The Left Attacks Obama.

It does my heart good to the Left attacking its own.

In a piece for truthdig.com [Ralph Nader Was Right About Barack Obama] Chris Hedges argues that his fellow Leftists owe an apology to not only Ralph Nader but Cynthia McKinney as well.

To Hedges, Obama is no Socialist;

"Obama lies as cravenly, if not as crudely, as George W. Bush. He promised us that the transfer of $12.8 trillion in taxpayer money to Wall Street would open up credit and lending to the average consumer. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), however, admitted last week that banks have reduced lending at the sharpest pace since 1942. As a senator, Obama promised he would filibuster amendments to the FISA Reform Act that retroactively made legal the wiretapping and monitoring of millions of American citizens without warrant; instead he supported passage of the loathsome legislation. He told us he would withdraw American troops from Iraq, close the detention facility at Guantánamo, end torture, restore civil liberties such as habeas corpus and create new jobs. None of this has happened."

Hedges, likewise, is no fan of Obama's health-care plan; he writes, of the President,
"He is shoving a health care bill down our throats that would give hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to the private health insurance industry in the form of subsidies, and force millions of uninsured Americans to buy insurers’ defective products."

Because the "timidity of the left exposes its cowardice, lack of a moral compass and mounting political impotence" Hedges maintains that it is time for the Left to abandon the Democratic Party in favor of alternative third-party candidates and grass-roots movements. We can only hope.

Perhaps one of the oddest parts of the article was Hedges' use of a quote from the 3,000-word suicide note left by Joe Stack, who flew a plane into an IRS office in Austin, Texas. Hedges uses this quote to advance the idea that the Right speaks with a language filled with passion while the Liberals "continue to speak in the bloodless language of issues and policies, and leave emotion and anger to the protofascists." Hedges wants us to believe that Joe Stack was a Right wing nutcase when he was, in fact, a Leftist. Hedges conveniently leaves out this quote from Stack's suicide manifesto;

"The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed."

Hardly the sentiments of a Right wing fanatic.

Unfortunately, Hedges does not describe his vision of the ideal health care system for the U.S.. If, as he says, Obama is no Socialist and Socialism is what Hedges wants, I'm curious to see what the American Health Care System à la Socialism would look like.