Flim-Flam Obama Man

[Karmadillo]

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20987

Flim-Flam Obama Man: The “New Democrat” President's Wall Street Loyalties Get Clearer Every Day
March 27, 2009 By Paul Street

"It's time to put our differences aside. Will you be part of the solution?"
- Nightly Chevron commercial at the end of "The News Hour" on the "Public" Broadcasting System, March 12-March 25, 2009

Many on what passes for a left in the United States have been led to believe that Barack Obama is a "Mr. Smith-goes- to-Washington" character eager and ready to struggle against entrenched corporate and financial interests. A considerable number of so-called "left liberals" make curious bedfellows with right-wing noisemakers (including dangerous reactionary nut-jobs like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bernard Goldberg) in fantasizing that a leftist has taken up residence in the White House. But, as Harper's Magazine president John R. MacArthur notes, this "is an absurd reading of Obama," who MacArthur rightly describes as "a moderate with far too much respect for the global financial class" and as "surely the unleft, unradical, president." <1>

Look, for example, at the new administration's recently leased "financial stabilization" program. Consistent with the president's own recent description of himself as a "New Democrat" <2>, Obama will spend untold trillions of dollars on further taxpayer handouts to the giant Wall Street firms who spent millions on his campaign <3>. The in-fact "deeply conservative" <4> Obama is too attached to those firms and their so-called "free market" ideology to undertake the elementary bank nationalizations and public financial restructuring that are obviously required to put the nation's credit system on an at once sound and socially responsible basis. His plan to guarantee the financial, insurance, and real estate industries' toxic, hyper-inflated assets while keeping existing Wall Street management is (what liberal economist James K. Gailbraith rightly considers) a massive (and deluded) effort to "keep perpetrators afloat" <5>. The unradical liberal economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is understandably "filled with a sense of despair" by Obama's bank rescue format, which "recycles Bush administration policy - specifically the ‘cash for trash' plan proposed, then abandoned, six months ago by then-Treasury secretary Henry Paulsen"<6>.

The Obama-Geithner-Summers-Bush-Paulsen plan rewards reckless and selfish investor class behavior by channeling billions of taxpayer dollars to bankrupt banks. Under the scheme unveiled on March 23rd, 2009, the public is put on the hook to the tune of $1 trillion. The program amounts to what Krugman calls a coin flip in which investors win if its heads and taxpayers lose if its tails <7>. As the Times quickly noted, "the Treasury and the Federal Reserve will be offering a least a tablespoon of financial sugar for every teaspoon of risk that investors agree to swallow" <8> by buying up the toxic mortgage assets that the investor class created in the first place. The government (same as the people "in a functioning democracy," as Noam Chomsky says) will take more than 90 percent of the risk but private investors reap at least half the reward. The underlying insolvency of the rotten but "too big to fail" financial institutions continues, a problem the new administration hopes we will forget about as we get dazzled and bamboozled by their elaborate and obscure plan. "In the end," even the Times' editorial board observed, "there is no getting around firing the executives at failing banks, acknowledging the losses, wiping out the shareholders and then deciding how the government can restructure the institutions."<9>

Beneath claims of allegiance to "free market" ideals and "private enterprise," the administration's "bank rescue" design - recently described by former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich as a continuation of "the most expensive tax-supported fiasco in history"- boils down to a traditional exercise in Wall Street welfare: socialism for the rich, market discipline and capitalism for the rest of us. As Reich notes, the plan threatens to weaken "the public's confidence that its money isn't being thrown down a rathole," potentially undermining Obama's ability to undertake "other ambitious undertakings such as health care or education or the environment." <10>

Obama briefly expresses calculated outrage against "excessive" executive bonuses at AIG. He makes carefully orchestrated visits expressing concern about poverty and job-loss to hard-hit places like Pomona, California and Elkhart, Indiana. But it's all a public relations game. It's about pricking the boil of citizen fury to more effectively screw the citizenry over. The White House says mean things about capitalist parasites and then proceeds to give the financial overlords yet more of the public treasure - all in the name of restoring the "free enterprise" system.

The real point is to provide faux-populist cover for Obama's corporate, Wall Street agenda. Meanwhile the "mainstream" (corporate) media continues to ignore the new administration's related commitment to the amazingly unmentionable 1$ trillion-a-year Pentagon budget, a giant subsidy to high-tech industry that pays for more than 760 bases across more than 130 nations and accounts for nearly half the military spending on earth - all in the name of "defense." The leading Wall Street investment firm and bailout recipient Morgan Stanley reported one day after Obama's election victory that Obama has been advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend." <11>

more...

[Ken Burch]

1. Boy, this is gonna be a quiet thread

:sarcasm:
:popcorn:

[RoyGBiv]

3. Move over ...

I have butter.

:popcorn:

[Dinger]

112. I Know, *YAWN*

:sarcasm:

[leftstreet]

2. oh my

at least the title isn't incendiary

:popcorn:

[blogslut]

4. Don't forget the beer

:toast:

[Mari333]

5. good article. sending it to a lot of people. nt

[omega minimo]

6. o no you di nt

[leftchick]

7. oh my, the truth is hard to swallow

around here. Especially when put so bluntly.


<snip>

The unleft conservative Obama administration's challenge right now is to soothe popular anger in the face of his profound accommodation of Wall Street. The meaning of his recurrent calm-down rhetoric ("we can't govern out of anger") and of related pacifying messages in the dominant media is clear: "Populist Rage" (corporate news magazine Newsweek's cover story this week <12>) is dangerous and dysfunctional. If you are (quite reasonably) mad about inequality and corporate corruption, if you follow in accord with majority progressive public opinion by wanting elementarily democratic policies like national health insurance, union organizing rights, public control of the financial system, the discharge and expropriation of criminal Wall Street perpetrators, the prosecution of war crimes, the reduction of the bloated Pentagon budget, and a real peace dividend to go along with it...if you want all these things and are ready to fight for them beyond the plutocratic supervision of the Obama-Summers-Geithner team then you are a suitable case for psychiatric treatment . You are threat to civilized decency. You are too "emotional" and "angry." You don't believe in "unity" and "progress" and "hope." You are an "ideologue" and too "cynical" ("The power of accurate observation," as George Bernard Shaw wrote, "is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it"). You are not being "helpful." You are not staying properly quiet and respectful so that the new (supposedly non-ideological system) coordinators can "get things done."


You are the Jack Nicholson character in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - Randle Patrick MacMurphy. You need Nurse Ratchet to give you a tranquilizer and perhaps to schedule you for an Obotomy - a nice corporate-neoliberal Obama lobotomy. You need to listen more closely to what that Chevron commercial says at the end of "The News Hour" on the "Public" Broadcasting System each night: "It's time to put our differences aside. Will you be part of the solution?"


This is the United States' "corporate-managed democracy" (Alex Carey, Sheldon Wolin) at work with a vengeance. It's working overtime right now but success may not be guaranteed. I'm hearing a lot of angry Randle Patrick MacMurphys out these days (and not all of them are white and male). Thanks to the ongoing bailout fiasco above all, the bloom may be coming off the Obama rose. The pseudo-progressive Obama confidence game is being increasingly exposed. The new president is looking more like a Wall Street flim-flam man with each passing news cycle. By my day-to-day observation in the state that put him on the road to power in early January of 2008 (Iowa), more and more ordinary people (including some of his once fervent supporters) are starting to situate Obama in the world of power as it is instead of the world of power as they wish it to be.

[DainBramaged]

11. You really are anti-Obama, aren't you?

[leftchick]

12. hell no

I voted for him and am very happy with his environmental and many other policies. I admit I am bent out of shape over his foreign and economic policies. There we are screwed.

[DainBramaged]

14. Today is March what?????

Do you understand how long it is going to take to unwind the problems created by 18 years of Republican control? Do you think we can just load up all of our equipment and troops and leave Iraq overnight? And should we walk away from Afghanistan? What about the opium problem? How about Pakistan? North Korea? Iran? Russia? Europe? South America? How quickly do you repair all those years of confrontation?

Do you have a solution or should we just put blinders on because you aren't happy with his Foreign policy?

[girl gone mad]

15. I've said it before and i'll say it again.

If only Obama had waited longer to start handing over trillions of our dollars to Wall Street crooks, the rest of us would have waited longer to start criticizing him for it.

[leftchick]

16. thank you

but of course he could not. Too many fat cat pals needed their pay day.

[Political Heretic]

19. BINGO.

[DainBramaged]

41. Uh, Booshe did it remember, $720 billion last year. Without strings.

How much has Obama given to Wall Street............

[chill_wind]

54. Bush and a whole lot of Senate Dems- incuding then-Senator Obama,

who had one of his own advisory team (Morgan Stanley's Laura Tyson)in there lobbying them hard. And pushing not to put mean things in there like a financial industry tax because "the street wouldn't like it".

We can agree Bush Paulson made that mess, but Pres Obama's choice has been to keep the GS guys in charge of the chicken coop.

If you want to understand why, here's the question you should be asking. How much has Wall Street given Obama? The short answer: The Presidency, baby. Half of it. WE gave him the other half.

[DainBramaged]

56. OK, you win, let's impeach Obama starting Monday

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

[chill_wind]

58. Who said that? Pointing out reality advocates impeachment??

That's the problem with absolutist black and white thinking.

[DainBramaged]

61. You won, let's start Monday. Discussion over.

[chill_wind]

69. You could go always go start an all or nothing poll for two year olds

who've been spanked with a few inconvenient facts. Oh wait-- you just did, lol.

[DainBramaged]

71. Then go vote silly, the poll is just for YOU.

:rofl:

[chill_wind]

77. That's an absurd premise. But good luck with the sympathy seeking.

:-)

[DainBramaged]

79. Here, enjoy.

[chill_wind]

93. Thnx but I'll leave the simple black and white thought process to you.

It's easy and you like it.

[inna]

210. straw man much??

:shrug:

[Name removed]

90. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[HughMoran]

179. there's your true self

Next, feel free to say the same about mine.

twits.

[girl gone mad]

185. Obama personally lobbied many in the Senate..

to vote for TARP.

[MilesColtrane]

97. Boy is he fucked.

If he'd done nothing and the entire financial system collapsed, you'd probably be even more pissed off.

Looks like he'll be another one term Democrat.

[TLM]

120. Exactly right.... then they'll be happy...

because a real super liberal like hillary can run. :puke:


Some folks feed on dissatisfaction... it sustains them and gives them something to whine and rant about.

They remind me of the folks who always complain at restaurants, no matter how good or bad the food is... because their behavior isn't about the food. It isn't about the outcome, it is about the act of complaining and whining and demanding special attention and extra focus. It makes them feel important.

[HughMoran]

182. I was wondering if the terminally miserable would be happy if a Dem won

Actually, most of the people complaining here have been criticizing Dems for a long time on other boards, they simply don't like the system the way it's set up - anything less than revolution makes some of them angry, others want wholesale changes to our capitalist system without the revolution. Either way, pragmatism is not part of the equation. I would prefer Dems stay in power for a while to flaming out quickly trying to appease those who cannot be happy anyway - under ANY circumstances.

[Two Americas]

216. very happy

We support Democrats, and are glad that they get into office, because we then have some hope that out representatives will listen to us. They can hardly listen to us of we are not saying anything, or start saying different things then we did before.

We do not - and we should not - adjust our positions, tailor our advocacy, abandon our principles and ideals, change what we believe or what we speak out about for the sake of electoral success by one group of politicians. That would sabotage and undermine representative democracy.

The reason we elect Democrats is so that we have an opportunity to speak out more. We should never stop speaking out for the sake of electing Democrats. There then would be no point in electing Democrats.

Left wing politics are first and foremost the most practical, the most pragmatic and effective way to solve social problems.

That is why we are Democrats, that is historically why people have been Democrats, and why they have supported the party. You may not agree with that, but please don't lie about it and claim that we have other motives, or misrepresent our views, or attack our character and integrity. I don't expect everyone to be a left winger - there will always be people taking the conservatives view and opposing the Left - but people claiming to not be conservatives, and to be opposed to the conservatives, and to be our allies, and then attacking the Left with false and malicious right wing talking points - that is a problem.

The continual attempts at portraying the Left as impractical, as not pragmatic, as "wanting a revolution," as being extremists and fringe and ideological, as purists and all of the rest of the smears leveled at leftists - the majority of people here, by the way - is pure right wing propaganda, poisonous and destructive.

