Is this parochialism, this timorousness and lack of imagination, inevitable in a period like our own, when the unknown looms menacingly and one natural reaction is certainly to draw back, to find refuge in the familiar? Here, the New Deal years can be instructive.

Neo anythings have not yet proven themselves to be good. NeoCons are simply old Cons who want even less responsibility for the messes they create. NeoLibs are no better, having been slapped silly by the invisible hand of the market into believing in it’s all powerful righteousness.

So why is Obama so keen on replaying old broken NeoLib records? If shock doctrine capitalism is really the most effective weapon of economic change, why can’t we use NOW to New Deal ourselves into more stable and just future? Why are we going to go back to methods that have gotten us into this problem to begin with? Why is a man so determined to be audacious so timid when it comes to real audacity?

We need a New Deal. We need the income inequality between the vast numbers of us and the tiny numbers of them (with money & power) to be fixed. We need jobs. And healthcare. And education. And to fix the environment and the banking system and so much more.

So what’s with the same old same old from the Obama camp? Why are we using some of the architects of the current crisis to fix the problems they created (and that many refuse to acknowledge were even problems to begin with).