Can we mail order a new opposition party please? The Democratic Party should be 'returned to sender', and replaced with a political party that actually, even occasionally, acts in my best interests, as opposed to the interests of corporate behemoths.
Also, add this to the sadly growing stack of press clippings in which Barack Obama proves, sunny rhetoric aside, he's just another centrist, craven politician, and not some progressive white knight.
Salon.com | Selling out the environment:
Harder for progressives and enviros to swallow was the support it [the new Energy Bill boondoggle] got from Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., who expressed disappointment that the bill wasn't more bold but still went so far as to call the legislation “a first step toward decreasing America's dependence on foreign oil.” It could more credibly be described as yet another step toward subsidizing Illinois corn farmers for ethanol production that will be of dubious environmental benefit.
Bingaman and Obama were far from alone: Over half of the Democratic caucus in the Senate voted for the bill. Most of these yea votes came from senators whose states stood to benefit markedly from the subsidies, while most of the nay votes were cast by senators from non-energy-producing states.
Critics argue that this split among Dems wasn't just a practical failure that gave way to shoddy energy policy; it was also a symbolic failure for the Democratic Party at large.
...Four years, two failed conference attempts, and one filibuster after the Republican leadership first introduced the Bush-backed energy bill into Congress, the controversial legislation was signed into law Monday by the president, yielding a major victory for the White House -- and exposing the continued inability of Democrats to rally around a unified vision and stay on message. When House and Senate negotiators met to hammer out a compromise version of the bill in conference committee last month, it was predictably stripped of nearly all its environmentally ambitious provisions, including one requiring utilities to generate 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. What's left is a dizzying $14.5 billion in energy-industry subsidies, only about 20 percent of which will go to renewable-energy development.