Why would any Democrat be aggressively and relentlessly spreading the right wing smears of the political Left and the traditional principles and ideals of the Democratic party? How does that "support" the president or the party?



...

[HughMoran]

221. Yes, I saw that the first time you posted it

I apologize if I do not wish to get into an extended discussion with you - your characterization of those with differing opinions as people who have somehow designed a campaign to smear you and others in a right-wing fashion is in itself a right-wing like smear and reeks of the authoritarian tendencies of paranoid people who aren't simply happy that they can express their opinions freely. You want to influence people - count me out - I find your techniques reprehensible. As if insulting the intelligence your fellow "Democrats" (what a fucking joke - you call yourself a socialist elsewhere) is the way to make friends and influence people :eyes:

[Two Americas]

224. now I am not so happy

Why do you hate America?

[HughMoran]

225. A+

That was a pretty good response.

[Two Americas]

231. thanks

These thing will all pass, you know? Tempers are riled right now.

[ellie]

192. Super liberal Hillary

Hahahahahahahahahahaha

[TLM]

121. Remember some of these folks attacking Obama

Remember some of these folks attacking Obama, want wall street to collapse entirely and disappear forever... in their warped minds the nation would be so much better off if the entire banking and financial industry, all non-green industry, all large farms and agro-businesses, all of them collapsed forever and we regressed to a loosely connected collection of agrarian communities.

So in their eyes the very fact Obama has acted to save these elements of our countries economy, makes him an evil corporatist.

The idiocy of the far left position is no different than that of the right wingers who scream that Obama is an evil socialist because he proposes a 3% tax increase on the richest 1%.

Extremists are usually idiots... who can't or won't see beyond their own narrow ideology.

[Truth2Tell]

175. You prove the author's point

by calling people who oppose massive corporate welfare "extremists."

[Two Americas]

213. yes

Regulating capital and finance and eliminating the power they have over the economy and out lives, as was done with the New Deal, particularly with the spectacularly successful farm credit program, is exactly what I think is the best approach in "warped mind" and I am absolutely certain that "the nation would be so much better off."

Your malicious and false generalized smears against any and all people expressing left wing positions - on a Democratic board!! - were only spouted by the most extreme right wingers back 40 years ago.


...

[inna]

123. exactly! +1! nt

[bvar22]

76. It is easy to determine the destination.....

...by observing which direction one turns at the crossroads.

"Meanwhile the "mainstream" (corporate) media continues to ignore the new administration's related commitment to the amazingly unmentionable 1$ trillion-a-year Pentagon budget, a giant subsidy to high-tech industry that pays for more than 760 bases across more than 130 nations and accounts for nearly half the military spending on earth - all in the name of "defense." The leading Wall Street investment firm and bailout recipient Morgan Stanley reported one day after Obama's election victory that Obama has been advised and agrees that there is no peace dividend."

[Jackpine Radical]

128. You mean 28 years of Republican control, don't you?

(Including Clinton, of course.)

[The Wielding Truth]

144. Here, Here!!! I support our man who is trying to restore the economy

first. Everything that has been under Republican rule is broken.

First you have to pick up the pieces and put them on the table, then you examine them and rework them and build a better government using the untampered constitution of preCorrupt original Bush Administration.

I see him picking up the pieces and I'm not going to be the one to slap them out of his hands. I see him placing the parts of our democracy next to each other and not dismantling. That is a big improvement from what we had and I applaud and support him.

[Two Americas]

214. which economy?

Which economy are we "trying to restore?" That is the issue.

Are we trying to restore the economy of the speculators, the investors, the monopolists, the manipulators?

Or the economy of the everyday people, the workers and producers?

You cannot do both at the same time, since the interests and needs and desires of the two groups are mutually contradictory. If we did not learn that from the Reagan-Bush era, I don't know what it would take.

If people are saying that by restoring the economy of the speculators, the investors, the monopolists, the manipulators that we will somehow all be helped someday in some way, they are advocating a variation on the trickle down Reaganomics program. Whether any of us agree with the Reaganomics approach or not, can we not at the very least start telling the truth about this?


...

[JackRiddler]

235. "Eighteen years" of Republican control?

Well at least you understood what Clinton was all about.

[mix]

78. with you there, sister

nt

[Name removed]

102. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leftchick]

153. no I do not live in my mother's basement

I am disabled, have an insulin dependent diabetic son and a husband on the verge of losing his job which means losing our health insurance. Any more questions?

[Obamanaut]

35. So if the White House were to issue a statement that "Raccoon

shit is blue" it would seem that you might start wearing garments that would color coordinate in the event you stepped in some.

It is perfectly fine for Obama supporters to question, to wonder, to surmise, to disagree. The folks who are in complete lockstep and follow the lead just because "he said it is true so it must be" are the folks with a problem.

[SammyWinstonJack]

48. .

:thumbsup:

[TLM]

122. I disagree with some of obama's decisions...

"It is perfectly fine for Obama supporters to question, to wonder, to surmise, to disagree."

Nobody takes issue with simple questions or disagreements regarding Obama's policy decisions... what people, including myself, take issue with are the insipid histrionics that Obama has betrayed us and we were all duped into voting for an evil corporatist shill.

Some folks, who call themselves left, seem to be working very very hard to make the far left seem exactly as moronic and self-obsessed as the far right.

[leeroysphitz]

129. He is a corporatist shill. Always was. I knew that when I voted for him.

Or, more accurately, voted first against Clinton and then against McCain.

It's more than OK for us to criticize and disagree with our leaders. It's our responsibility. The Republicans ceded that responsibility and we got GWB because of it.

I'm not, in any way, comparing BHO to GWB I'm just saying good citizens question their leaders.

[G_j]

39. Nurse Ratchet? nt

[Orwellian_Ghost]

40. lol! n/t

[sendero]

66. Get it through your head..

... the Geithner/Summers/Obama plan is WRONG ON EVERY LEVEL.

It will drain the treasury, put tax burdens on you, your kids and their kids, and it will STILL not fix the problem.

I like Obama, I voted for Obama, but at this point I have to conclude that he is working in the interests Wall Street, not America.

So, you can be like a Repub rubber-stamping every thing Obama does, but I prefer to view ACTIONS rather than RHETORIC, and the actions Geithner et al are taking are PERNICIOUS at best.

[DainBramaged]

67. I'll ask you while I get whatever it is through my head

like I asked others, what is your plan to change things. You can criticize till the cows come home (or your dog) but without a PLAN, your voice is just another empty megaphone. Put your money where your mouth is, where the rubber meets the road, where the chickens come home to roost.

[sendero]

70. The PLAN is SIMPLE..

.... let bad banks FAIL, just as we have always done. Shareholders get ZERO. Depositors are made whole, using FDIC funds if necessary. Accounts are transferred to banks that weren't so stupid and greedy as to find themselves in this position.

There are legions of economists pointing out that a taxpayer-paid bailout of the bad actors is not even close to the best solution - there are few who like Geithners plan. It is a TRANSPARENT RIP OFF, USING TAXPAYER MONEY TO TRY TO PROP UP ZOMBIE BANKS. LET THEM DIE.

If you had done even basic research, you'd find out that what is being proposed isn't like by anyone but the banks and Goldman Sachs, who seems to be the nexus of this whole mess.

If a Republican pulled this crap you'd be screaming from the townhouse window, get a clue, just because a Dem is doing it doesn't make it right.

[DainBramaged]

74. That's the REPUBLICAN plan, nice try.

You have no idea what I scream about since you don't pay attention. OK, impeach him now, you're right, we'll start Monday, Joe Biden gets the job when we're done. Happy now?

Your "plan" is bullshit, more pap mouthed by people with nothing better to do than scream and challenge whomever is in authority. And unless you are an economist you don't have any real ideas anyway.

[Obamanaut]

95. Are you an economist? Auto assembly line? Or what? If not an

economist, and according to your post only they have any real ideas, then from whom are you getting your ideas, or are you merely parroting others.

[bvar22]

80. Here is another plan.

The blueprint is the S&L recovery.

1) Instead of Bailing Out the FAILED Wall Street Banks, buy them at a significent saving to the taxpayer.

2) FIRE the management and prosecute where warranted. Immediately void all Golden Parachutes, retirement pay outs, and stock dividends.

3) Break up the "too big to fail" obscinities into component pieces, and write iron clad legislation to ensure that this NEVER happens again.

4) Sell off the healthy pieces.

5) Examine the "Toxic Asets" to determine their worth. Refinance those that show the ability to recover. Sell the rest at a discount.

[dana_b]

94. exactly.

there is nothing wrong with nationalizing these banks. f*** the CEOs and their buddies - I know that Jamba Juice is hiring.

[MilesColtrane]

101. Just a clarification on your number one point.

The vast majority of the bailout money was used to buy stock in the failing companies, so that actually IS the government buying them.

Did you mean to say the government should buy 100% interest in all of the failing companies?

[TLM]

131. Not exactly....

"1) Instead of Bailing Out the FAILED Wall Street Banks, buy them at a significent saving to the taxpayer."


That's what they're doing... buying up controlling interest in the assets. That's what the righties are ranting about being a back door nationalization.


"2) FIRE the management and prosecute where warranted. Immediately void all Golden Parachutes, retirement pay outs, and stock dividends."

Great, but it is unconstitutional to create retroactively putative laws to punish people for doing something that wasn't illegal when they did it. We can make laws to say it can never happen again, but the one who did it when it wasn't illegal, they're in the clear.


"3) Break up the "too big to fail" obscinities into component pieces, and write iron clad legislation to ensure that this NEVER happens again."

4) Sell off the healthy pieces.



I think that's exactly where this is going. But a fire sale right now would simply drive related markets and interconnected businesses into a tailspin. They need to stabilize things, first. Then act to break apart the monopolies.



5) Examine the "Toxic Asets" to determine their worth. Refinance those that show the ability to recover. Sell the rest at a discount.



Agreed... and again this seems to be the direction in which they are headed.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

157. thank you--good breakdown

it'd be a grave understatement to say this is not my area of expertise.

your intelligent feedback much appreciated

[girl gone mad]

187. Wrong on all counts.

We don't have a controlling interest, despite the fact that we've given these institutions up to ten times what they are worth. Bad management is still in place at most firms. Firing bad management is usually the first thing that happens in an insolvency crisis like this.

Quite the opposite of what you claim, the Obama administration is ignoring past successful solutions and trying something radically different by keeping management in place and bailing out bondholders and shareholders at the expense of the American public. I find this particularly ominous in light of our deteriorating economic circumstances.

The administration has no plans to force a settlement on any of the toxic assets. Instead, they are guaranteeing them at virtually face value using taxpayer funds, in the process exposing the FDIC to an unprecedented level of risk. There are days where I literally have to stop thinking about Geithner's plan because it's so outrageous and frightening.

[leftchick]

89. you need to take the blinders off

very many of us have explained what should be done and you ignore it.

[TLM]

126. Wrong on every level....

If you went to the ER with a gunshot wound... would you want the doctor to lecture you on the necessity of gun control, while you bleed to death? And since the proliferation of guns is clearly the ultimate cause of your wound, then the real solution is to limit gun proliferation... not to bandage you up and stop the bleeding.

Bandages are wrong on every level, they'll do nothing to limit the number of guns on the streets. So clearly your support for wasting money on non-solutions like bandages means you're working FOR the proliferation of guns.




"Wall Street, not America." Do you know where wall street is? Do you know how many Americans have their jobs and homes and businesses bound to the function of wall street and other institutions that are similarly connected to wall street?

Got a mortgage... you're tied to wall street.

Got a car loan... you're tied to wall street.

Have a 401k plan... you're tied to wall street.


Your reactionary bumper sticker level of thought and understanding of this issue is what's wrong on every level.

[truedelphi]

147. Agreed and pls join me for a

:toast:

[JamesA1102]

8. No way

"Many on what passes for a left in the United States have been led to believe that Barack Obama is a "Mr. Smith-goes- to-Washington" character eager and ready to struggle against entrenched corporate and financial interests."

They weren't led to believe this, they merely projected their own beliefs on to Obama without really taking the time to research his true positions on issues.

[MadMaddie]

9. I will say it this article is bullshit

Where do I start


This article talks about a public relations game with a Right Wing media still in power. When * was in power they had a true Nazi propaganda machine going

The Republicans had no problem giving billions of untraceable tax payer money to the fucking banks in 2008 without any strings attached.

