is a closet rethug.
The big picture is clear, from drone warfare as escalation of sought-after global US military hegemony to the trivialization and evisceration of government's regulatory functions, all pointing to a business-as-usual continuation of policies and practices going back, regardless of party, at least to Reagan.
The virtue of acquiescence in the destruction of the public sector, and, soon the social safety net, is that a selfless patriotism can be harnessed on behalf of business consolidations to enrich the organizers and insiders in the belief that a steeply hierarchical framework of society, in which each class finds its place, conduces to the general welfare and most probably adheres to God's plan of just rewards (the rich naturally being more meritorius, and therefore closer to the Divine Being), and also confirms the moral-structural paradigm of trickle-down economics
We should be, as apparently we are, eternally grateful to Obama for straightening out the social order so that a numerically small elite, with comprehensive representation from the worlds of business, finance, and the military, can guide us on the path of orderly growth through the next, and hopefully last, stage of monopoly capitalism. Was this always in the cards, nonregulatory regulation, extremes of wealth and poverty, aggressive foreign-policy moves? But of course, with the surefooted application of liberal rhetoric, the democratic glow now bathing public policy as Obama's enchanted base looks on.
Obama, in his hostility to transparency, seeks to prevent disclosure to cover his back, so as to avoid prosecution for war-crimes and, at home, recognition of malfeasance, misfeasance, and dereliction of public duties.
The gimmickry of power and authority is useful in lulling the citizenry into believing the State, far from being a class-state, actually is there to achieve and maintain the public welfare. Its cohabitation with business rests on the mutual pleasure of both.
Bank bailouts are still going on, if more quietly, through the back door. This is Obama's responsibility. The Fed's independence is an artful dodge, providing plausible deniability to the Executive and secrecy so that investigation of its policies and activities, especially with respect to its member Banks, not the public, will not occur.
