{pic by Lex in the City}

One can be excused for sometimes imagining that the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats are in some way “radical” or “leftist.” With all the Right Wing ranting and screaming about Socialism, Communism, Maoism, Stalinism, and Islamo-Fascist Black-Nationalist Atheistic Collectivism, it’s easy to forget that there is no fire beneath all that smoke. Perhaps this is why even some progressive commentators have puzzled over the fact that the Democratic Agenda is moving so slowly through the Democratic-controlled Congress, and being repeatedly watered down in the course of seemingly endless negotiations with so-called “moderate Republicans” and “conservative Democrats.”

However, as other commentators on the Left have observed, this bureaucratic malaise is hardly a paradox. Rather, it is a predictable outcome in a political system dominated by two parties that are both firmly entrenched in a capitalist economy characterized by massive inequality in the distribution of wealth and power, and in which individual greed is glorified over human need. The Democratic and Republican parties are both rooted in the same tainted soil. This simple fact is most apparent in the corrupt system of campaign finance that still prevails on Capitol Hill, in which lawmakers of both parties reflexively drop their pants and bend over for anyone with a big bank account who needs a political favor.

But this is only the tip of the political penis, so to speak. Both parties accept the illusion which lies at the heart of U.S.-style Capitalism: that we live in a Democracy because we all—rich and poor alike—vote every few years. Your means of survival (your job and home, for instance) may be someone else’s Private Property and subject to their entrepreneurial whims, and the course of the national economy can be altered by the private decisions of a few multi-billionaires, but don’t worry about it! We all put our pants on the same way in the voting booth, so it’s all good! This is obviously a farce, but it is a farce accepted by both the Democratic and Republican parties, and by most voters. Yet, no matter how much politicians and voters alike may want to believe in this illusion, when the Hope and Change espoused in campaign rhetoric run headlong into the realities of U.S. Political Economy, the result is bureaucratic paralysis and never-ending “compromise.”

Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of differences between the Democratic and Republican parties that are immensely important. Having the right to choose an abortion vs. not having that right. Extending health-insurance coverage to 36 million of the currently uninsured vs. 3 million. When it comes to the lives of real people, these differences are not to be taken lightly. But let us not get carried away. The election of Obama and Democratic majorities in Congress was not a Revolution, and it would be naïve to expect revolutionary results. The Democratic Party is about as “radical” as the Boy Scouts.