It talks about all of the bases around the world - How the fuck is this Obama's fault when the base building really started after WWII...

This article trys to make it seem that President Obama did all of the things mentioned in 3 months.

Bullshit...stupid fucking article...I didn't bother clicking on the the link...not worth the click.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kablooie]

13. If ya can't say somethin' nice ... uh ... don't say nothin' at all.

A wise thought from Thumper.

[Political Heretic]

18. It's not wise, its utterly asinine

People should make their voices heard to their government.

[Kablooie]

181. Not if they are poor little bunnies.

[Political Heretic]

17. I agree with all of the criticisms, but I think the characterization of Obama motives falls short.

One of the problems I have with some criticisms from what I guess one would call the "far left" (though I would very much like to think of myself as standing among that group I think) is that they tend to be very reductionist in their thinking about human beings. This is particularly true when it comes to understand the "whys" of things that happen and not just the "hows."

For example, the idea that Obama only ever speaks of "poverty" as a secret code word he executes anytime he needs a photo-op is a very simple and one-dimensional characterization of a member of one of the most complicated species on the planet in one of the most complicated jobs in the world. It doesn't take too much listening, or reading beyond the big flashy headlines and into the little less publicized things to see a person with some real concern and some real feeling.

I think this is incredibly important to remember if we want to persuade anyone. Simply saying "Obama's the devil" over and over isn't going to do anything. Because most alert, intelligent people recognize the hyperbole and dismiss whatever comes next as being out of touch.

Instead, it's much better not to bitterly ascribe motive, but instead stick with what we know, which is that even if Obama means what he says about his concerns for the American people, he is a complete and total believer in modern American capitalism.

The author is correct - he's not pursuing transformation or reform of the core corrupt institutions and infrastructure of our financial system because he flat out doesn't believe in it. He believes the system is sound, and thus happy signs off on every by-wall-street for-wall-street plan to funnel that system more billions.

The one thing I've come to believe about Obama is that he's a sincere believer in many things. I actually don't think he lies that often about why he's touting some policy. Sadly though, he is sincerely wrong in his faith in our financial and economic system as it currently stands, and is letting probably THE ONE opportunity we will have to seriously correct these egregious errors slip right through his fingers.

At best Obama's pro-corporate-sameness efforts will (if a miracle happens) possible bandage this broken system long enough to give us a small stabilization and a false sense of security, possibly even a recovery period - before the entire thing falls completely and totally apart. Look at history - increasing economic and social inequality is directly related to economic strain and ultimately collapse. At worst, this misguided approach will hasten that end.

There are a lot of things that I am with Obama on. But I have been surprised by and mighty disappointed in his handling of the economic crisis so far.

[cornermouse]

20. It could cost him a second term

and it could cost us a return to a republican presidency. He has to realize that he's wrong and set things right or our goose is cooked.

[Deja Q]

21. The President has already said that if his policies fail, he will not run again - and be one-term

Seemed rather surprising a thing to say at the time; his political opponents would have picked up on it.

And if our geese are cooked, let's pray for a quick and painless death that will hit us when we don't even know it.

:shrug:

[cornermouse]

23. I don't think we can survive another four years of

republican president without first correcting some of the damage that they've done over the last 3 republican presidents. When you stop and think about it Watergate pales in comparison to what Reagan, Bush I and Bush II did.

[Deja Q]

25. Assuming the following post contains the unmitigated truth:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=436641&mesg_id=436641

Then it won't matter.

Once the US is torn down and the other world countries able to make up the economic difference, it's over. Or maybe it's going to be a new beginning. It depends on your point of view.

[empyreanisles]

24. Actually, going too far to the left is what will cost him.

Again, there are racial factors at play here. I will repeat again: THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES CANNOT PROMOTE AN EXTREME LEFT WING AGENDA . Not only is it political suicide but it is also toxic for race relations. He must prove he is an American who includes everyone and is not out to destroy the "system" out of spite. Yes, it is unfair but it is reality. The forward thinking on DU is NOT representative of our country as a whole.

Just look at how batshit crazy some people are getting over Obama's pretty boilerplate liberal proposals. If they were coming from a white guy there would be complaints, but not charges of "SOCAILSIM" or "COMMUNISM". No, they are seeing a black man and automatically assuming that "radical" is in his DNA.

Obama will remain solidly liberal. We will see significant changes from the Bush-era, but not a wild, earth-shattering system shock. He will promote the rights of workers, champion science and ecology, get rid of the inbalance in taxation, and restore the USA a diplomatic power.

But he will not upend capitalism, legalize marijuana, promote unwavering pacifism, or intentionally disband health insurance companies.

What he will do is gradually move the thinking of the American people towards the left so that after 8 years, the idea of a much more progressive candidate than he won't be so outrageous. Then, with THIS guy, we'll get the single payer, the legal pot, the shut down of many US bases around the world, etc..

But for now, we remain center-right country.

[cornermouse]

26. The left, which he abandoned, should have been his base.

Historically speaking, presidents who abandon their base don't fare well. Obama, himself, is conservative in orientation not liberal.

[Deja Q]

27. McCain, Bush, et al, certainly made a good show of looking angry after he won.

[empyreanisles]

28. If Obama is conservative, then in your eyes, we've never had a liberal President. Ever. (n/t)

[Bluenorthwest]

32. He favors legal, tax payer funded discrimination

against minorities he does not like. He is escalating a war without bothering to make an exit stragety. He laughs in the face of citizens who ask him serious questions.
On many issues, he is hugely conservative. In the last week, I have heard several Republicans, including McCain campaign officials, speak in favor of marriage equality. Obama spews about God being in the mix, although his God seems unconcerned with unjust war, torture or massive theft. That is conservative as it comes. Uptight, backward, ignorant and conservative. Bigoted, prejudiced, small minded and conservative.
Opposition to human rights is not a liberal position, ever. And Obama opposes, while his choice of Chairmen is even more to the right and even more bigoted, opposing any compromise, simply opposing my family flat out. Obama's pick.

Tell me, what do you see as the markers of Obama's liberalism? Show me your work.

[cali]

44. please list the legal tax funded discrimination he favors.

please point out explicitly the evidence that he is "hugely conservative". Please point out someone affiliated with the McCain campaign other than Schmidt who spoke out in the last week for marriage equality. Please point out other repukes who have spoken out for marriage equality in the last week.

Obama opposed prop 8. please name the repukes who also opposed it. particularly prominent ones.

I'll be glad to point out signs of Obama's liberalism.

He supports full federal rights for those in civil unions. Not as good as supporting marriage equality, but by far the most liberal stance on issues of GLBT equality of any president and well ahead of most elected dems. He opposed prop 8. He opposes DOMA and DADT.

He's moved to block conservative and anti-science environmental regs pushed through by bushco.

He's committed his admin to closing Gitmo.

He's pro-choice. Strongly so.

Now let's see all your quotes about him justifying all kinds of conservative horrors with his religious beliefs.

Anyone that thinks that relative to the majority of the political class of this nation, Obama is a conservative, has their head firmly in their ass.

[TLM]

134. Show me your work..... you first

"Tell me, what do you see as the markers of Obama's liberalism? Show me your work."


Yeah and he only allowed stem cell research to continue because he secretly wants to find and eradicate the gay gene, right?

[DainBramaged]

46. He abandoned us? OMG My life is over, over I tell you...........

:spray:


I get it, forget the problems we face, just go after revenge and jail Booshe and Cheeney, execute the test for crimes against humanity, and then while America burns, address the problems.


Great solution.

[Torn_Scorned_Ignored]

168. the term is 'Justice' NOT revenge

[Windy]

215. The NUTS have cracked and have spread their waste all over DU lately.

The far left is just as wacked out as the far right and extremes are always unhelpful!

[TLM]

133. That would be foolish...

Just as it was foolish for bush to follow the 15% to 20% on the far right that Bush called his base, it would be foolish for Obama to follow the 15% to 20% on the far left that seem to think they're his base.



Oabam ran as, and leads as, a moderate democrat. He's not going to crash the economy into a brick wall, because you and 8% of the far left want him to destroy all the evil corporations. If in your narrow hateful view, that means obama is an evil corporatist... then you're just as ridiculous as the far righties who say a 3% tax increase on the richest 1% makes obama an evil socialist.

And both of your positions should be rightfully laughed at an disregarded as the ranting of self-important extremists with no regard for the actual long term implications for mainstream Americans.

[jonestonesusa]

156. Actually, the President would be wisest to follow politices that work

whether they are "left" or "right." Generally, it has been left solutions that have been shut out of national discussions for the last three decades, so Washington has dragged its feet on finding alternative energy sources, ending the unsustainable rate of incarceration for nonviolent offenses, rebuilding the social safety net including health care for all, resisting blind patriotism that lands us in quagmires overseas, maintaining domestic infrastructure, and creating sensible regulations and transparency for Wall Street investment tools.

These are solutions associated with the left, but they are also sound policy, and I think most Democrats would agree. Labeling people as "far left" does nothing to help the debate _on the issues_.

[annabanana]

29. I guess it is "extreme left" to expect that the government

will stop the corporations from robbing us blind? I guess it is "extreme left" to hope that after spending us into near penury prosecuting an illegal war, and throwing trillions of dollars to the crooks who gamed the financial industry for decades......I guess it is "extreme left" to hope that there might be some of our Country's resources THROWN OUR WAY??


(just how did you stumble onto this place?)

[empyreanisles]

31. No. It is extreme left to insist all of that be accomplished in 2 months

...without a care to how it would destabilize our society.

[DainBramaged]

50. We are talking to impatient childern in this thread, use crayons.............

[annabanana]

55. Fallacy: Ad Hominem

welcome to ignore

[annabanana]

53. exactly where in my post did you see a timeline?

(just curious)
And exactly what sort of "destabilization" do you fear?

[Two Americas]

91. good grief

What does left and right have to do with expectations or being impatient? The more inpatient a person is, the more left wing they are? What an absurd idea. The right wingers have been in a much bigger hurry, and moved much more quickly in recent times than Democrats have in decades.

"Extreme left" means "insisting all of that be accomplished in 2 months." ROFL.

No one has ever said that "all of that be accomplished in 2 months." No one. Yet it gets repeated and repeated and repeated. When has anyone ever said "OK it has been 60 days, he should have accomplished this and this and this by now?" Never.

What is it that would "destabilize our society?" Our society is already de-stabilized.


...

[TLM]

135. well said...

Was I the only one who paid attention in civics?

Obama is president... not king. He can't wave his scepter and issue a proclamation and instantly achieve all the goals of the far left.

We're knee deep in economic quicksand, and these folks on the far left want us to stomp around.

[Le Taz Hot]

51. Extreme left wing agenda?

Um, like not murdering brown people and instituting single payer health care? Like that? :wtf:

[tonysam]

65. What is an "Extreme Left Wing" Agenda?

Not supporting the deliberate destruction of the middle class? Supporting insuring the uninsured? Wanting us to get out of Iraq? Wanting a return to the basic Democratic principles as outlined in the New Deal?

Neoliberalism is as big a failure as Friedmanomics under the GOP because they are basically one and the same.

[bvar22]

81. Our government is "Center Right"...not the American People.

ingle Payer HealthCare and a Reduction in our "Defense" spending is NOT an "Extreme Left Wing Agenda".

[alarimer]

64. Probably. I am not voting for him again based on this.

I'll vote for a true progressive next time. And I really do not care if that means a Republican wins.

[TLM]

136. yeah that policy worked out so great last time...

remember how well that helped your goals back in 2000?

[Deja Q]

22. You have a point; he IS having to address several points of view and might be sincere on all of them

But the "little man", in droves, voted for him. They believed he would change this country to make it more level and better for those of us not in the top 1%.

[Two Americas]

212. "we need another New Deal"

That is what I heard everywhere I went from everyday non-political and blue collar people. That is why they switched parties.

The people voted for Democrats and Obama as an expression of their rejection of Reaganomics and the religious right. Pew Research has analyzed this well. There has been a dramatic shift in the public thinking.

The people did not suddenly become "like minded" with the relatively upscale self-described "progressives" and did not vote for "moderate" or "centrist" politics.


...

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MadHound]

33. God yes, heaven forbid we have any criticism of Obama around here

If Obama is such a wonderful person, and his administration is doing such wonders, then it is strong enough to easily withstand criticism such as this. If not, if Obama isn't turning out to be the savior that many portrayed him to be (and increasingly it's looking like that's the case), then his administration desperately needs to hear this sort of criticism, as do his supporters, in order to kick his ass into doing the right thing.

