Paul is quite correct... Blair was our Obama, elected on a centre left ticket, to replace a rightwing conservative regime...with a huge majority and huge public support. It meant nothing, Blair was forced from office after a series of attacks on left wing ideals domestically; and a foreign policy that would have shamed any UK Conservative administration, including involving us in
a disgraceful conflict in Iraq, for nothing more than perceived personal glory.

The "liberal" left I'm sorry to say, function better when in opposition.....they simply do not have the conviction required to effect change. We on the left, do not really want change, we want to talk about change...unlike Doug and his friends, we dont believe in the ideas we espouse. Just look at them, they are confident, sure in their beliefs,they know Mr Obama is just the interval entertainment, the main show will be back on the road very soon....and they are dead right.

We on the left think we can effect massive economic and social change without pain....or at least we have fooled ourselves into thinking that, but we haven't fooled many outwith the "chattering liberal classes"

We dont like pain and the general public dont like pain, but if we are to effect meaningful change, we will get pain in shedloads, it will mean great personal sacrifice......for an ideology?...you must be kidding, nobody wants to sacrifice their comparitively high standard of living to subsidise the "great unwashed".
Doug knows that and has the balls to say it...he knows us better than we know ourselves!

The people who run this system know what we are, and they have always bet their limit that we stay as we are....chattering cowardly hypocrits, running around ensuring the civil rights of everyone while the gates of the real world clang shut all around us.

Obama has served his purpose to the one party system, his gilding is already peeling, soon he will be gone and the next act will be the first woman president. Roll up! Roll up!

The system is in trouble this time, but to change it we need more than pretty words or half hearted measures designed to rock the boat....but not too much!

Obama talks about bank regulation...he pulls that out of the hat like a conjurers rabbit, but he and his advisers know very well that to service a system like this, sufficient growth must be achieved and sustained; to achieve the required growth the financial institutions must be given free rein....until it all collapses again and "Joe Soap" is forced to engineer another bail out.

That is how a Capitalist economy works!   You dont like it?
Then don't listen, dont whine about human rights, dont worry about better healthcare,(you know everyone will scam it and rob it blind, like in the UK).......Just go get the fuckin guns!