Is there life after the spectacle?

New president-elect, but the bombs continue to rain on Afghan villages, and Wall Street scum continue to grow rich suckling from the public teet.

Franklin "Chuck" Spinney, a former military analyst for the Pentagon who now lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean, dissects the strategic principles underlying Obama's victory. Obama suceeded in seizing the mantle of Mom and Apple Pie while McCain couldn't figure out if he was a "Maverick" or a "Party Man," a proud "Liberal Republican" in the mold of TR and the Trust Busters, or a proud "Conservative Republican" in the mold of Reagan (come now Mac, give it to me straight, is Govt the problem or the solution??).

Tom Engelhardt reflects on the posts-election let down: What do we do now? (I suppose there is always the Palin 0-12 race to get excited about. Who's up, who's down in that race??) Engelhardt references Tod Gitlins's Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives in discussing efforts to come to terms with life after the "election."

Bacevich predicts that with the election of Obama we have chance to put an end to the Evangelical foreign policy. Let's hope so.

Amy Goodman suggest that Palin may now have a sense of what a "community organizer" does- maybe she could send a note to Rudi.

What will the GOP do? The Party seems to have exploded. The glue holding the neo-cons, free marketeers, and Christian fundamentalists together seems to have grown dry and brittle. This problem first revealed itself in the primary: neocons split between McCain and Rudi, Free Marketeers behind Mit, and and fundamentalist base behind Huckabee. Now that the whole thing seems to be caving in, which way will the party go? More to the center? Will it be more inclusive and moderate (think more "Red Eye," less Brit Hume)? Back to the compassionate conservatism/ kinder, gentler GOP? Or will the party radicalize, and embrace the angry populism of Caribou Barbie and Joe Plummer? My guess is that the system is in a state of flux and that the elements are polarizing. The GOP will tap into that angry populism- as it seems to be the only thing that generates an emotional charge: Grandiose dreams of "democratizing the Middle East" seem frivolous as Americans watch their retirement savings go down the drain; charges of socialism seems to have lost there sting as the "free market" seems to have lost its appeal; but economic hard times, and the visible limits to American power will continue to aggravate conservative middle class anxieties, and christian fundamentalists will feed on this anxiety, look for scapegoats and put their faith in Messianic appeals to God and Country.

What will the Left(s) do? Will they keep quiet out of deference to the new leader as he repays all those who put him in office? Or will they demand that he put some meat on those "change" bones?

I must say that all the talk of Rahmbo and Larry Summers is a pretty disappointing start. On Rahmbo, Angry Arab posts this:

"In Congress, Emanuel has been a consistent and vocal pro-Israel hardliner, sometimes more so than President Bush. In June 2003, for example, he signed a letter criticizing Bush for being insufficiently supportive of Israel. "We were deeply dismayed to hear your criticism of Israel for fighting acts of terror," Emanuel, along with 33 other Democrats wrote to Bush. The letter said that Israel's policy of assassinating Palestinian political leaders "was clearly justified as an application of Israel's right to self-defense" ("Pelosi supports Israel's attacks on Hamas group," San Francisco Chronicle, 14 June 2003)." (thanks Eletronic Ali)