Sadly this is looking more and more like the same ol' same ol' two party/same corporate master system of government. Yes, some of the more more egregious actions of the Bush administration have been done away with, but a lot of the same policies and politics remain in place, in this case, saving the corporate elite is first and foremost.

This isn't Free Republic, well all posters are forced to march in lockstep, no criticism allowed. If you can't handle that, then perhaps it is you who needs to find a new place of residence on the web, not us.

[cali]

36. uh, no. that clearly was not what I was saying.

I criticize Obama regularly. What I don't do is make absurd wholesale trashing attacks. This is a site expressly for supporting democrats and liberals. That's the expectation of the owners of the site. It's clearly written in the rules.

If you're going to actively work against Obama, this isn't the place to do it.

[MadHound]

38. The piece in question certainly isn't a "wholesale trashing" type of attack

He is specific in his criticism of Obama's economic moves, which do indeed seem more based on the notion of baling out the corporate elite rather than what needs to be done, baling out the poor and middle class. We've already seen what happened when we through the first hundreds of billions of dollars at the problem last fall, the banks just sucked it up, paid big bonuses and went on an acquisition spree. The credit market didn't thaw significantly, and still hasn't thawed significantly.

Yet Obama is continuing these same failed policies of throwing money at the problem when he should be considering other options, such as the Swedish nationalization solution or other such answers. Instead, he's wanting to buy up toxic assets, give them to Wall St., and if they turn out well, Wall St. gets the profits and we get the shaft. However if they turn out to be shit, we get the shaft and Wall St. gets to walk away. See the common theme here, we get the shaft.

Criticizing the president isn't actively working against Obama, it is simply criticism. You are not the arbiter of who gets to post what around here, thus all you're trying to do with these posts of yours is simply bully people. Do you really think that your bully boy defense of Obama is going to win him any friends? Doubtful. Let the mods and admins do their job, and you do what you do. If you want to criticize somebody for criticizing Obama, fine, but leave the decisions of who remains and who goes to those whose job it is to do so. You only weaken you own argument by such tactics.

[cali]

42. Oh, please. It sure as fuck is a wholesale trashing and as dishonest as any

right wing piece of shit.

You are the Jack Nicholson character in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" - Randle Patrick MacMurphy. You need Nurse Ratchet to give you a tranquilizer and perhaps to schedule you for an Obotomy - a nice corporate-neoliberal Obama lobotomy. You need to listen more closely to what that Chevron commercial says at the end of "The News Hour" on the "Public" Broadcasting System each night: "It's time to put our differences aside. Will you be part of the solution?"



This is the United States' "corporate-managed democracy" (Alex Carey, Sheldon Wolin) at work with a vengeance. It's working overtime right now but success may not be guaranteed. I'm hearing a lot of angry Randle Patrick MacMurphys out these days (and not all of them are white and male). Thanks to the ongoing bailout fiasco above all, the bloom may be coming off the Obama rose. The pseudo-progressive Obama confidence game is being increasingly exposed. The new president is looking more like a Wall Street flim-flam man with each passing news cycle. By my day-to-day observation in the state that put him on the road to power in early January of 2008 (Iowa), more and more ordinary people (including some of his once fervent supporters) are starting to situate Obama in the world of power as it is instead of the world of power as they wish it to be.

In addition the author pretty much accuse Obama of being a puppet and profoundly misrepresents Reich.

It's as much of a wholesale trashing as you could find. The title alone is a dead giveaway. duh.

[MadHound]

45. Then your version of wholesale trashing is pretty damn broad

Wholesale trashing would be trashing all of Obama's plans, economic and otherwise. Street's criticisms are focused on Obama's Wall St. ties and his Wall St. oriented bailout plans. Seems pretty narrowly focused to me. Furthermore, many of his criticisms are quite valid, hell, I've seen you make many of the same points ("Obama fails to advance elementary and urgently needed progressive measures like a moratorium on foreclosures, a capping of credit card interest rates and finance charges, and the rollback of capital income tax rates to 1981 (not just 1993) levels")

Furthermore, I find it deliciously ironic that the author talked about people whose reactions are similar to yours: "You are threat to civilized decency. You are too "emotional" and "angry." You don't believe in "unity" and "progress" and "hope." You are an "ideologue" and too "cynical" ("The power of accurate observation," as George Bernard Shaw wrote, "is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it"). You are not being "helpful." You are not staying properly quiet and respectful so that the new (supposedly non-ideological system) coordinators can "get things done."

To quote another Nicholson character, apparently "you can't handle the truth."

[cali]

47. uh, wrong.

look, the article is one ad hom attack after another. Do you even know what a flim flam man is? And my response fits none of the author's lame pre-emptive attempt to avoid criticism for his wholesale trashing.

And let me quote myself and say for the umpteenth time here: "Truth" is a highly subjective interpretation of a given situation rooted in a set of facts. Statements like "you can't handle the truth" may do quite well as a line in a movie, but thoughtful people reject that kind of silliness.

[MadHound]

49. I looked at the article, read it thoroughly, and simply didn't see what you did

I saw no ad hominem attacks, but rather a thorough excoriating criticism of Obama's current economic and bail out policies. If you don't like that, fine, you are free to disagree with it. But you're trying to take it upon yourself to be the criticism police around here, determining what criticism can be allowed and what can't be allowed. That's not your job, that's not your purview. You're not an admin or moderator and for you to try and tell people to "take it elsewhere" is the height of hubris. It's also the height of hypocrisy, since like I stated earlier, you've made many of the same criticisms your own self.

So if you wish to agree to disagree with me on this, fine. However don't go around and try to be the "criticism police." You don't have that power around here, and based on your own criticisms of Obama, you don't have the moral standing to do so either.

[DainBramaged]

52. I agree. But like I said a few replies ago, use crayons and big letters it's easier.

[MadHound]

100. You speak about crayons and big letters as though it is a recent personal experience

Hmmm:think:

[Two Americas]

154. I don't think anyone is

Introducing unfounded suspicions that there may be some here actively working against Obama just creates mayhem.

There may be the occasional "absurd wholesale trashing attacks," but that is rare.

The site is not only for supporting democrats and liberals, and there is much confusion as to what "support" means. The promotion of the principles and ideals traditionally associated with the party is also an important purpose for the site.

The reason we support Democratic party politicians is in order to advance the principles and ideals we honor. When supporting a politician comes into conflict with honoring those principles and ideals, the principles and ideals must come first.


...

[Delphinus]

34. OK - now I'll have to read.

I usually dismiss things like this, but need to see what all the fuss is about.

[cornermouse]

37. More to the point,

If you want to risk a stroke take a look at this.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03272009/watch2.html.

[paulk]

43. that's a great interview

Obama has a real chance to step up to the plate here and become the great President, the agent of change, the Leader he sold himself as.

But it's not looking so good so far...

[scarletwoman]

107. I really like this quote near the end:

"That people of every stripe will stand up and say, we love you Mr. President, but you don't have it right yet. And we're going to bang on your door until you get it right."

As for those people who DON'T "love" Obama (such as the author of the article in OP), no problem, because they're helping bang on his door, too.

We're under no obligation to love our leaders, our obligation as citizens in a democracy is to insist that our leaders heed us.

sw

[Marie26]

57. I agree with this article 100%. nt

[cali]

59. I'm sure you agree with Street that Obama is controlled by his white masters

kudos on endorsing a racist pig asshole.

[Marie26]

60. linky?

Didn't quite remember seeing that quote in the article?

I'm now googling, and are you perhaps referring to Street's book entitled: "Racial Oppression in the Global Metropolis: A Living Black Chicago History," where he examines the sociological effects of racism & inequality?

Or is this perhaps a wild lashing-out at anyone who disagrees w/you by calling both the author & anyone else a racist? Ad homenim attacks taken to the extreme out of a lack of any other argument against the article?

[cali]

63. surey.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5346594

Just a suggestion: Any article with an ad hom title is likely someone with some ax grinding they're indulging in.

[Marie26]

72. Not really

First of all, I still can't find the quote you're alleging. You've linked to another DU post that says:

"As an author on civil rights, he refers to Obama's "White Masters". As they shared the same neighborhood in Chicago, perhaps there was natural tension between a white academic and a black community organizer, or perhaps they met and fell out. Who knows? But it's personal."

The post itself doesn't allege that Street is a racist asshole & refers to an article where Street slams *Kucinich*. So I went to the linked Street article & there's no "white masters" quote. I searched a different Street article & there's still no "white masters" quote. Then I tried all of Google & nothing. Maybe you should research first for yourself instead of spewing attacks against someone. Or at least find it in context. I don't think that was the point, though. The point was a quick, mean, possibly-false attack on the author to keep people from agreeing w/the many valid points in this article.

And it doesn't dispute any of the points made in the article. This guy does sound pissed off at Obama, but maybe it's valid. He's pissed off at Kucinich, the Democrats, Obama, & capitalism in general. He's probably even more angry at Obama because they have a somewhat shared history working as organizers w/public interest groups in Chicago. And in his articles, he seems most angry that Obama *pretended* be a progressive. That sense of betrayal is palpable both in this article & in the other one you linked to. You've spun wildly out of context to make it sound like Stormfront or something, when actually the author is a far-left wing radical who's written often about civil rights issues & neo-liberalism's effect on minorities and the poor. And IMO it's easy, and facile, to dismiss all these valid observations (and footnotes!) from a long-time progressive by just attacking the author. It's not so easy to make these facts go away. I don't think many racists devote their lives to civil rights issues & IMO it's pretty low to level the accusation.

I don't deny that Street dislikes Obama, but IMO he's got plenty of reasons, which he expounds upon at length! The author can defend himself, and does, here:

A reader recently wrote to ask me why I have spent so much energy penning Left criticisms of the pseudo-progressive Barack Obama phenomenon (1). ...

Here (below) is a seven-point response and explanation.

1. RACISM NOT A LIKELY MOTIVE.

Anything is possible, I suppose, but it is not likely that my critical focus on Obama is about anti-black racism. I've published a large number of articles, numerous project studies, and two books dedicated to exposing and opposing the persistent hold of institutional racism in the United States (2). One of my repeated and central criticisms of Obama is precisely that he is too cautious about acknowledging and challenging racial oppression (3). I argue that the white-pleasing "Obama effect" builds on and expands its mass-cultural kissing cousin the "Oprah effect" in deepening the illusion of racism's disappearance by elevating the public profile of selected bourgeois blacks who make sure not to spark white anxieties with honest discussion of the continuing powerful role of white supremacy in American life (4).

It is a childish parody of identity politics to tell someone they are "racist" because they dare to criticize a public personality who happens to be black. Is a white author racist if she condemns Clarence Thomas or Condoleeza Rice or Oprah Winfrey or Bill Cosby for advancing or defending objectively racist policies and structures? What if that author agrees with the Left black intellectual W.E.B. DuBois' position that black conservative Booker T. Washington was too accommodating toward the white power structure?


2. OTHER CANDIDATES NOT SPARED.

I do not overlook the other big three Democratic candidates. I have written a number of pieces offering sharp Left criticisms of Hillary, Edwards, and the Democratic Party as a whole. While I have given special attention to Obama (for reasons to be explained below), the other top Democratic presidential candidates have walked into my "crosshairs" on numerous occasions. Here are some of the more relevant examples:

For other examples, having more to do with the Democrats as a whole (not just specific presidential candidates), please see the articles listed below in this article's fifth endnote <5>).


3. OBAMA IS NOT AN ANTI-WAR CANDIDATE

After having repeatedly demonstrated Obama's mendacious war-mongering, I hereby order Obamanist "progressives" to repeat after me: "Obama is NOT an anti-war candidate...Obama is NOT an antiwar candidate...Obama is NOT...(continue until re-programmed). Again, I'm not going to replicates here arguments I've made many times by now (not that rational debate has the slightest influence on the countless privileged white Obama cultists I've talked to in recent weeks). For overwhelming evidence in support of the elementary observation that Obama is an imperial war Democrat, see one of the articles listed above (Street, "Establishment Politics in ‘Rebel's Clothing'") or either of the following: ...


4. THE MEDIA-FED PROGRESSIVE CONFUSION IS MAINLY ABOUT OBAMA

Running to the Right of Hillary

The main reason I haven't criticized Hillary as much as Obama is simple. My audience at Z-Net and other outlets (Z Magazine, Black Agenda Report, Dissident Voice among other outlets) is disproportionately Left and left-liberal (more left than liberal in my case) and that readership is not particularly beholden to progressive illusions about Mrs. Clinton. My basic perspective on Hillary - that she represents the corporate and imperial wing of the Democratic Party (so does Obama) - is already widely shared by the people who read the outlets in which my work appears. I don't have a lot of "anti-Hillary" work to do in the circles my essays tend to inhabit. And I don't run into a lot of liberal-lefties who think (absurdly) that Hillary Clinton is one of them. For what it's worth, Hillary signs are relatively sparse in my particularly "progressive" Iowa City precinct.

Things are different with Obama, whose signs ("HOPE - Obama '08") are highly visible in my supposedly left-leaning neighborhood. For whatever reasons - and race is part of the equation (6) - the corporate "player" Barack Obama (7) has been able to convince a large number of leftish sorts that he's on their side.

This is sadly ironic since Obama is now running closer to the G.O.P. than Hillary. You don't see Hillary inveighing against the supposed menace of "partisanship" or taking up right-wing talking points on Social Security by joining Barack in claiming that the system is in "crisis" and therefore in need of drastic reform (8). You don't see her reaching out to the evangelical right and making fundraising appearances with gay-bashing fundamentalist preachers like Obama's good campaign friend Donnie McClurkin (9).

Recently we have witnessed the sorry spectacle of "progressive" Obama sounding like Rudy Guliani in denouncing Hillary and Edwards' health care plans for imposing the terrible "government mandate" of actually universal coverage. Obama's plan would let young adults who feel strong and healthy stay outside the risk pool until they require significant medical attention (10).


He Who Pays the Player

And now Obama has sharpened the starboard tack of his campaign by criticizing Edwards for getting support from independent labor groups. According to Barack, (whose message of non-partisan harmony and getting things done with Republicans and corporations does not sit very well with union workers), this support shows that Edwards is beholden to the kind of "special interests" that "have too much influence in Washington" (11). Never mind that unions' fading power rests upon the small contributions of working-class individuals with relatively little wealth and influence compared to that of the truly rich and powerful investor class that exercises the lion's share of "special interest" control over U.S. government and politics. According to liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, Obama has moved to Clinton's right on domestic policy (something hard to do and still call oneself a "Democrat")at least (12).

Krugman has done his readers and the progressive community a great service by documenting and critically analyzing Obama's rightward drift but I think he is too kind to Obama when he chalks the BaRockstar's reactionary tilt up to the senator's "naïve" desire to seem nonpartisan. There's nothing naïve about Obama: he's a cold-blooded, Chicago-based and Daley-schooled corporate opportunist who does not believe much of his own campaign drivel and imagery. He is receiving many millions of election dollars from the real "special interests" that most significantly control U.S. society, culture, politics, and policy: leading global investment firms and other powerful corporate interests like Exelon (the secret to his pro-nuclear stance). Those who pay the piper call the tune (13).

http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16046

[cali]

75. bzzzt.

Obama Speaks: "Oh Great White Masters, You Just Haven't Been Asked to Help America"
December 12, 2007 By Paul Street
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/15801
sorry, what he wrote is clear. and racist and repulisive. Street is as loony and hateful as any right winger.

[Marie26]

83. Great

I still agree with the OP's article 100%. And you know what? I agree with the article you posted as well. Deal with it. I guess the author could use less inflammatory language or descriptions, but IMO his observations about Obama & the political system are valid. But that's probably because I'm basically a socialist, too. As we've seen, he was proven correct in a lot of his warnings. And you STILL haven't addressed any of the points raised in any of these articles. Instead you're focusing on the author & ignoring the substance of the articles completely. The author is not some Stormfront racist, but a civil rights advocate who believes that Obama isn't *doing enough* to end racism & economic inequality. And the article isn't so much an attack on Obama as one on the entire free-market, corporate-beholden political system; as well as an examination of the economic effects of neoliberalism on the bottom 99%. And I highly recommend the article!

From your link:

"I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal.

- Barack Obama, speaking to the masters of "American" finance capitalism at the headquarters of NASDAQ, Wall Street, New York City, September 17, 2007


"For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society...a radical redistribution of political and economic power."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., May 1967


"Obama is deeply conservative."

- Larissa MacFarquhar, "The Conciliator," The New Yorker. May 2007.


"STANDING UP" AND KNEELING DOWN

Maybe it's because Barack Obama and his handlers are sensitive to the need to reassure ruling forces that the "first black United States president" will not challenge existing hierarchies. Maybe it's because he's bought and paid for by big money (1). Or maybe it's because he believes in his "deeply conservative" (2) heart that good Americans show deep respect for their socioeconomic masters. Whatever the explanation, I've never seen an avowedly "progressive" political candidate more eager than Obama to display his deep willingness to obsequiously kiss the ring of dominant political and economic authority. For someone who is marching across Iowa and New Hampshire calling working- and middle-class American to "get fired up" and "stand up" for democracy (and for him), Obama sure likes to spend a lot of time groveling before supposed white and upper-class superiors.


BLACK EXPERIENCE "NOT FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT"

We know that the technically black Obama has political reasons to avoid threatening the white electoral majority. Still it is too much for him to absurdly claim, in his power-adoring 2006 campaign book The Audacity of Hope (3), that "what ails working- and middle-class blacks and Latinos is not fundamentally different from what ails their white counterparts"(Obama 2006, p. 245). Also rather audacious is Obama's praise of the U.S. for historically possessing "an economic system that, more than any other, has offered opportunity to all comers regardless of status, title or rank"(Obama 2006, pp. 231-232) - including apparently the many millions of black chattel "comers" who came in chains, carrying literally subhuman "status." Just to make sure that no Caucasians fear he's about reawaken the tragically unfinished revolutions of Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement, Obama calms white anxieties further by claiming that black Americans (who suffer from a median household wealth gap of seven cents on the white dollar in the 21st century United States) have been "pulled into the economic mainstream" (Obama, 2006, pp. 248-49).

He also apologizes for whites' indifference to the persistence of profound racial inequality and discrimination in the U.S (see Street.2007c and Brown 2003) by explaining that "white guilt has largely exhausted itself in America" as "even the most fair-minded of whites...tend to push back against suggestions of racial victimization and race-based claims based on the history of racial discrimination in this country" (Obama 2006, p. 247). This statement of understanding toleration for white racism-denial deftly consigns racial oppression to the supposedly finished past, cleverly deleting its continuing and deeply cumulative (Brown 2003) relevance in the living historical present (4). ...

"DANGER IN THE IDEA OF EQUALITY"

Then there are Obama's disturbing statements of fawning respect for the predominantly white capitalist economic elite - the top 1 percent that owns more than a third of U.S. wealth and a probably higher percentage of its politicians, policymakers, and opinion-makers. Given his dependence on super-rich "election investors" to run a viable presidential campaign under the plutocratic rules of the United States' self-negating "market democracy" (Herman 2007), it's not surprising that he would wish to avoid offending the nation's leading corporate power-brokers. But Obama goes beyond the call of class-deferential duty when he praises the arch-plutocratic Ronald Reagan for embodying "American's longing for order" (Obama 2006, p. 31) and when he pens the following nauseating paean to aristocratic rule in The Audacity of Hope: "The Founders recognized that there were seeds of anarchy in the idea of individual freedom, an intoxicating danger in the idea of equality, for if everybody is truly free, without the constraints of birth or rank and an inherited social order...how can we ever hope to form a society that coheres?" (Obama 2006, pp. 86-87). How's that for commitment to the democratic and egalitarian ideals to which the United States so often lays special claim?


"OUR FREE MARKET SYSTEM"

Equally sickening is Obama's eagerness to praise the glories of the capitalist system that produces grotesque fortunes at the top of America's "inherited social order" while tens of millions of Americans go without adequate food, clothing, shelter, and health insurance. One key question addressed in The Audacity of Hope comes straight out of the neoconservative world view Obama was so good at accommodating at Harvard Law: what makes the United States so "exceptionally" wonderful? Obama finds part of the answer to this nationally narcissistic query in the wise and benevolent leadership of the nation's great white Founders and subsequent supposedly sensible leaders like Harry "Hiroshima" Truman and JFK. But Obama roots the excellence and eminence of America in something deeper than the magnificence of its political elite. He also grounds the United States' supposed distinctive impressiveness in its "free market" capitalist system and "business culture."


The United States overclass should be gratified by Obama's paean to the United States' "free-market" system of (in reality state- and corporate-) capitalism (Obama 2006, pp. 149-150):

"Calvin Coolidge once said that ‘the chief business of the American people is business,' and indeed, it would be hard to find a country on earth that's been more consistently hospitable to the logic of the marketplace. Our Constitution places the ownership of private property at the very heart of our system of liberty. Our religious traditions celebrate the value of hard work and express the conviction that a virtuous life will result in material rewards. Rather than vilify the rich, we hold them up as role models...As Ted Turner famously said, in America money is how we keep score."

"The result of this business culture has been a prosperity that's unmatched in human history. It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good Americans have it; even our poor take for granted goods and services - electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, telephones, televisions, and household appliances - that are still unattainable for most of the world. America may have been blessed with some of the planet's best real estate, but clearly it's not just our natural resources that account for our economic success. Our greatest asset has been our system of social organization, a system that for generations has encouraged constant innovation, individual initiative and efficient allocation of resources...our free market system."

The Audacity of Hope leaves it to hopelessly alienated and insufficiently realistic carpers, "cranks" and "gadflies" (Obama's insulting description of the late progressive U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone ) and other dangerous "zealots" of the "morally absolutist" and insufficiently "pragmatic" Left (Obama's insulting description) to observe the terrible outcomes of America's distinctively anti-social and incidentally heavily state-protected "free market system" and "business culture." Those unfortunate results include the marvelously "efficient," climate-warming contributions of a business-dominated nation that constitutes 5 percent of the world's population but contributes more than a quarter of the planet's carbon emissions. Other notable effects include the innovative generation of poverty and deep poverty for millions of U.S. children while executives atop "defense" firms like Boeing and Raytheon rake in billions of taxpayer dollars for helping Uncle Sam kill and maim hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians. ...

It is perversely symptomatic of Obama's passionate desire to sweet-talk the United States ruling class that he compares "our poor's" "good" situation to that of its more truly miserable counterparts in Africa and Latin America. Obama deletes considerably less favorable (at least from a "progressive" standpoint) American System contrasts with Western Europe and Japan, the most relevant comparisons, where dominant norms and social policies create significantly lower levels of poverty and inequality than what is found in the militantly hierarchical U.S.

"It takes a trip overseas to fully appreciate just how good" even "our poor" live? It depends on where the "overseas" trip goes. If it takes the traveler to much of the rest of the industrialized world, where state (so-called "free market") capitalism's inherent tendencies towards wealth inequality and corporate rule are considerably more tempered by social-democratic programs and popular movements, the comparison is generally less than flattering to the United States, reminding the minimally attentive societal observer that the United States' "unmatched prosperity" is doled out in harshly regressive ways that create relatively high percentages and numbers of poor and uninsured households, drastically long working hours, rampant economic insecurity and generally inadequate and under-funded public services alongside spectacular opulence for the privileged few (see Mishel, Bernstein and Boushey 2003, chapter 7: "International Comparisons," pp.395-432 in a volume dedicated to Obama's "gadfly" Paul Wellstone, described by the authors as "a tireless fighter for economic justice").

Of course, one does not have to cross seas to appreciate the distinctions. A trip across the Rio Grande to the proximate "Third World" nation Mexico will yield many examples consistent with Obama's praise of U.S. "prosperity." But a trip to Canada challenges Obama's narrative, revealing considerably lower poverty rates and broader economic security. The favorable Canadians comparisons partly reflects the fact that Canada possesses a popular and social-democratic single-payer health insurance system - something the "progressive" Obama sees as a dysfunctional and un-American system of coercive government mandates (Sirota 2006).<5>

But given Obama's desire to raise money and win approval from the masters of America's openly plutocratic dollar democracy, it makes sense that he prefers to compare the U.S. poor with the desperately impoverished masses of Nairobi, Jakarta and Bogota than with the relatively well-off lower classes of Oslo, Paris and Toronto.

"NO ONE HAS ASKED YOU TO BUILD A MORE JUST AMERICA"

My favorite obsequiously capitalist-praising Obama comment came on September 17th, 2007. That's when the "progressive" senator made a revealing statement at the Wall Street headquarters of NASDAQ. At the end of a speech that purported to lecture Wall Street's great leaders on their "Common Stake in America's Prosperity," Obama scaled the heights of Orwellian absurdity to tell the lords of investment capital that "I believe all of you are as open and willing to listen as anyone else in America. I believe you care about this country and the future we are leaving to the next generation. I believe your work to be a part of building a stronger, more vibrant, and more just America. I think the problem is that no one has asked you to play a part in the project of American renewal."

These were strange beliefs to (claim to) hold in light of the pattern of elite U.S. business behavior that naturally results from purpose and structure of the deeply authoritarian system of private profit. An army of nonprofit charities and social service-providers, citizens, environmental and community activists, trade union negotiators, and policymakers have spent decade after decade asking and (often enough) begging the "American" corporate and financial capitalist over-class to contribute to the domestic social good. The positive results have been marginal and fleeting at best as the "business community" works with structurally super-empowered effectiveness to distribute wealth and power ever more upward over and above any considerations of social and environmental health at home or abroad. With no special loyalty to the American people in an age of negative (corporate) globalization, corporate "America" is more than willing to forsake the imperial homeland - the domestic U.S. society and its workers and communities - to serve the only true and ultimate business end: investors' bottom line. ...

This great abandonment makes Obama look ridiculous and/or cynical when he purports to think that what is required for domestic societal revitalization is for the U.S. citizenry to supposedly belatedly "ask" its capitalist ruling class to sign up with the allegedly shared "project of American renewal." Disregarding harsh historical and structural reality, Obama's "you just haven't been asked" line to big investment capital is worse then naïve. Given his role - well understood inside the Beltway's corporate-political cash nexus but not (of course) among the general populace (systematically targeted with an impressive propaganda campaign seeking to portray him as a people's progressive) - as a serious corporate-imperial "player"(Silverstein 2006), it is most likely a cynical effort to curry business favor by absurdly turning the tables of blame for American crises (rampant poverty, joblessness, inequality, overwork, inadequate education and health care, environmental pollution, and so on) back on the American people and away from those with most power to shape U.S. policy and conditions: the privileged business-based governing class.

There's no other credible explanation for Obama's claiming to absurdly believe that ordinary Americans and their purported (Democratic) representatives should go cup in hand to the great white lords of global investment capital to childishly say: "we believe in your essential goodness and commitment to a just and decent society. It's our fault that you have been so nasty, pushing for huge tax cuts you don't need and cutting our wages and eliminating our pensions and pushing up our prices and exporting our jobs, and so on. You aren't really the mean and selfish Scrooge before he was visited by the Christmas ghosts. No, you really want to be the nice and caring Scrooge after the ghosts came. You aren't really the vicious workhouse masters and street bandits who exploited Oliver Twist; you actually want to be more like the nice Mr. Brownlow, whose benevolent sense of noblesse oblige led him to help the abandoned young street urchin. We the American working class majority just needed to ask you, our benevolent transnational masters to invest in us, disregarding your world-capitalist profit calculations. And we just need to be more like Oliver, saying ‘please sir(s), more sir(s), if you don't mind.' Who knew? Our bad."

Whatever the precise calculations (or lack thereof) behind his idiotic NASDAQ comment, Obama's profession of faith in the notion that capitalism's steep and inherent structural disparities can be meaningfully addressed at the bourgeois-sentimentalist level of Charles Dickens (Orwell 1939) is terribly insulting (6).


FOR THE "RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION OF SOCIETY ITSELF"

Reading Obama's NASDAQ oration for a second time the other day, I was struck by the contrast between Obama's eager willingness to accommodate and embrace dominant domestic and imperial hierarchies and Martin Luther King's more critical and radical approach to race, class and global disparity. By 1966 and 1967, King was openly and repeatedly criticizing what he called "the triple evils that are interrelated:" racism, economic exploitation/poverty (class inequality) and militarism/imperialism. "The evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together," King said, "and you really can't get rid of one of them without getting rid of the others." Consistent with what we know to have been his deep and early rejection of Obama's supposedly "efficient" American capitalist system, the democratic socialist King said that only "the radical reconstruction of society itself" and "a radical redistribution of economic and political power" could "save us from social catastrophe." Consistent with the teachings of Marx (of whom King was something of a youthful admirer) and contrary to sentimental bourgeois moralists like Dickens, King argued that "the roots of are in the system rather in men or faulty operations" (8).


"For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of society, a little change here, a little change there," King told David Halberstam in May of 1967. "Now I feel quite differently. I think you've got to have a reconstruction of the entire society," including even the nationalization of some major industries (Garrow 1986, p. 562). In King's view the simultaneous existence of mass poverty at home and U.S. imperial violence abroad attested to the fact that "a nation that will exploit economically will have to have foreign investments and everything else, and will have to use its military might to protect them." King told Americans not to beg their business rulers to behave more responsibly but rather to "question the whole society ," seeing "that the problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. They are the triple evils that are interrelated"

As King explained in his haunting posthumous essay "A Testament of Hope:" "The black revolution...is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws - racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."

"If we are going to achieve equality," King told a young Civil Rights worker (Charles Fager) in a Selma, Alabama jail in the winter of 1965, "the United States will have to adopt a modified form of socialism'" (Garrow 1986, p. 382).

Obama writes about how fortunate poor residents of the United States are compared to wretched "Third World" masses. In the summer of 1966, by contrast, King was most struck by the greater poverty that existed in the U.S compared to other First World states. "Maybe something is wrong with our economic system," King told an interviewer, observing that (in Garrow's words) "in democratic socialist societies such as Sweden there was no poverty, no unemployment and no slums" (Garrow 1986, p. 568).

There's something more than a small empirical contrast between the international poverty comparison made by King the one made by Obama forty years later. The dissimilarity reflects one aspect of the difference between a radical progressive who valued truth and justice over personal advancement (King) and a corporate-imperial faux progressive (Obama) who distorts truth and justice to achieve the power he simultaneously worships and craves.

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/15801

[TLM]

137. But that's probably because I'm basically a socialist, too.

"But that's probably because I'm basically a socialist, too."

Then why are you posting to a democratic website?

This is not socialist underground.

You are joining a forum devoted to promoting the advancement of democratic leadership and ideals... which you seem to be saying that by definition you already disagree with before even joining the forum.

Doesn't that make you a troll of sorts? Or to put it more politely, a provocateur?

Someone who joins a forum for something they do not support, simply to voice disagreements?

[Marie26]

139. Yeah, I'm a PUMA socialist troll

A rare combination, but it does exist! I definitely support liberal over conservative, public over private, socialist measures over capitalist. My idol isn't Trotsky, but FDR. Or Bobbie Kennedy. Or even Lyndon Johnson on social issues. I don't agree w/massive transfers of public wealth to Wall St. & the private sector. I think government can & should be used as a positive force for good, for improving people's lives, for ending injustices, for creating lasting social change. I believe that those in government should be devoted to the best interests of the American people, not the multinational corporations. That we should care more about the bottom 99% of the population than the top 1%. That gov. benefits should flow from the bottom up, instead of "trickling down" from the top of society. And I believe capitalism needs to be regulated to function properly. I used to think that made me a Democrat. Nowadays I'm not so sure. And in that I'm like many other Dems on this site & others. I voted for Obama in the GE, campaigned & donated for Obama; I am a registered Democrat & have voted for Democrats all my life. But yet again thanks for the blanket ad hominem attack over any substantive discussion.

[scarletwoman]

167. Great post! Well said!

:applause:

[acmavm]

203. Damn Marie, you were told to go away by one of the true believers and

you didn't do it? Why you uppity wench! How dare you think you have a right to be here just because you voted for a democrat for president and support liberal/progressive ideas. How dare you think you have a right to voice your opinion here when you say you are a socialist? Apparently you need to either turn in your commie card or take a big cool drink of the kool-ade because there is no room for disagreement if you want to post here. Get in line with the rest of the crowd and repeat after me, independent intelligent thought will not be tolerated.

:sarcasm:

[Two Americas]

227. good work Marie

Thanks.

[dflprincess]

160. "..devoted to promoting the advancement of democratic leadership and ideals"

And as soon as we get some leadership from the Democrats, we'll promote it. In the meantime, we - the individuals who make up the Democratic party - will promote our ideals. Even, and most especially, when they conflict with the corporate whores who claim to lead the party.

[scarletwoman]

166. Hear, hear! WE are the Democratic party. (nt)

[chill_wind]

86. You need to spend a little more time on a few black lefty blogs

which have been known to feature his writings from time to time. Or maybe they just don't know a racist when they see one?

[cornermouse]

88. That's a misrepresentation of the article.

Especially as reflected by the end of the article. I don't know if you just looked at the title and thought it fit your purpose or whether you read it without comprehension? From your link:

"As King explained in his haunting posthumous essay "A Testament of Hope:" "The black revolution...is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws - racism, poverty, militarism and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply in the whole structure of society. It reveals systemic rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of society itself is the real issue to be faced."

"If we are going to achieve equality," King told a young Civil Rights worker (Charles Fager) in a Selma, Alabama jail in the winter of 1965, "the United States will have to adopt a modified form of socialism'" (Garrow 1986, p. 382).

Obama writes about how fortunate poor residents of the United States are compared to wretched "Third World" masses. In the summer of 1966, by contrast, King was most struck by the greater poverty that existed in the U.S compared to other First World states. "Maybe something is wrong with our economic system," King told an interviewer, observing that (in Garrow's words) "in democratic socialist societies such as Sweden there was no poverty, no unemployment and no slums" (Garrow 1986, p. 568).

There's something more than a small empirical contrast between the international poverty comparison made by King the one made by Obama forty years later. The dissimilarity reflects one aspect of the difference between a radical progressive who valued truth and justice over personal advancement (King) and a corporate-imperial faux progressive (Obama) who distorts truth and justice to achieve the power he simultaneously worships and craves."

[alarimer]

62. Government of, by and for corporations.

I quit the Democratic party because of this and will no longer be voting for Obama, that's for sure. Fuck his corporate cronies and him if he continues to this. Just fuck them all. THEY are why we are in this situation and why health care is so messed up.

I am through cheerleading for this asshole. No more.

[certainot]

68. can't judge obama/dems accurately w/out media and election reform-

start there first. no matter what the intentions are they still have to play the game. change the refs and start enforcing the rules. but the media will still be with the GOP until we get media reform and demonopolization, especially the talk radio monopoly that does the groundwork for everything the GOP wants to do.

liberals have been turning the dial and allowed GOP to create the biggest soap box in the country- the talk radio monopoly. 1000 stations blasting coordinated uncontested repetition 24/7 creating an alternative reality that enables many politicians and media to deny/ignore the problems we have (and sabotage efforts to enable election and media reform).

the two parties are not the same but the good people in politics still have to play politics and that means raising money. unfortunately by ignoring the talk radio monopoly and its use to prechew GOP /corporate talking points and framing for the rest of the media the dems have been playing without a front line.

quit whining and get obama's back by calling complaining boycotting picketing your local radio station and its sponsors.

[mistertrickster]

73. If it works, it's good. Obama isn't right or left--he's pragmatic. This bothers

the left-wing ideologues.

But if we want to blindly follow ideology, we can be Fundy-CONs.

That's what they do.

[bvar22]

82. "Centrism" and "Corporatism" are ideologies....

...and they have their blind acolytes here on DU.

[Lorien]

109. I'm sad to say that no truer words have ever been posted here. nt

[truedelphi]

150. And dangerous ideologies they happen to be.

We have moved so far to the right that Obama's stance on the most important environmentsal issue that of Monsanto controlling the food supply" is going to be handled by a de-regulqated, revolving door between the FDA and The EPA. Crooked Nixon would have been appalled by this. But if we protest Velsick, we are told to quiet down and let "science" handle it...

The Centrists and their de-regulation, their pro-corporate responses etc are enabling the destruction of science. Obama has no more awareness, or is bought out, to the same degree as George W.

When I was watching the anti-Monsanto video, and people in the Canadian government were testifying about the one million dolalr offer that Monsanto made to have the Canadian experts approve of the Bovine Growth Hormone, it all became perfectly clear.

Centrist = bought Fu&king out!

[OneBlueSky]

87. pragmatism fails when "does it work" is entirely controlled by the powers that be . . .

whether or not something works these days depends largely on whether the governing powers (the corporations) will allow it to work . . . and the only things they'll allow to work are those that continue to benefit the elites at the expense of the rest of us . . .

[Marie26]

98. Classic example

The Obama Adm. briefly floated the idea of *privatizing veteran's health care*. That brilliant idea got a round chorus of "WTF??" from pretty much everyone. Dems opposed it, Republicans opposed it, veteran's groups were outraged. It was possibly the most politically unpopular thing they could have come up with & so tone deaf it's difficult to understand why the plan was ever released. The budget is trillions of dollars large, & in all of that, the only thing they could think to cut was soldiers' health care? It doesn't make any sense, until you see that Obama's "pragmatism" is largely motivated by free-market ideology & corporate interests. Corporations will allow the privatization of gov. services, because they can make profits by selling people services that the gov. used to offer for free. However, corporations will never allow the government to nationalize/socialize private industries, because that takes away their profits. So, privatized veteran's health care *works*, while single-payer health-care does not *work* for the economic elite.

[OneBlueSky]

190. good examples . . . thanx . . . n/t

[Two Americas]

108. no such thing

There is no such thing as "not right or left."

Left wing politics are not only morally right, they are also the most pragmatic approach to public issues. One can support anything other than right wing politics and think otherwise.

We do not support left wing politics because it is "what we want" nor because of any "ideology," but rather because we are certain that they represent the most practical and pragmatic approach to social problems, and because this is the best way to promote public welfare. Many of us are strongly convinced that the administration will succeed to the degree that it moves to the Left. Why? Because we know that left wing politics work - otherwise we would not be Democrats at all. Why would you attack those who are passionate to see the administration succeed? Do you think the administration can succeed if we purge and attack all those expressing left wing points of view, and if the administration gets cozy with entrenched interests and big money players? That is the height of denial and naivete.

This false idea - manufactured and spread by the right wing think tanks - that left wing politics and practicality are mutually exclusive or at odds with one another, is the greatest threat to the success of the party and the administration. By saying that "hey don't get me wrong I agree with left wing ideas, but they are not practical" you cripple all politics other than right wing politics.

Left wing politics are first and foremost pragmatic and practical.

Allow that to be taken away from us - which you are advocating - and we lose the battle with the right wing.

Calling us "left-wing ideologues" is a right wing and MSM theme, and it is false and malicious and it is destructive to the future success of the party and the new administration.

Please stop advocating a doctrine that is destructive to the Democratic party. It does not belong to you to use for your narrow personal agenda.


...

[bvar22]

125. K&R Post #129 above by Two Americas.

"Left wing politics are first and foremost pragmatic and practical."

[GinaMaria]

171. I just love your posts

If you ever run for public office, will you let me know? I want to support you any way I can.

[Two Americas]

211. thanks

Thank you for the supportive comments. Much appreciated.

[FLyellowdog]

84. Too many words to read. That is all.

[lonestarnot]

85. Gee it's too fucking bad that President Obama hasn't cleaned up bushitlers' mess in 3 months.

[Truth2Tell]

184. No.

What's too fucking bad is that, on this issue, he's not even trying to.

[mike_c]

92. gawd I wish I could rec this thread ten thousand times....

Great article! Thank you for posting it.

I want liberal leadership, with a liberal vision for the nation's future, not just leadership with Ds after their names. We've tried the alternative and it failed. It's what created the mess we're in now.

In fact, we've tried BOTH visions, in one form or another, and much of what is good about American government derives from the rare instances when liberalism prevailed. There's a lesson in that.

[Marie26]

96. +1!

"In fact, we've tried BOTH visions, in one form or another, and much of what is good about American government derives from the rare instances when liberalism prevailed. There's a lesson in that."

[TwilightZone]

99. Ah, yes, this is from the same clown that called Kucinich a "pathetic jerk".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5346594

Perhaps we could try to have a bit higher standards for source material.

It would seem that many have been flim-flammed and not by Obama.

[chill_wind]

104. Like we've NEVER heard any such similar invective

from the more right of center DU. Some of them now up in arms over this one. I don't like his inflammatory titles, but he's certainly hitting some nerves.

[TwilightZone]

105. Such invective would be no more legitimate.

[chill_wind]

106. I like Kucinich a lot.

My point is that the outrage can often be very selective at DU.

[TwilightZone]

111. I agree - it's very selective.

The use of questionable sources is equally selective. "We" will quote nearly anyone, as long as the material supports a point we wish to make.

[chill_wind]

113. Twas ever so.

Happens a million times a day on political discussion boards.

[TwilightZone]

116. Very true.

[DainBramaged]

110. nah, the crayon, cookies and milk crowd LIKES this kind of bullshit

let them have it, it gives their lives meaning.

[Odin2005]

115. "It gives their lives meaning" This BS is extremely dangerous.

It is a short path from their thinking to totalitarianism.

[EstimatedProphet]

170. I forget - how long has Obama been in office?

2 months, I think it is...?

Isn't the very first benchmark given presidents the first 100 days? Hasn't it been that way since FDR? Seems like it has been, anyway. And here, Obama's so corrupt that he become a complete failure in just 60 days! He must have worked overtime to fail so hard! It has to be that, because it certainly couldn't be that the last 3 fucking decades of Repub forcing every Big Money/Big Industry favorable rule down the country's throat could possibly be that difficult to turn entirely around in as much as 60 days! The entire country has been on the brink of destruction for the last decade, the Repubs have been an entirely unstoppable force in every way, but surely Obama is complicit with them because he hasn't turned around 30 years of malfeasance completely in 60 days!

And I want a pony, dammit!

[lostnotforgotten]

103. Bush Lowered My Expectations - Obama Has Not Raised Them

eom

[truedelphi]

149. Same here.

It's a quieter, nicer household since M. saw the great video on Monsanto's takeover of the food supply.

Now M. gets why Velsick is a major appointment. And why my disgust on that one issue alone is enough to make me realize that Obama is another Money Party Candidate. Pretty, more coherent, and perhaps more fun.

But it reminds me of when a high school gets rid of the Bullies in the Student Council, and they are replaced by the rich socialites and glamor jocks. You still are not gonna sit at their table at lunch time. And you'll get a party invitation only when it's election cycle again.

[OwnedByFerrets]

162. Unfortunately, mine "were" raised.....

unfortunately, hope is withering on the vine.

[Odin2005]

114. Why are DUers using this Trotskyite lunatic as a source?

I have no use for Marxist idiocy.

[Truth2Tell]

186. Please link to Street supporting Trotsky-ism. I'll wait. nt

[Odin2005]

193. Here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5346594

[Truth2Tell]

208. Fail.

Nothing about Trotsky-ism from Street there. Can you read?

[JackRiddler]

236. Namecalling will apparently get you everywhere.

[SlingBlade]

117. How long until Impeachment ?

[chill_wind]

119. How long before this thread gets locked?

NO ONE in this thread is advocating any such thing.

[SlingBlade]

191. Of course thier not

That would actually take guts

[kestrel91316]

118. Guess it's time to just admit that this website should be renamed

"Republican Underground", for all the obvious RWers on it.

[bvar22]

127. You clearly need some help....

...in determinig Left from Right.

[Lord Helmet]

132. it's not just left from right

Some people are willing to shitcan their own ideology when then find an article that undermines Obama. For instance the OP spent a lot of time in the primaries posting anti Obama crap, for instance the birther thing saying Obama's birth certificate was suspect. While some people honestly argue from the left pov, others jump on anything anti Obama disingenuously fueling genuine concern just to stir up shit.

[TLM]

140. Yes i do...

because if one where to judge based on their behavior... it is very hard to tell them apart.

Sometimes the only way I can tell is by looking for which ones are wearing flag lapel pins and which ones are wearing red ribbons.

[bvar22]

145. Here. This will help.

I'm pretty centrist in that the majority of Americans agree with me when polled on the issues, but I consider mysel a moderate Leftist. DU has NO Hard Left members that I know of. I have never seen any DUer advocate the confiscation of all private property and instuting authoritarian Communism here.


*I am a tireless advocate for PEACE.

*I m a tireless advocate for Single Payer Universal HealthCare.

*I am a tireless advocate for Equal Rights and Equal Protections for everyone...NO Exceptions.

*I am a tireless advocate for Universal Free Education through graduate levels to anyone who wants it.

*I am a tireless advocate for Organized LABOR.

*I am a tireless advocate for strict regulation/oversight or Nationalization of Banking, Lending, Investing, Energy, Transportation, Trade, Communications.

*I am a tireless advocate for limiting the size and power of Corporations and leveling the playing field so Mom&Pop can compete with the Big Boxes.

*I am a tireless advocate for Local Ownership.

*I am a tireless advocate for Public Financed Elections and Instant Runoff Voting.

*I am a tireless advocate for The Constitution, and believe that it should apply to ALL, even rich white men.

*I am a tireless opponent to the concentration of Wealth and Power into fewer hands.

*I am a tireless opponent to Corporate Personhood.

*I am a tireless opponent to the MIC.

*I am a tireless opponent to the occupation of other countries.

*I am a tireless opponent to "Free Trade".

*I am a tireless opponent Republican/Corporate influence INSIDE the Democratic Party.

I am a tireless opponent to the failed ideology of "Centrism".

I WAS ALL these things BEFORE Obama.
I will BE these things after Obama.
It makes little difference which Political Personality occupies the White House.
When our politicians move TOWARD these goals, I will praise them.
When they move AWAY, I will fight.

[cali]

130. lol. so if one doesn't agree with this infantile tripe, one's a rightwinger?

how very totalitarian of you, sweetie.

[Truth2Tell]

188. Wow. Ad hominem, broad-brush straw-man bashing.

A Cali trifecta.

[Odin2005]

196. He's competely correct on the totalitarian remark.

Ideological Puritanism is INHERENTLY totalitarian and anti-democratic.

[Marie26]

202. Hmm

Sort of like calling anyone who disagrees on this thread... let's count: 1. sickeningly evil, 2. Marxist 3. dangerous 4. totalitarians? LOL. Liberalism & democracy is all about the exchange of *ideas*, debates on policy or philosophy, the give & take of the "marketplace of ideas". You don't like an idea or opinion, respond w/the logical rebuttal to that opinion or offer different ideas. What's anti-democratic is responding to an idea w/screeching personal attacks, or claiming that anyone who criticizes something is "evil" or "dangerous". It's vaguely McCarthyite. I just can't get over the irony when now you're not a "Real Democrat" unless you support massive payoffs to Wall St. investors. When Bush did that, people were rightly critical. Now that Obama is doing the same thing, we're all supposed to sit down & shut up? I don't think so.

[geek tragedy]

151. We have the Michelle Bachman's of the left around here.

Same people who thought Booosh blew up the World Trade Center.

[earth mom]

124. Ah, some TRUTH for a change. How refreshing.

Too bad the hero worshippers around here can't handle the truth.

Edited to add that if anyone is a rethug around here, it's those who are supporting Obama's rethuglican-esque propping up of Wall Street & the Banks.

[DainBramaged]

138. It comes down to this, for the ideologues here, NO president is good enough

Why not start a new Party, the so far left we can't even be satisfied with yesterday's positions.

[Bluebear]

142. "the so far left we can't even be satisfied with yesterday's positions" - what?

[DainBramaged]

143. The Party of Out There Somewhere.

[Bluebear]

234. .

[Orwellian_Ghost]

141. I've got an idea

Let's hear just one poster who dislikes this article do a paragraph by paragraph analysis of the article. Nothing to elaborate just a few sentences per paragraph explaining your position and how the article is at fault.

Do not attack the person posting or the author but address the ideas/opinions involved.

Do not call names or use flip comments just simply use your observations and intellect and refute each point in the article. This should be easy to do if the article is as dubious as some think.

Try to convince others of your position through the superiority of your ideas. I've not seen that to date.

Anyone care to take that on?

[bvar22]

148. You're just a PUMA.

*You've always hated Obama...I found a post from July that proves it.

*Its only been 60 days....

*This is all part of Obama's secret plan that you're too stupid to understand because he's playing chess.

*Nothing but Right Wing swill from you.

*Go back to Free Republic. This is DEMOCRAT Underground.

[chill_wind]

164. You must just want George Bush back

"And your Pony right now!"

[chill_wind]

178. Hope

no sarcasm taggie needed..

[QC]

198. Analysis? Ideas? No personal attacks? OMG!1! YOU MUST BE A PUMA!! PUMA!!!1!!!

[MasonJar]

146. It always comes down on DU to not liking Obama. Obviously it is

not the man, but some of his policies which are hard to like. I appreciate his environmental concerns and several other decisions, but I truly believe he is corporations' foil and that his views on health care reform are antiquated and directed at salvaging the insurnace conglomerates and the pharmaceutical giants. I believe he is wrong when he says there is no money for comprehensiv health care when there is money for war and bailouts. I am exceedingly upset that he refuses to at least hire an independent prosecutor despite the ever growing facts of war crimes and deliberate destruction of our Constitution by the Bushista, while other nations such as ENGLAND and SPAIN ARE INVESTIGATING our citizens for torture and crimes against humanity. I tried to tell you DUers that Obama was no liberal during the primaries, and I am very sorry to be proven correct.

[bertman]

152. In my moments of intense anger at what I see as President Obama's ongoing concessions

to Wall Street and his/our Financial Masters (most of whom ARE white), I could have penned precisely the same document as Paul Street has penned--except less well stated, I'm sure.

I am angry at what I see as my President's giveaways to the Corporatocracy that rules our country. Very angry.

Does that make me a right-winger, a socialist, a racist, a marxist, a child who requires communication via crayon drawings?? I think not.

After 40 years of supporting Democrats of all stripes, of watching my country being taken over by the Corporatocracy, and of now seeing millions of hard-working, decent Americans lose their homes, their livelihoods, and their hopes, I am deeply worried when a Democratic President with the MANDATE this President won (anyone remember Bush's mandates--two of them??) and with a solid majority in both houses of Congress becomes so preoccupied with appeasing those who threaten the interests of our nation.

This doesn't mean that I don't LOVE the man and the way he inspires me to believe that America can overcome its travails. It doesn't mean that I don't support A LOT of his actions and his ideas. It doesn't mean that I won't continue to wish him well and work to convince my representatives to support him when I agree with his policies. Because I will do all of those things.

What I will not do is be silent and be patient. Silence and patience among the Democratic Party has lead us to this critical point in our history.

It is time for good liberal and progressive Democrats to be critical, loud, and impatient. Anything less will lead to defeat.

[burning rain]

155. Wow! Just a couple months into a Democratic administration...

after eight years of unabashed plutocracy, authoritarianism, and warmongering, and the Trots are already trying to divide the Left so that we can put Republicans in power. Talk about jumping the gun!

Deranged bastards. Oh, sorry, it's my fault for not being idealistic enough. Boy those Trots are principled. I think back to how Christopher Hitchens worked overtime to pump up Nader and trash Gore, because he'd have been no better than W, right? Right. And then after all the horror of eight years of Bush, Hitch said he regretted nothing. At least that guy showed some belated honesty about his agenda. By their fruits shall they be known.

[Odin2005]

197. The Trotskyites deserve to be thrown into the 9th Circle of Political Hell.

:puke:

[burning rain]

217. Indeed.

Frozen upside down in ice -- that would cool even their heads full of steam.

[Vidar]

158. Unfortunately, this seems more true every day.

[RBInMaine]

159. Perhaps you'd rather have Bush back? Kindly put a sock in it and be happy with some decent and

significant change from the horridness of the last eight years. Christ !

[Skittles]

180. some of us prefer better than what we had AND better than what we have

[Ken Burch]

161. The guy who wrote this actually HAD some valid points

The toxic overkill of his writing style will prevent anyone here from seeing that.

Given that, this has to be considered a failed piece of analysis.

[Starry Messenger]

163. Thanks Ken, probably the best summation yet.

I've been torn reading this piece between thinking "Consider the source" and "Don't kill the messenger". DU is having an interesting shakedown cruise this year.

[Ken Burch]

165. Indeed. I sometimes think we need to have a thread about "rules of engagement"

Weirdly, in war that concept addresses the basic standards of morality that must be upheld during combat with the enemy. Here we need it to work out how to disagree with our friends.

[unkachuck]

169. Mr. Street....

....speaks the truth....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5345470&mesg_id=5345470

[freemarketer6]

172. Without Obama helping the banks, the entire system will crash

so severely the United States would not recover. It may crash regardless of all this aid if the derivatives are larger than assumed. London is the problem now.

[HughMoran]

183. This is what they are hoping for

A complete failure of the system would allow for the more radical changes wanted by many in this thread. Many here do not want Obama to fix the situation we're currently in - though you'll never hear them admit that out loud.

[Truth2Tell]

189. Your effort to define the views of Obama's critics on this issue equals

MAJOR FAIL.

Sorry to say, I don't think anyone is buying your suggestion that Obama's bailout critics want our economy to fail. For the record, what most of us actually believe is that his policies (same as Bush's policies) will cause the economy to continue to fail.

Your straw man is far too transparent and absurd to sell.

[Odin2005]

199. That's exactly why I think these types are so sickeningly evil.

Trotskyites are notorious for supporting immoral "the ends justify the means" BS if it brings on their "glorious proletarian revolution" sooner, they don't care about the suffering they will cause because it will be all justified once they get their Marxist utopia in their sick minds.

[HughMoran]

205. I would describe them as "misguided" versus "evil"

The fact that they scream so loudly tends to raise my suspicion alarm. If someone has a point to make, screaming it into my face is unlikely to have the desired effect. I'm too seasoned to be influenced by the reactionaries. Unfortunately, the reactionaries are taking advantage of the fact that our common enemy (the Republicans) are self-destructing. Those under the influence of "complete overhaul" are not savvy enough to realize that we will be nipping at the heels of the Republicans in power again if we try to turn the US into a socialist utopia. Sorry, we're not even close to ready for that yet - even the most oblivious person in this country can read the mood of the people enough to know that. Too bad the reactionaries here have turned off their "common sense" gene, thus losing sight of what can be accomplished in "reality".

[DainBramaged]

207. You are correct, chaos and anarchy is what they want

they are secure in their little inconsequential lives, so the rest of the country can go to hell and their personal agendas can be fulfilled. Also, they get to take that sharp stick they carry around and poke everyone in the eye "see, see I TOLD you he sucked". I wonder how many are unemployed on their last dollar?

I wonder who they really are. I really wonder if they are one of us.


Be well.

[ProSense]

173. Who does this guy support? Hard to take him seriously. On Kucinich

For some time now, I've been giving a quiet and indirect sort of tribute to Dennis Kucinich. I've been praising him for backing progressive policy proposals and initiatives that "mainstream" (corporate) Democrats refuse to embrace: single-payer health insurance, de-funding the illegal occupation of Iraq, investigating civilian Iraqi casualties, the impeachment of Cheney-Bush and so on. I've been mentioning him as the only truly Left candidate in the Democratic presidential race.

And all the while a little voice in the back of my mind has been saying, "but you know he's really kind of a pathetic jerk who helps make the Left look stupid."

I don't know when the voice started. Maybe it was when I heard about how he saw a UFO. Or when I heard him brag to a political audience that his vegan diet permitted him to be married to a woman half his age - a model he recruited through a truly bizarre public relations campaign.

At some point it started to sink in that Kucinich was a knucklehead who cares more about advancing his own goofy and grandiose personal agenda than about furthering the causes of peace, democracy, and justice. I also realized that Dennis helped corporate media discredit Left sentiments and values by associating them with clownish narcissism, cultish mysticism, and laughable irrelevance.

And now I feel freer than ever to say all this for a very simple reason. Dennis has done something truly and unforgivably pathetic, petty, and reactionary. He has told his admittedly small number of followers in Iowa to give their second-choice votes to the corporate media candidate and imperial war Democrat Barack Obama during the pivotal 2008 Democratic Party caucus to be held today.

link

Is he just complaining because he can?

[newtothegame]

174. NanceGreggs says no criticizing the President so KNOCK IT OFF n/t

[Skittles]

176. I don't listen to worshipers

[QC]

195. Not even faux Molly Ivins style worshipers? n/t

[Dreamer Tatum]

200. You owe me a new monitor

Yes, Ivins wasn't the fucking Dread Pirate Roberts. The identity doesn't get passed on at death.

[Skittles]

177. more and more people are getting it

[NashVegas]

194. Can I Just Say, "We Tried to Tell Ya?"

It's a shame that such a great proportion of DU's lefties, especially in GD: P, got so fucking caught up in the fun and games slamming the only other Democratic primary candidate to hold up against Obama any way they could, to even begin to listen to the most valid reasons against his candidacy.

Whatever.

He's in office now, and he brought Rahm Emmanuel in with him instead of Dean. I can deal with that, I simply have no inclination to sit down and be a good girl when it comes to issues.

[Odin2005]

201. Get the WAAAAHMBULANCE!!! This isn't Marxist Underground.

[NashVegas]

204. Perfect Example Of What I Was Talking About

Thanks for showing the folks at home what a diversionary tactic looks like. You learn that in "how to post on the internet like a low-IQ RW loon," school?

[inna]

209. exactly. -1 to Odin, nt

[scarletwoman]

218. "...the only other Democratic primary candidate to hold up against Obama"- are you referring to HRC?

I don't want to pick a fight with you, because I agree with most of what you post -- but I'm sorry, if you think Hillary would have turned out to be any less corporatist than Obama I think you're dead wrong.

The fact is, the only people who make it to the top in our system are the ones who win the approval and financial support of the Big Money Players. That's why we'd never in a million years get someone like Paul Wellstone as our president.

I chose to support Obama once it was down to him and HRC -- not because I thought he was a progressive, but because he wasn't Clinton, and I was "hoping" (foolishly, as it turns out) that he'd be less beholden to the DC insiders.

I hope you won't take offense, I have no desire to re-fight the primaries.

sw

[NashVegas]

219. That Wasn't The Point, So Much

As the refusal of most of those who were there, to have anything resembling a reasoned discussion of likely policies.

Funny, I was looking at files on my desktop today. One was a screen shot from 5/08. It's actually pretty funny, in retrospect, to see how hysterical people were.

[scarletwoman]

220. I get it. I totally stayed out of GD-P until about the last week in May.

Silly me, I argued that at least with Obama we'd get someone who wasn't so imbedded in the DC political Machine. That he'd be more likely to bring in new faces and new blood, since he was more of a Beltway outsider.

That'll teach me to trust a politician! :banghead:

sw

[Karmadillo]

206. Has anyone taken up the challenge in post #141? Just wondering.

nt

[anaxarchos]

222. Good point...

Kick until someone answers #141.

[Two Americas]

223. now there is an idea

Anyone care to put together an argument in rebuttal?

All of these posts, not one person addressing the points in the OP.

[DainBramaged]

228. I'm going to bed, this place has become a circus, and even if ONE of us did what was asked

the invectives and attacks would rain down. The anti-Obama crowd here doesn't believe in anything any of us has to say, just shout louder and longer until, like now, we must hide this thread and let you celebrate your precious victory. My ignore list will grow exponentially from this thread alone.


Like the man said as he tried to pull out the nail, it would be easier if it just got bent.

[anaxarchos]

232. You talk a lot...

... but don't say much.

"Oh what's the use... you'll just shout louder"

Is that so?

And this little display of infantile pique and dismissive entitlement will do what?

Ignore whatever you like. You haven't made a case.

[DainBramaged]

233. "Click"

You made my case for me.

[Two Americas]

237. so much projection

Perhaps the greatest damage that the right wing propagandists have done is that they taught people how to make these "reverse" arguments to sabotage discussion. It is hard to tell, often, if a person is cynically and intentionally using them, or is merely projecting. The first implies malice, the second deep confusion.

This started when I, and others, objected to invectives and attacks, and to people turning the discussion into a circus. You cleverly turn backward and merely repeat the charges back.

Objecting to invectives and attacks is not itself invectives and attacks, as the member here would have us believe.

Objecting to people turning the discussion into a circus is not itself turning the discussion into a circus.

Objecting to people shouting louder and louder and not listening is not itself shouting louder and louder and not listening.

I think it could be that the person using this tactic knows that the people they are fighting with are right, and doesn't like that, and cannot bring themselves to agree - cannot face the truth about this. In an attempt to "be right," in the hope of having the winning hand, they then merely mimic their opponents and turn the telling arguments around backward and toss them back.


...

[TBF]

226. Want to take bets on how long that will take? n/t

[HughMoran]

229. Does anybody here think a thread titled "Flim-Flam Obama Man" promotes a civil discussion?

I need to know.

[Born_A_Truman]

230. Where the hell am I?